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Soon
after my work in connection with the removal of the capital was finished, I
received an invitation which gave me great joy and which at the same time
was a very pleasant surprise. This was a letter from General Armstrong,
inviting me to return to Hampton at the next Commencement to deliver what
was called the "post-graduate address." This was an honour which I
had not dreamed of receiving. With much care I prepared the best address
that I was capable of. I chose for my subject "The Force That
Wins."
As
I returned to Hampton for the purpose of delivering this address, I went
over much of the same ground--now, however, covered entirely by
railroad--that I had traversed nearly six years before, when I first sought
entrance into Hampton Institute as a student. Now I was able to ride the
whole distance in the train. I was constantly contrasting this with my first
journey to Hampton. I think I may say, without seeming egotism, that it is
seldom that five years have wrought such a change in the life and
aspirations of an individual.
At
Hampton I received a warm welcome from teachers and students. I found that
during my absence from Hampton the institute each year had been getting
closer to the real needs and conditions of our people; that the industrial
reaching, as well as that of the academic department, had greatly improved.
The plan of the school was not modelled after that of any other institution
then in existence, but every improvement was made under the magnificent
leadership of General Armstrong solely with the view of meeting and helping
the needs of our people as they presented themselves at the time. Too often,
it seems to me, in missionary and educational work among underdeveloped
races, people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred
years before, or is being done in other communities a thousand miles away.
The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational
mould, regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be
accomplished. This was not so at Hampton Institute.
The
address which I delivered on Commencement Day seems to have pleased every
one, and many kind and encouraging words were spoken to me regarding it.
Soon after my return to my home in West Virginia, where I had planned to
continue teaching, I was again surprised to receive a letter from General
Armstrong, asking me to return to Hampton partly as a teacher and partly to
pursue some supplementary studies. This was in the summer of 1879. Soon
after I began my first teaching in West Virginia I had picked out four of
the brightest and most promising of my pupils, in addition to my two
brothers, to whom I have already referred, and had given them special
attention, with the view of having them go to Hampton. They had gone there,
and in each case the teachers had found them so well prepared that they
entered advanced classes. This fact, it seems, led to my being called back
to Hampton as a teacher. One of the young men that I sent to Hampton in this
way is now Dr. Samuel E. Courtney, a successful physician in Boston, and a
member of the School Board of that city.
About
this time the experiment was being tried for the first time, by General
Armstrong, of education Indians at Hampton. Few people then had any
confidence in the ability of the Indians to receive education and to profit
by it. General Armstrong was anxious to try the experiment systematically on
a large scale. He secured from the reservations in the Western states over
one hundred wild and for the most part perfectly ignorant Indians, the
greater proportion of whom were young men. The special work which the
General desired me to do was be a sort of "house father" to the
Indian young men--that is, I was to live in the building with them and have
the charge of their discipline, clothing, rooms, and so on. This was a very
tempting offer, but I had become so much absorbed in my work in West
Virginia that I dreaded to give it up. However, I tore myself away from it.
I did not know how to refuse to perform any service that General Armstrong
desired of me.
On
going to Hampton, I took up my residence in a building with about
seventy-five Indian youths. I was the only person in the building who was
not a member of their race. At first I had a good deal of doubt about my
ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself above the
white man, and, of course, he felt himself far above the Negro, largely on
account of the fact of the Negro having submitted to slavery--a thing which
the Indian would never do. The Indians, in the Indian Territory, owned a
large number of slaves during the days of slavery. Aside from this, there
was a general feeling that the attempt to education and civilize the red men
at Hampton would be a failure. All this made me proceed very cautiously, for
I felt keenly the great responsibility. But I was determined to succeed. It
was not long before I had the complete confidence of the Indians, and not
only this, but I think I am safe in saying that I had their love and
respect. I found that they were about like any other human beings; that they
responded to kind treatment and resented ill-treatment. They were
continually planning to do something that would add to my happiness and
comfort. The things that they disliked most, I think, were to have their
long hair cut, to give up wearing their blankets, and to cease smoking; but
no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until
he wears the white man's clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the
white man's language, and professes the white man's religion.
When
the difficulty of learning the English language was subtracted, I found that
in the matter of learning trades and in mastering academic studies there was
little difference between the coloured and Indian students. It was a
constant delight to me to note the interest which the coloured students took
in trying to help the Indians in every way possible. There were a few of the
coloured students who felt that the Indians ought not to be admitted to
Hampton, but these were in the minority. Whenever they were asked to do so,
the Negro students gladly took the Indians as room-mates, in order that they
might teach them to speak English and to acquire civilized habits.
I
have often wondered if there was a white institution in this country whose
students would have welcomed the incoming of more than a hundred companions
of another race in the cordial way that these black students at Hampton
welcomed the red ones. How often I have wanted to say to white students that
they lift themselves up in proportion as they help to lift others, and the
more unfortunate the race, and the lower in the scale of civilization, the
more does one raise one's self by giving the assistance.
This
reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Hon. Frederick
Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was travelling in the state of
Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his colour, to ride in the
baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price for his
passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the white
passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of
them said to him: "I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been
degraded in this manner," Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the
box upon which he was sitting, and replied: "They cannot degrade
Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not
the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who
are inflicting it upon me."
In
one part of the country, where the law demands the separation of the races
on the railroad trains, I saw at one time a rather amusing instance which
showed how difficult it sometimes is to know where the black begins and the
white ends.
There
was a man who was well known in his community as a Negro, but who was so
white that even an expert would have hard work to classify him as a black
man. This man was riding in the part of the train set aside for the coloured
passengers. When the train conductor reached him, he showed at once that he
was perplexed. If the man was a Negro, the conductor did not want to send
him to the white people's coach; at the same time, if he was a white man,
the conductor did not want to insult him by asking him if he was a Negro.
The official looked him over carefully, examining his hair, eyes, nose, and
hands, but still seemed puzzled. Finally, to solve the difficulty, he
stooped over and peeped at the man's feet. When I saw the conductor
examining the feet of the man in question, I said to myself, "That will
settle it;" and so it did, for the trainman promptly decided that the
passenger was a Negro, and let him remain where he was. I congratulated
myself that my race was fortunate in not losing one of its members.
My
experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him
when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than
his own. This is illustrated in no better way than by observing the conduct
of the old-school type of Southern gentleman when he is in contact with his
former salves or their descendants.
An
example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George Washington, who,
meeting a coloured man in the road once, who politely lifted his hat, lifted
his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw the incident criticised
Washington for his action. In reply to their criticism George Washington
said: "Do you suppose that I am going to permit a poor, ignorant,
coloured man to be more polite than I am?"
While
I was in charge of the Indian boys at Hampton, I had one or two experiences
which illustrate the curious workings of caste in America. One of the Indian
boys was taken ill, and it became my duty to take him to Washington, deliver
him over to the Secretary of the Interior, and get a receipt for him, in
order that he might be returned to his Western reservation. At that time I
was rather ignorant of the ways of the world. During my journey to
Washington, on a steamboat, when the bell rang for dinner, I was careful to
wait and not enter the dining room until after the greater part of the
passengers had finished their meal. Then, with my charge, I went to the
dining saloon. The man in charge politely informed me that the Indian could
be served, but that I could not. I never could understand how he knew just
where to draw the colour line, since the Indian and I were of about the same
complexion. The steward, however, seemed to be an expert in this manner. I
had been directed by the authorities at Hampton to stop at a certain hotel
in Washington with my charge, but when I went to this hotel the clerk stated
that he would be glad to receive the Indian into the house, but said that he
could not accommodate me.
An
illustration of something of this same feeling came under my observation
afterward. I happened to find myself in a town in which so much excitement
and indignation were being expressed that it seemed likely for a time that
there would be a lynching. The occasion of the trouble was that a
dark-skinned man had stopped at the local hotel. Investigation, however,
developed the fact that this individual was a citizen of Morocco, and that
while travelling in this country he spoke the English language. As soon as
it was learned that he was not an American Negro, all the signs of
indignation disappeared. The man who was the innocent cause of the
excitement, though, found it prudent after that not to speak English.
At
the end of my first year with the Indians there came another opening for me
at Hampton, which, as I look back over my life now, seems to have come
providentially, to help to prepare me for my work at Tuskegee later. General
Armstrong had found out that there was quite a number of young coloured men
and women who were intensely in earnest in wishing to get an education, but
who were prevented from entering Hampton Institute because they were too
poor to be able to pay any portion of the cost of their board, or even to
supply themselves with books. He conceived the idea of starting a
night-school in connection with the Institute, into which a limited number
of the most promising of these young men and women would be received, on
condition that they were to work for ten hours during the day, and attend
school for two hours at night. They were to be paid something above the cost
of their board for their work. The greater part of their earnings was to be
reserved in the school's treasury as a fund to be drawn on to pay their
board when they had become students in the day-school, after they had spent
one or two years in the night-school. In this way they would obtain a start
in their books and a knowledge of some trade or industry, in addition to the
other far-reaching benefits of the institution.
General
Armstrong asked me to take charge of the night-school, and I did so. At the
beginning of this school there were about twelve strong, earnest men and
women who entered the class. During the day the greater part of the young
men worked in the school's sawmill, and the young men worked in the laundry.
The work was not easy in either place, but in all my teaching I never taught
pupils who gave me much genuine satisfaction as these did. They were good
students, and mastered their work thoroughly. They were so much in earnest
that only the ringing of the retiring-bell would make them stop studying,
and often they would urge me to continue the lessons after the usual hour
for going to bed had come.
These
students showed so much earnestness, both in their hard work during the day,
as well as in their application to their studies at night, that I gave them
the name of "The Plucky Class"--a name which soon grew popular and
spread throughout the institution. After a student had been in the
night-school long enough to prove what was in him, I gave him a printed
certificate which read something like this:--
"This
is to certify that James Smith is a member of The Plucky Class of the
Hampton Institute, and is in good and regular standing."
The
students prized these certificates highly, and they added greatly to the
popularity of the night-school. Within a few weeks this department had grown
to such an extent that there were about twenty-five students in attendance.
I have followed the course of many of these twenty-five men and women ever
since then, and they are now holding important and useful positions in
nearly every part of the South. The night-school at Hampton, which started
with only twelve students, now numbers between three and four hundred, and
is one of the permanent and most important features of the institution.
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