New-York tribune., 1900-04-30
TWO DAYS AT HAMPTON.
SPIRIT A PRACTICAL INST1TU-
TION-woMAN AS FAC
TOR IN NEGRO AID
VANCEMENT.


a thousand students il not to be comprehended
In two days. Especially not IL those two days are
a time OF festival. All that guest at the thirty
second anniversary exercises OF the Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute on Wednes-
day and Thursday OF this week could do II he
previously unfamiliar with the school was 70
get a glimpse of It's workings. observe the men
and women it turned out and try to catch the
spirit of the place. The hurried visitor TO trade
school or normal class-at least the unprofes-
sional one-would be rash to utter opinion or
even think he had one about the special methods
pursued and their value as compared with
methods elsewhere followed. That is task for
leisure and the student of pedagogical science IL
indeed there be such a science behind the pre-
tentious phrases with which too many initiates
into its mysteries divide outsiders between awe
and increduity.
Hampton's work may be perfect from the
teachers point OF view Some say il is and say
moreover that it offers model of education not
only to the Southern negro. but 10 the whole
country white and black North and South
They consider General Armstrong the pioneer in
adapting the training of the average boy and
girl to the actual life which that boy and girl in
ali likelihood have got to live. He carried out the
idea of manual training of learning by doing
among the negroes and Indians, long before II
made much headway in the schools Of the
North. which went turning youth into the
world with all sorts Of learning. but with no
knack of taking the world by the handle This
example. many say. is what al our schools
should follow since the unreadiness or the negro
to face the problems incident 70 earning living
and being a respected member Of civilized society
is only an exaggeration OF the difficulties which
beset the white boy. Perhaps they are right
do not know. NV purpose is not such discus
-Ha4I Ifv,r Of 81
various Hampton publications and telling how
MANY graduates are helping their race in one
way and how many In another That Is an In
teresting study as is also the whole history OF
the thirtv-two years work here. at Tuskegee
and elsewhere. since General Armstrong started
10 1t the negro to rise by Intelligent industry
ANYBODY who thinks on the race problem IS
advised TO procure those publications and learn
how Hampton and the schools sprung rom
Hampton are teaching negroes not merely 20
he good farmers and mechanics themselves, but
also to be missionaries of industry among thelE
own people. Booker T. Washington in his re-
cent volume The Future Of the American
Negro" has given many Instances of how the
graduates of these schools have become centres
OF influence and transformed villages Of one
roomed cabins and shftless poverty into COM
munities Of industrious and self-respectIns peo-
pIe DR. Frisseus reports show what IS being
done at Hampton i'm training teachers, matrons,
nurses farmers. carpenters. painters, masons
blacksmiths. wheelwrights. machinsts. print
ers harnessmakers shoemakers. taiors. cooks
and housekeepers The records Of the gradu-
ates are published in book form. to show the
use they are making OF their education and
how the little leaven is working slowly toward
the Ieavening of the whole lump Of negro in
dolenCe and ignorance and irTesponsthility
That is all worthy Of study. but the supreme
interest OF a Hampton anniversary is the Hamp-
ton students and the story of character they
in their own persons tell
Yesterday | saw them at their commence
ment exercises. though the work Of their school
year extends later into the summer. II
exhibition which for dignity. earnestness and
good breeding would have done credit to any
school, in fact 10 any college The speakers
made no pretence OF great learning. The usual
abstruse and ambitious subjects Of the com
mencement platform not discussed The
attainments Of the students were frankly
simpler and more elementary than those 90
collegians, but their appearance not one
whit less manly or womanIy. And II was
vastly more real Every student address was
practical IL bore directly the life problem
OF the student who wrote Il. The oldtime
negro with little learning tended to SOmhast
and big words. There was not a trace of Il
here. Not that emotion and sentiment
gone. They simply refined and controlled
and turned to moral purpose and unseiish
aspiration. Every thoroughly IN
earnest to make the most of himself and also
thoroughly filled with sense OF duty as the
representative of race owing help to hts fel-
lows TO whom less has been given: not the help
symbolized by sentimental incoming in Eener-
alities, but the help Of giving and aiding old
neighbors To do definite things they need 20 10,
whether to add room to their cabins and i've
more deCently or take up systematic work and
get out of debt. Hampton Is evidently turn
ing out intensely practical people 70 take the
place Of the earlier race Of negro leaders 10
whom freedom and citizenship Rlitterins
playthings. one mark OF II is this absorption
in real things. Another is the square facing
OF the negro's situation and the taking OF a
purely historical view OF slavery and an entirely
dispassionate view Of the present race problem
The fact Of friction is accepted. also the unfit
ness Of the ignorant negro for politics and the
necessity of his beginning AZ the lowest round
and being a good worker at productive IN
dustries. and iawabiding man, before he can
take any higher place in society
The returned graduates gave evidence that
this was not the repetition by rote OF teachers'
phrases. They showed the Hampton theory IN
practice and justified II as foundation for
growth. Tie believer in the old notion that the
backward races. even II as able as Anglo-Saxcns
in youth. are without capacity for subsequent
development would have received no comfort
from the study of these men and women. Booker
I. Washington is too well known to require more
than mention in Illustration Doubtless he 10
man of exceptional power. But besides him on
the platform yesterday there appeared a
rr,I