Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-08-30
Indian and Negro.

L
isfactory solutions which will answer all
the conditions are yet by no means
reached, though the effort toward those
solutions may be said to be in the right
direction. The attempt is now to do
something toward educating the two
races, and so fitting them in measure
to carry on their own lives with some
degree of intelligence. They are like
two wards of the nation but how differ
ent, and needing what different treat
ment I! To see them together, as at the
Hampton School, is to feel this with a
new strength.
There, at the mouth of Chesapeake
Bay, almost under the guns of Fortress
Monroe, we find one Of the old family
mansions of Virginia filled with quite
different work from that to which its
original owners had probably destined
it. In its busy rooms, looking out be-
tween lofty pillars on the quiet water of
the bay, are classes of the race born in
to bondage all over the South, how few
years ago Dusky faces of all shades
throng its passageways, and the walls,
probably once ornamented with paint
ings, now covered with blackboards, are
used daily for maps, sentences, and il
lustrations.
Only few steps from the old man
sion rises large brick building, full of
the same faces, and full also of work,
intellectual and manual. The ruins of
Academy Hall tell where few months
ago the large school-house stood, and
where the new one is to rise out of its
ashes, viii lie scattered about are the cot
tages occupied as domitories by the ne
gro men and boys, and the so-called
wigwam. Hero the effort is being
made to fit these young men and women
in some degree as teachers, so that they
may 60 out into the far-off places and
teach the colored children. Who are
the teachers there =? Young women who
have left luxurious homes in the North,
and who are throwing all their courage
and endurance into every days de-
mands who are influencing their class
es quite as much by the refining power
of their personal characters as by the
lessons which they teach. At the head
is clear brain and an iron will. Such
is the Hampton School, as far as the ne
gro race is concerned. The character
istics of this race we know suficien tly
we'll. They are light-hearted and hap
py, easily impressible, ambitious to be
better than they are, and as willing as
child to let that ambition be seen.
DESTROYS of improving their language,
they initiate the long words which they
may have noticed used by the whites,
and persist in their use without mean
ing till finally meaning creeps irtc
them, and they have a real addition tc
their vocabulary. In this, again. they
follow the universal practice of ambi-
tious children in their efforts to talk
Everything is facile in them. They are
easily moulded, are anxious to be mould
ed, and every feeling shows itself OF
their faces without any effort at con
cealment- They come to Hampton, and
60 to their class recitations just as they
60 to their washing or ironing, sewing
planting, or reaping. between clas
hours, with never-failing courage il
spite of all difficulties, cheerful, sun
ny humor, and yet with sense of re
sponsibility delightful to see and feel.
Such is the negro race in its essen
tial characteristics.
Confronted with this race, which
\ like a well-known inhabitant of ou
dwelling, we have the other ward, th
Indian; for the United States govern
ment is trying also to do something i
the way of education for this far-ot
and little-understcod representative G
! the former owners of its land. Will
= the negro has to pay his way at HamT
ton, the Indian is paid for by govern
: ment. The Indians come from the fal
> off reservations escorted by the India
: agent who may have had orders to brin
them on. They are to be kept in HamI
ton two years. and then sent back t
their tribe to be as a little leaver
Perhaps it is not all we ought to dc
but it is certainly something. 1t is q
o, present an experiment on very sma
/ scale for so large government, but
is a beginning of what may be larg
! success.
4 There is no difficulty in finding boy
y whose families are willing to let thel
> come, though it is only to the boys tha
any sign of affection is usually show
+" at parting. But to send girl out
: an Indian family means more work fc
Z all that are left. 10 diminish the nun
is Der of bringers of wood and drawers
water is to impose additional burder
d on all who remain. Thus in the la
L collection of Sioux youths from IL
= Yankton agency there were only mir
10 girls out of sixteen, though the ager
l. made special efforts to find sixteen CIR