Morning journal and courier., 1885-05-29
THE HAMPTON SCHOOL.

TWO Great QuestfOms-Tme MRSrts to Deal With Them at the School Commencement-The Industrial Sys- tem-Marching to Dinner-Addrcsses -Interesting Exercises.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: Many New Haven people visit Old Point Comfort during the early spring and know something of the situation and every day work of the Hampton Normal school. Any one who has even heard of the school knows that it is one of thu earliest of the schools founded for the freedmen after the war and that to the work of training southern negroes for the duties of citizenship it has more late ly added the work of civilizing and educating Indians from the western reservations. Under the wise care and unwearying eff forts of Gen. Armstrong the school, aided, indeed almost entirely supported, by north ern generosity, is working year by year at two of the problems that are presented to the American nation to solve. The negro ques- tion, overwhelming, imminent, threatening, if not solved soon and rightly, to overthrow our very freedom; the Indian question, which can be put off and left unsolved, but which justice and our honor Christian nation call upon us to settle now and for ever.
 How it is being settled here you can never
 see better than you can if you will follow me in spirit through this anniversary day.
 The school has now been established long
 enough for those who know of its work to
 make sure that it is not simple experiment,
 but that the results of the school work are abidingly useful both in the South and in the West;an so when the anniversary day comes and our graduating class bids it's farewell to
 the place where three years of hard work have been spent, we who have taught them
 and now send them forth feel that they are
 going to be leaders among their people and that our work has not been in vain.
 A May day in Virginia is like June day in Connecticut. The trees are in full leaf but still keeping their spring freshness. The whole place is in stir of preparation from early morning. Boys in their neat blue uni form running here and there; girls hard at work putting the buildings in order, teach
 CTS and officers wearing the school colors,
 experimenting, arranging, preparing in one way or another for the great day of the school year.
 At S:3O the bugle calls the boys to morn ing inspection and the band plays lively tune while the young men march up, form in line and file into the great school building, Academic hall where the morning recitations are held. The colored school is in session from nine to twelve, the Indians work in their shops at their various trades until 1050 and then come over for two periods of reel tation. Now while the boys are marching in at one door of Academic long line of girls is moving from Virginia hall over toward the other door on the other side of the Academic building and soon boys and girls are quietly seated in the assembly room for the opening exercises. The great airy room with it's huge yXyIU m a side we look out on the historic waters of Hampton Roads, gleaming blue in the morn l ing sunshine; on the other side the school farm stretches away it's green cultivated fields and beyond the country is dotted with white cabins. But the eager, bright faces within draw our eyes away from the pictures I without. The manly boys, the neat, pretty girls with great appealing eyes, lifted so plead ] ingly to yours. Here and there an Indian sitting among the colorsd students brings out the marked contrast between the two I races most picturesquely. The opening ex- ercises consist of morning prayers and 8 ! brief talk from the school chaplain, Rev MT. Frissell, on the news of the day. Then | the classes are sent down and the visitors | scatter, some devoting their time to seeing classes alone, but most of them going first | to inspect the various industries of the place.
 | think there is no school in the country ! where the industrial system is carried out
 into so many different departments as at \ Hampton. There are.on the place so many and such diverse enployments and