The Crucible 
 
 A Southerner's 
 Impression of Hampton 
 
 ‘The attempt to cast all mind* in 
 one mould is useless” — Armstrong 
 
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 ■£ -• w-s' 
 
The Crucible 
 
 A Southerner’s Impression of Hampton 
 J. W. CHURCH 
 
 The Press of 
 
 The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute 
 Hampton, Virginia 
 1915 
 
BOARD OF TRUSTEES 
 
 William H. Taft, President, New Haven, Conn. 
 Francis G. Peabody, Vice President, Cambridge, Mass. 
 Clarence H. Kelsey, Vice President, New York City 
 Hollis B. Frissell, Secretary, Hampton, Va. 
 
 George Foster Peabody, New York City 
 Charles E. Bigelow, New York City 
 Arthur Curtiss James, New York City 
 William Jay Schieffelin, New York City 
 Lunsford L. Lewis, Richmond, Va. 
 
 James W. Cooper, Hartford, Ct. 
 
 William W. Frazier, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Frank W. Darling, Hampton, Va. 
 
 Samuel C. Mitchell, Newark, Del. 
 
 Robert Bacon, New York City 
 
 FORM OF BEQUEST 
 
 I give and devise to the trustees of The Hampton Normal 
 and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia, the sum of 
 dollars, payable • 
 
HAMPTON INSTITUTE WaTER FRONT 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/cruciblesouthern00chur_0 
 
THE HAMPTON BATTALION 
 
 The Crucible 
 
 A Southerner’s Impression of Hampton 
 
 ampton Normal and Agricultural Institute ! 
 The name lioen’t suggest anything of particular 
 interest ; does it ? Rather prosaic than otherwise, 
 and when you couple the uninteresting title with 
 the fact it is an industrial school for Negroes and Indians, it 
 seems hardly worth while to read about it. Probably that is 
 why, to the great majority of citizens of the United States, the 
 
 
WINONA. OR ELDER SISTER. LODGE 
 
name “Hampton” means little or nothing. Right there is 
 where they make the greatest mistake of their lives. Of all the 
 places of absorbing interest in the country Hampton Institute 
 can easily claim the lead, and make good that claim, whether it 
 be from an industrial, sociological, philanthropic, or any other 
 basis. 
 
 The institution is a crucible — a veritable crucible — in which 
 for nearly half a century a modern miracle has taken place. 
 From out the South, where Negro life has been an existence of 
 mental and moral darkness, steeped in ignorance, idleness, and 
 superstition, a steady, ceaseless current has flowed into this 
 crucible, there to he transformed by the wonder-touch, and in 
 turn poured forth, a living stream of moral integrity, mental 
 strength, and industrial ability. 
 
 Quietly has this miracle been wrought — with infinite 
 patience and surpassing skill, with kindly firmness and an 
 unswerving, steadfast endeavor. 
 
 The inclination to deal in superlatives where Hampton is 
 the theme is inevitable. The saving grace lies in the fact that 
 when you attempt to describe Hampton, only superlatives can 
 deal fairly with the coldest of facts. 
 
 It is not a school. It is an industrial village — a village 
 nestled on the shore of Hampton Roads, with the clear water 
 of Chesapeake Bay lapping its green lawns, where they run to 
 the water’s edge. Beneath the shade of hundreds of magnificent 
 trees, far reaches of velvet greensward stretch in every direction, 
 laced here and there with level, spotless paths. In this villa ge 
 there are more than a hundred buildings ; many of them are 
 
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embowered in thousands of roses, or half hidden beneath the 
 clinging vines that clamber in luxuriant profusion to the very 
 roofs. 
 
 The beauty of the village does not end with its physical 
 charm. There is something more than that. In many other 
 places there are lawns as beautiful, trees as stately, and flowers 
 in the same luxuriant profusion, although the combination of all 
 is rare. But here there is something subtle and, at first, 
 indefinable in the air of the place. It is the atmosphere of con- 
 tent, engendered by half a century of earnest and contented life 
 within the grounds of Hampton. It is not imagination. It is 
 real, tangible, and one of the greatest assets of the Institute in 
 fulfilling its great mission. 
 
 It would take volumes to tell how Hampton has been 
 brought to its present state, and the results it has obtained, but 
 in order that the present may be understood, a brief word of 
 the past is necessary. 
 
 The Institute was created in 1868 by General Samuel C. 
 Armstrong, who was then stationed at Hampton. He had been 
 sent there by the United States Government as a mediator be- 
 tween the whites and blacks, in those dark, perplexing days 
 following the close of the Civil War. 
 
 He found hundreds of Negroes, homeless, hungry, and un- 
 skilled in any manual art, eking out a miserable existence and 
 daily falling lower and lower in the social scale. Freedom had 
 merely turned them loose under new conditions to which they 
 were in no wise able to rise. The plantations on which they 
 had worked as slaves were in ruins, and they were mentally and 
 
physically unfit to secure or retain any position requiring the 
 least modicum of manual skill or intelligence. To meet this 
 situation, and avert the tragedy of a race that must live and yet 
 could not earn its bread, was the tremendous task General 
 Armstrong set for himself. With the aid of the American 
 Missionary Association, he established a small industrial school 
 on the site of the present Institute, with two assistants and 
 fifteen pupils. No thought of social equality or the higher 
 
 CORRELATION OF ARITHMETIC AND BRICKLAYING 
 
 education befogged his mind. The only end was to teach the 
 Negro how to work, that he might earn his living honestly, and 
 adjust himself to the new conditions of life thrust upon him. 
 
 For twenty-five years General Armstrong labored at his 
 task, and under his firm hand and steadfast purpose the Hamp- 
 ton Institute lived and thrived. Then death called him from 
 his work, and Dr. H. B. Frissell, for many years his assistant, 
 stepped into the breach and the work went on. 
 
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So much for the past, of which might be written many 
 volumes replete with stories of heart-breaking struggles, almost 
 divine patience, and heroic self-sacrifice. 
 
 Today there are thirteen hundred students, about equally 
 divided as to sex, working and studying under a corps of one 
 hundred and twenty-five teachers and instructors. The records 
 show that over seventy-five hundred students have gone from 
 Hampton, ably equipped to earn an honest living, rehabilitate 
 the barren farms, and stimulate by their work and example a 
 desire for good citizenship and better physical conditions among 
 their race. 
 
 Hampton does nothing by halves. When the young Negroes 
 enter the school, it is with the knowledge that for four years 
 unceasing toil lies before them — toil that is lightened by every 
 incentive to interest them in their work that the human mind 
 can devise, and by a mode of life that impresses them with the 
 dignity of labor and the value of clean living, but nevertheless 
 unceasing toil. Idleness was the Negro’s heritage, ignorance 
 his portion in the world’s scheme ; to eradicate these two evils 
 from his nature has been Hampton’s greatest endeavor — and 
 success has crowned the effort. 
 
 The dormitories are spotless — the floor of each room is 
 scrubbed by its inmate until the pine fairly glistens ; the lockers 
 and bedding are daily inspected by the janitor in charge. The 
 discipline is patterned after West Point and is rigidly adhered to. 
 
 At five-thirty in the morning the students arise. At six they 
 breakfast. The morning is spent in workshop and classroom 
 until noon. Then the chimes over Memorial Church ring out. 
 
and in ten minutes the boys have cast aside their working clothes, 
 donned their uniforms, and the battalion is formed on the parade 
 ground for inspection by the Commandant. The band plays, 
 and in perfect formation they companies march toward Virginia 
 Hall, where their meals are served. On the green campus be- 
 fore the vine-clad hall, the battalion forms in two long files, facing 
 each other, about thirty feet apart. The students uncover, and 
 between the files march the standard-bearers carrying the Stars 
 and Stripes and the blue-and-white flag of Hampton Institute. 
 
 STUDENTS AT WORK IN THE CREAMERY 
 
 The files close, and in perfect order the entire student body 
 marches into one great dining hall. A bell sounds. A moment 
 of silence, and then, softly, but with increasing volume, a thou- 
 sand voices sing in harmony the Hampton grace : 
 
“Thou art great and Thou art good, 
 
 And we thank Thee for this food ; 
 
 By Thy hand must we he fed, 
 
 Give us, Lord, our daily bread, Amen.” 
 
 At one o’clock they are back in the classrooms, the work- 
 shops, the stables, or on the farm, and here, it may be said in 
 passing, is where Hampton is doing its greatest work at present. 
 “Back to the farm” is the way Hampton believes the Negro 
 will find peace and congenial labor. No agricultral school in 
 America is better equipped for this purpose, and when a gradu- 
 ate of the agriculutral class leaves, he is amply able, as scores 
 of instances have shown, to make a good living on ground 
 where before, as one graduate aptly put it, he “couldn’t even 
 raise a disturbance.” 
 
 The evening meal is at six o’clock. Then come prayers in 
 Cleveland Hall Chapel, and classes from seven to nine for 
 students who have been at work all day at their trades. Then 
 taps sounds and the day is over. 
 
 There is recreation and exercise in plenty interspersed 
 with the daily labor. Baseball, tennis, rowing, and every other 
 outdoor sport that tends to strengthen the muscles and lungs 
 and quicken the brain and eye, are given the students. But 
 sports and recreation are not allowed to interfere with the 
 studies or industrial training for which the students come. That 
 the problem of healthy, happy, earnest life has been solved is 
 amply borne out by the school records, where it is shown that 
 in ten years only fourteen deaths have occurred among the 
 students. Wherever they are working or playing, laughter and 
 song are in the air, and a surly word or frowning brow is 
 rarely seen. 
 
TRAINING OF NEGRO BLACKSMITHS 
 
 NEGRO BOYS REMODELING THE TRADE SCHOOL 
 
The academic work is almost entirely correlated with in- 
 dustrial training. No language other than English is taught, 
 nor any sciences or isms that cannot be applied to their daily 
 working lives. The Hampton idea is to turn out farmers, 
 skilled workers in the trades, teachers equipped to handle the 
 problem of carrying on the elementary education of their race, 
 and to imbue every graduate with the fixed idea of aiding, to the 
 utmost of his or her ability, in raising the moral and industrial 
 standard of the race. That this plan does produce leaders is 
 proved by the score of graduates whose names have become a 
 power for good among the Negroes, from the now famous 
 Booker T. Washington, who graduated from Hampton in 1875, 
 down to many whose work is known only to the community in 
 which they live, where they have instilled industry, moral, and 
 physical cleanliness, and a desire for more useful lives among 
 their fellows. 
 
 Hampton is no place for the incorrigible Negro. Its scholar- 
 ships are intended for the Negro youth and girl who have in 
 them the mental, moral, and physical material to utilize their 
 training for the benefit of their race. In brief, it is the aim of 
 Hampton to create leaders, who, in turn, shall take up the 
 extension work in degree great or small according to ability and 
 environment. 
 
 This, then, is the work of Hampton Institute. It is not 
 a state or government institution, but a private corporation, 
 existing from year to year by endowments and subscriptions from 
 individuals whose sympathy with the work is thus expressed 
 and who count themselves honored in sharing in a work so bene- 
 ficent in its influence, so wide reaching in its practical good, 
 and so high in its aim and method. 
 
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The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute 
 
 HOLLIS B FRISSELL FRANK K. ROGERS HERBERT B TURNER 
 
 PRINCIPAL TREASURER CHAPLAIN 
 
 Founded by Samuel Chapman Armstrong in 1868 for the prac- 
 tical education of Negro and Indian youth. 
 
 To make earnest, useful Christian citizens, who will lead and 
 teach their people, is its object. 
 
 The needs of the school are many, and its support depends 
 almost entirely upon private contributions. 
 
 Any amount you may desire to contribute, no matter how small, 
 will be gratefully received. 
 
 In providing a Hampton scholarship for some deserving Negro 
 boy or girl, you will give your donation a human, personal 
 element, as a record is kept for the donor of the student 
 who receives the scholarship. 
 
 One hundred dollars pays the tuition of a student for one year, 
 including an academic and industrial scholarship. 
 
 Thirty dollars will provide an industrial scholarship for one 
 year. 
 
 Seventy dollars will provide an academic scholarship for one 
 year. 
 
 A permanent full scholarship can he endowed for twenty-five 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 All contributions may be sent to the Treasurer, F. K. Rogers, 
 Hampton, Va., by whom they will be acknowledged. 
 
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