The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and Its Work for Negro and Indian Youth

Tae HAMPTON NORMAL and AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE.

H. B. FRISSELL, Principal.
GEO. FOSTER PEABODY, Zveasurer, New York.
F. CHICHESTER, Assistant Treas., at Hampton.
H. B. TURNER, Chaplain.

Opened April, 1868.

This Institution is not owned or controlled by state or
government, but by a Board of seventeen Trustees, represent-
ing different sections of the country, and six religious denom-
inations, no one of which has a majority.

Flying the flag of no sect, it is earnestly and actively
Christian. In 1870 it was chartered by special Act of the
General .Assembly of Virginia, and is exempt from taxation.

Its situation on Hampton Roads, on historic ground, is
advantageous in many ways.

ENROLMENT FROM OCTOBER 1893 TO APRIL 30 1894.

| Negro youngmen . t ; : 319
* VOMER ; ; j 200

Ny 51D
Indian young men, . ( ; 9!
Mf women A i : : ; 48

FSD

6538

The average age of pupils is 19 years. There are also
370 children in the WhittiersSchool, or primary department,
making the total number of 1028 students, representing twen-
ty states and territories. There are 80 officers, teachers, assis-
tants and managers about half of whom are in the industria.
departments. 3

The course of study, one year in the Night and three in
the Normal Classes, is four years, English branches only are
taught: see catalogue,

Night students work all day throughout the year, the
boys ten hours, the girls eight; studying from 7 to 9 oclock

p.m. for eleven months. Students in day classes work two
days per week, While school is open the entire year, itis

reduced in number from June 15th to October rst, by about
one half, when Normal work ceases, and many of the Indians
have outing on farms in Massachusetts, Connecticut and
New York.

Cost of plant $570,000: number of buildings insured, 50.

Home dairy and vegetable farm, 150 acres. Hemenway
grass and grain farm, four miles distant, 600 acres: both cul-
tivated by students: products used or sold.

Girus InpustRizs: House work, Laundering, Sewing,
Tailoring, Dressmaking, Gardening, Cooking, Printing
Training in the use of Carpenters Tools,

Boys Inpustrigs: Farming, Carpentering, House-paint-
ing, Wheelwrighting, Manufacturing of Furniture, Black-
smithing, Shoemaking, Harnessmaking, Printing, Engineer-
ing, Machine Knitting, Floriculture and the Machinist's trade
A Saw Mill, cutting annually about six million feet of pine logs
with wood-working machinery, is operated by 55 of the boys.
Mechanical Drawing is taught to those learning trades. In
addition, Technical instruction is given in separate shops, in
the use be Carpenters, Wheelwrights and Blacksmiths tools
and in Bricklaying. All shops and industries are under the
direction of skilled foremen and assistants,

In\these industries are our 519 Negro and 139 Indian
youth: they work together somewhat, but are generally sep-
arate, from the more technical character of the training need
ed by the latter.

Negroes come in most cases with little on their backs, or
in their brains or pockets, to sink or swim in an effort for
self support and education. A few, the weakest, flinch; the
struggle of all to make the most of their chances is admirable:

without parallel, I think, in the present education of the
whites. Many more than we can accommodate apply
every year.

The earnings of Night Students at a fair rate per hour
or month, offset, in most cases, the monthly charge of ten
dollars for board, etc., and from $25 to $50 a year, the
annual cost of clothing, books and _ incidentals. Work
by the piece is given, when practicable, as a better method,

3

The charge of $10 a month for board, etc., is more than
balanced by the actual cost of the supplies and service ren-
dered. Food supply costs about 50 per cent, of this amount,
service 25 per cent., and heating lighting and care of rooms,
house-keeping supplies and repairs, laundry and medical ex-
penses, the remainder.

Each student receives a monthly statement of debits and
credits. Last years total charges to Negro students were
$63,369.57, and their earnings $56,316.20; cash payments, r
$3,739.23: beneficiary aid $452.07. Those who, through ne-
glect or inefficiency, fail to pay up, leave: but mere poverty :
never keeps deserving ones permanently out of an education,
Aid is given to the worthy at the right time, but: those who
are industrious and deserving seldom need charity.

Turrion, or the cost of supporting eighty or more offi-
cers, teachers, managers and assistants, averages over seventy
dollars a year to each student. This is not charged to them.

ANNUAL SCHOLARSHIPS, ($70.00) for this tuition, are
provided by individual charity, by societies, by the income
of special funds and bequests. Permanent Scholarships are
founded by gifts of $1,500, yielding $70 a year.

Funps FoR GENERAL Purposes are equally important,
and come from the same sources, in sums ranging from $1. to
$5,000. Te provide for current expenses is the firstand great
necessity.

To receive the benefit of a scholarship, a colored pupil must
be of good character and ability, and earn or pay for board,
clothing, books, etc., from a hundred and twenty-five toe a
hundred and seventy dollars a year, according as he shall spend
the three and a half summer months away from or at the school.

Government pays for the support of 120 Indians, In ad-
dition to this number, from twelve to twenty have been main-
tained yearly by charity, or, in a few instances, have support-
ed themselves. Board, etc., costs the same as for Negroes,
$to per month, or twelve nhonths as follows: 4
Board, lodging, care, heating and lighting of rooms,

and medical attendance, ~ ~ ~ $120.00
Clothing per year, - - - - 47.00

4

making $167.00 each, or for 120 Indians, $20,040 per year
from the National Treen.

It thus appears that the education of an Indian costs per
year 120+47+4+70= $237; to make up this amount, $167 is
paid by government and $70, for tuition, by friends. Any

~cost in excess of this is met by ey

A Negros expenses are nearly the same, averaging less
for clothing, the majority paying by labor, $10 a month, and
being helped by a $70 scholarship.

The total yearly cost of the school, including the amount

. credited and paid to Negroes, is not less than $160,000.

_ The net cost, that provided by charity and by public aid,
is upwards of $100,000.

This net cost, divided by 638, the number of boarding
students last year, is $156.74, the average net cost of each
boarding student.

About 50 Indians work half of each day Had study half.
All students in the Normal Department, including about 80
Indians, work the whole of two days'each week, studying four.

All Negroes earnings go to their credit to offset charges
for board and clothing: Indians wages, a moderate sum,
based on the actual value of their work, are wholly their own;

one half is kept as savings, and the rest given to them to

spend as they choose, to learn the use of money, an import-
ant lesson.

A Negro can draw each month one per cent. of his sav-
ings to spend as he pleases; also in addition, on orders ap-
proved by a school officer, enough for Busta and incidentals

It should be understood that the Indian comes to a fully
equipped Negro boarding school whose pupils need all the
wage-paying work they can get. We have not in the least
discounted the chances of the Negroes in favor of the Indi-
ans, but the Indians coming necessitated a large extension
of our industrial plant with well equipped workshops, chiefly
for instrucution. The total cost of buildings, shops and out-
fit, furniture and fixtures, given more especially for Indi-
ans, has been $75,000. They share the benefit, besides, of
about $250,000 worth of buildings, industrial and other plant,
provided originally for Negroes. !

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6

From long dependence on government for food and oth-
er supplies, Indians are, as a rule, incapable of the steady
hard work of the Negro. The wonder is they do as well as
they do. Self-support is the best condition for the progress
of both races With proper ang the Indian also can take
care of himself.

The spirit of our Indian students is generally excellent
in both study and work. The industry and English speaking
of their colored fellow students stimulate them; the contact
is helpful for Negro and Indian, broadening both, and there
has been much mutual good feeling.

The Negro is educated by self-help, to which he has
been accustomed. The Indian is educated by being trained
to self-help, to which he is not accustomed. Labor as a
moral force is the keynote of the school.

Were this a school for Indians only, it could be run like
the Government schools, at $167 a year for each pupil; with,
however, serious reduction in the number of teachers and in
the variety and completeness of outfit and training.

The Negro, at the start, for the sake of encouragement,
is often paid over the market-value of his labor, but is well
worth his wages at graduation, his value being often increased.
two or three-fold by his labor drill. At the point of skill he
leaves us and a new hand takes his place.

From his standpoint all is hard earnings; his ten hours
daily work means punctuality, attention and discipline, which
create skill, character, good hatits, and fit him to earn a liv-
ing in the world. That instruction is as important as pro-
duction, is a fundamental idea. The point is what the shop
can do for the boy, not what the boy can do for the shop; at
the same time the shop must be worked for all it is worth
While one dollar earned is better than two dollars given, the
point in view is to create skill rather than to make profit,
and to teach the dignity of labor.

What becomes of those trained at the Hampton School?

Of Hamptons 361 returned Indian students now
living, but 14 are reported bad; though others have
been disappointing; the rest have done from fairly well
to excellently well, as teachers, catechists farmers, mechan-

@

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ics, teamsters, herders, laborers, clerks, etc. 28 are teaching
or employed in schools; 17 are attending other schools. 48
have married well and are in good homes. A careful record
of each is kept, open to inspection, and annual visits are
made to most of them. Indians are fickle; their conduct 1s
full of surprises; but for people not compelled to work for
their living, their conduct is most encouraging. |

Their health, while needing much care, is no longer a
source of alarm. Since 1885, with an average yearly attend-
ance of one hundred and thirty-five, the death rate has been
one a year.

Nine-tenths of our 795 Negro graduates, besides many
under graduates, have done good work as teachers, and about
three-fourths have made it their life work, working also in
the Sunday School and Temperance causes. Not less than
35,000 children were under their instruction last year. Since
1870, they report having taught over 135,0 children. ibe
20,000 free Negro schools of the South need nothing so
mich as well trained teachers. Virginias two thousand free
colored schools are not nearly supplied. Many of the Negro

_ preachers and teachers of the South are blind leaders of the

blind. No harvest field in the land or in the world ismore
hopeful or more urgent than this; it is vital to the country.
The North and South are working together for the Negro,
for whose education the latter has given, in taxation since
1870, about forty millions of dollars, and the former, in dona-
tions about seventeen millions. About a million a year now
comes from the North, and and over three millions yearly
from the Southern States, for Negro schools. The South
supports the free schools, the North maintains institutions
for providing them with teachers, Of these Shere are saul
twenty-five, mostly under the churches, and having in train-
ing about 5,000 select young men and women,

We have recently published a book, Twenty-two years
work of Hampton Institute, containing brief sketches of
723 graduates of the school, classes 41go, and of 440 Indian
students who have returned to the West after one or more
years here.

uy

The Hampton School needs not less than SEVENIY-iVE THOU-

SAND DOLLARS A YEAR from the friends of the Negro and he
Indian to pay tts current expenses

_ This is in addition to the public appropriations; which
are from the State of Virginia, Land Script Fund $10,300
and from the proceeds of the Morrill Act of 1890, for its work
as an Agricultural College for Negroes, $6,000 a year; from
the U. S. Government, $20,040 for Indians, (not charity, but
due them under treaties for lands and rights ceded), and an
annual income from investments and rentals, about $14,000.
Appropriations are also made from the Peabody and Slater

Funds. Full reports of receipts and expenditures are sent to
all contributors.

The School asks for gifts of Scholarships, ($70.00), or for
any amount from a dollar upward to meet current expenses,
and fora permanent Fund.

It has attained its growth, Its annual cost has reached
its maximum, and for the past five years has shown no ma-
terial variation, Its development must hereafter be intensive

rather than extensive. Improvement in all departments was
never so marked as now.

It has now no paid agent for collecting money, and no
society at its back. It has $370,000 bearing interest, and it
hopes finally for an endowment of, at least, a million of dol-
lars. In accumulating this fund, legacies have been a vital
aid.

It commits its work to the country and to the Providence
that has, for twenty-six years, so wonderfully blessed it.

Gifts may be sent by check on any bank, by registered
letter or postal order, to the Assistant Treasurer of the Hamp-
ton NoRMAL AND AGRICULTURAL InstITUTE, Hampton, Va.,
or to the undersigned. :

H. B. FRISSELL, Principal,
Hampton Va., May, 1894.

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H. B, FRISSELL, ELBERT B. MONROE,
Principal. 4 President Board of Trustees
F. CHICHESTER, GEO. FOSTER PEABODY,
Asst Treas. at Hampton. Treasurer, New York.
HAMPTON

NORMAL AND AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE

HAMPTON, VA.

DEAR FRIEND:

The following memoranda were found here among
General Armstrongs private papers and were left with his will to
be opened after his death.

Those of his friends who have seen them have found them so
characteristic and full of his spirit that we have thought they should
not be withheld from a wider circle.

Respectfully,

January, 1804. fH. TG. FRISSELL,

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MEMORANDA.

Now when all is bright, the family together, and there is noth-
ing to alarm and very much to be thankful for, itis well to look
ahead and, perhaps, to say the things that I should wish known should
I suddenly die. :

I wish to be buried in the school grave yard, among the stu-
dents, where one of them would have been put had he died next,

I wish no monument or fuss whatever over my grave; only a
simple headstoneno text or sentiment inscribed, only my name and
the date. I wish the simplest funeral service, without sermon or
attempt at oratorya soldiers funeral.

I hope that there will be enough friends to see that the work of
the Schogl shall continue. Unless some shall make sacrifices for it, it
cannot go on.

A work that requires no sacrifice does not count for much in
fulfilling Gods plans, But what is commonly called sacrifice is the
best, happiest use of ones self and ones resourcesthe best invest-
ment of time, strength, and means. He who makes no such sacrifice
is most to be pitied. Heisa heathen, because he knows nothing of
God.

In the School, the great thing is not to quarrel; to pull all to-
gether; to refrain from hasty, unwise words and actions; to unselfish-
ly and wisely seek the best good of all; and to get rid of workers
whose temperaments are unfortunatewhose heads are not level; no
matter how much knowledge or culture they may have. Cantanker-
ousness is worse than heterodoxy.

I wish no effort at a biography of myself made. Good friends
might get up a pretty good story, but it would not bethe whole truth.
The truth of a life usually lies deep downwe hardly know our-
selvesGod only does. I trust His mercy. The shorter ones creed
the better. Simply to thy cross I cling is enough for me.

Iam most thankful for my parents, my Hawaiian home, for
war experiences and college days at Williams: and for life and work
at Hampton. Hampton has blessed me in so many ways; along with
it have come the choicest people of the country for my friends and
helpers, and then, such a grand chance to do something directly for
those set free by the war, and, indirectly, for those who were con-
quered; and Indian work has been another great privilege.

Few men have had the chance that I have had. I never gave
up or sacrificed anything in my lifehave been, seemingly, guided in
everything.

Prayer is the greatest power in the world. It keeps us near ta
Godmy own prayer has been most weak, wavering, inconstant; yet
has been the best thing Ihave ever done. I think this a universal
truthwhat comfort is there in any but the broadest truths?

Iam most curious to get a glimpse of the next world. How
will it allseem? Perfectly fair and perfectly natural, no doubt. We
ought not to fear death. It is friendly.

The only pain that comes at the thought of it is for my true
faithful wife, and blessed,dear children. But they will be brave about
it all, and, in the end, stronger. They are my greatest comfort.

Hampton must not go down, See to it, you who are true to
the black and red children of the land, and to just ideas of education

The loyalty of my old soldiers, and of my students, has been an
unspeakable comfort.

It pays to follow ones best light-to put God and country first;
ourselves afterwards,

Taps has just sounded.
Hampton, Va., S. C. ARMSTRONG,

New Years Eve, 1890.