Kl ec^roee P-I-a-3 tint The REGENERATION of SAM JACKSON By J. W. CHURCH Author of “THE CRUCIBLE” Education is a means to an end. The end should determine the means. The neglect of this is the rock upon which thousands are wrecked. S. C. ARMSTRONG 'The REGENERATION of S A M JACKSON By J . W . C H URCH Author of “ THECRUCI B L E ” The Press of Hie Hampton Normal and Agrricultural Institute Hampton, Virginia 1911 BOARD OF TRUSTEES Robert C. Ogden, President, New York Alexander McKenzie, Vice President, Cambridge. Mass. Francis G. Peabody, Vice President, Cambridge, Mass. Hollis B. Frissell, Secretary, Hampton, Va. George Foster Peabody, New York Charles E. Bigelow, New York Arthur Curtiss James, New York William Jay Schieffelin, New York Lunsford L. Lewis, Richmond, Va. James W. Cooper, Hartford, Conn. William W. Frazier, Philadelphia Frank W. Darling, Hampton, Va. William Howard Taft, Washington, D. C. Clarence H. Kelsey, New York Samuel C. Mitchell, Columbia, S. C. FORM OF BEQUEST I give and devise to the trustees of The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia, the sum of dollars, payable i>A.\I JAC KSON WAS LITERALLY "RAW MATERIA!.' The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute HOLLIS B. F R ! £ S E L L PRINCIPAL rt 'ANK K ROGERS TREASURER HEREERT E TURNER chap.ain Founded by Samuei 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 industrial scholarship can be endowed for eight hundred dollars and a permanent academic scholarship for two thousand dollars. All contributions may be sent to the Treasurer, F. K. Rogers, Hampton, Va., by whom they will be acknowledged. A DIRTY CABIN, SQUATTING IN A SUN-BAKED CLEARING The Regeneration of Sam Jackson By J. W. CHURCH Author of '“The Crucible ' 1 F by any chance you live in the South, you know Sam Jackson. That is, you knew him before he left his cabin in the “piney woods.” Sam was born lucky, tho a most careful study of his early environment would fail to convince you of it. A dirty, unhealthy log cabin, squa’ting in a sunbaked clearing surrounded by a few acres of sickly cotton, a couple of razor-backed hogs, and a discouraged hound dog made up about all the landscape with which he was intimately familiar. Of course his own family added somewhat to the picturesqueness of the scene, there being about a dozen of them. Eating, cooking, and sleeping in the one room of the cabin, as they did, hardly served to inculcate any very definite principles of cleanliness or morality in Sam. Not in his environment was he fortunate, but in the ac- cident that brought to the neglected, almost forgotten country school, three miles away, a teacher trained in the needs of his race, the spirit of service to his people strong within him. Yes, Sam was a little Negro. Just one of several millions in the Southern States, the present horizon of most of them SAM’s SCHOOL— NEGLF.CTED, ALMOST FORGOTTEN 6 bounded by a log cabin, a patch of cotton, a country store, and a county jail. Sam's teacher wasn't strong on algebra or dead languages. Fairly good English and an ordinary working knowledge of arithmetic, together with a rather elementary education in geography and history, marked the sum total of his academic accomplishments. But, in spite of this, the little Negroes whom he taught — but that isn't what I want to tell you. For years he labored patiently with Sam, and, while the progress was slow, little by little he fanned a spark of desire in the boy's brain, so that one day Sam Jackson left the piney woods, and a few days later walked thru the gateway of Hampton Institute. Had you met him that eventful morning, you probably wouldn't have considered Sam worth troubling about. A poorly dressed, unalert black boy with a sullen face isn’t particularly attractive. The sullenness, however, was only skin deep, and rather more of fright than anything else. Of what you call manners, that seem so simple and elemental, he had scant knowledge. Toothbrushes and “ I beg your pardon” are not an essential part of coaxing a quarter-bale of short staple, low-grade cotton out of a thin soil with the aid of a reluctant mule. But the boy was possessed of grim determination to learn, and Hampton Institute gave him a hearty welcome. Nowhere else in all the world have his needs, his particular needs, been the earnest study of hundreds of trained men and women for two-score years as at Hampton, and what they have accomplished is beyond any man's pen to describe. You can get an idea, tho, from what they did for Sam, how they did it, and the fruit it has borne. Let me interpolate one thing right here, which has a very great bearing on your thought as you read this Story. Hamp- ton's interest does not lie in the success or failure of the individual Negro. Service to the Negro race, the missionary spirit that makes a man or woman return in gratitude to the less fortunate to spread the knowledge given him or her, is Hampton's plea to its students and graduates. It succeeds too. Hampton Institute is nearing the half-century mark of its endeavor. Few, it any, of its graduates are rich ; less than two hundred have entered any profession save that of teaching, and none are in jail. And there have gone forth since 1870 nearly eight thousand graduates and undergrad- uates, imbued to the core with the Hampton spirit. Let's see how it worked with Sam, and why it's only fair to term him good raw material, for he was, literally. Morality, as we understand the term, was to him an unknown principle Not immoral, but unmoral — the reason for morality had never been made clear to him. Physically and mentally he needed bathing, but, far more, to understand why. He was lazy. You need incessant practice in industry to make labor a habit, but at that, if you are set blindly at a task, the “why” unknown, it can never be congenial or competently done. He needed thrift, for his race, until recently without possessions, held little of value beyond the pleasure of the hour. And he 8 LEARNING THE “ WHY ” 01 A PLOW needed a broader view of life, of the world, of the things worth while that study may bring. Morality, physical clean- liness, industry, thrift, a trade by which to work and earn and save, a knowledge of the dignity of labor, and a spirit of serv- ice to his race. These, then, were Sam Jackson's needs. A bit of a contract, you'll admit. Now' I want to show you how it's done. You may know all about Hampton. You may even have been there If so, you have seen and heard the truth of this story. If you haven't, there isn't much that’s more important or worth while to know. 9 THE GREEN, COOL BEAUTY OE HAMPTON INSTITUTE Should you visit it to-day, you would find a beautiful in- dustrial village. Wide, spotless roads, shaded by giant elms and maples, wind hither and thither amid broad stretches of green lawn ; everywhere close-clipt hedges mark the approach to walks and private lawns ; everywhere are stately buildings and pretty cottages, now green with ivy, now half-hidden be- neath flowering, climbing vines. Thousands upon thousands of roses lend their perfume to the fragrant air, and over the famous Hampton Roads, whose blue waters lap the edges of the greensward, the cool, salt breeze of the Atlantic Ocean brings its health and vigor to the busy workers of Hampton. But glance backward a moment, to whence all this sprang. It will help you to understand it better. Forty-four years ago, this wondrous spot was a barren waste, the wreck of a plantation but lately ruined by the Civil War. There was no scent of roses in the air, no stately trees or vine-clad homes. Just a crude barracks, housing as best it might the infancy of a great institution. Here General Armstrong, with two teachers and fifteen pupils, the latter drawn from the thousands of half-clad, starved Negroes clustered under the frowning walls of Fortress Monroe, began the work of Hamp- ton Institute. It was a pitiable plight, that of these dazed freedmen at that time, unfit for the freedom so swiftly thrust upon them. Unable to earn their living, bewildered by the sudden destruction of the only sort of life to which they were accustomed, unable to return to the old. and incapable of living up to the new standards set for them. Volumes and an inspired pen could not adequately describe the work and heroic self-sacrifice of General Armstrong and his little, brave- hearted band of workers who gave themselves gladly to the stupendous task of trying to teach another race that freedom was not license, but the opportunity to be of service to man- kind rather than a master. Stick by stick, stone by stone, Hampton Institute was built. With infinite patience, slowly, but steadily, the work went on. Few at first, but in ever increasing numbers, the Negro men and women came, and in turn went forth, and by their industry and lives proved Hampton’s work to be good. Each succeeding year found a better knowledge of the prob- lems to be met, and new problems added to those already solved. Year by year was the equipment augmented, the power of the school increased, and a greater struggle necessary to pay the bills. A few years ago, when Sam Jackson arrived, he found awaiting him a master builder of human character, surround- ed by two hundred able assistants, and every mental and physical device to transform the sluggish raw material into an alert, well-disciplined, competent product of the greatest boon of this century, or any other, for that matter — practical indus- trial training He found a dormitory, with spotless pine floors in rooms and halls, to be scrubbed until they shone : a room, cot, and bedding to be kept in perfect order ; a bathtub and toothbrush to be regularly employed He found a uniform to wear and care for, and a battalion, without guns, to be sure, but with rigid discipline, to which he must conform. Tobacco, liquor, WHERE SAM LEARNED ORDER AND CLEANLINESS cards, and all dubious amusements were taboo. Courtesy be- tween the students themselves he found to be the order of each day. Just as the Negro is apt in vice, so is he to imitate and eventually absorb the better conduct of life, and Sam's new ideas of physical and moral cleanliness were so gradually absorbed that he scarcely noted the change. At five-thirty each weekday morning he rose and went directly from his breakfast to his work. There are fifteen trades to choose from at Hampton, and in each of these every step of the journey toward a skilled trade is carefully guided by patient, expert instructors. Always the “ why ” of a task is made clear, and over and over again the task must be done until there comes a perfect harmony between the workman and his trade. Ij SAM WAS TAUGHT THAT FARMING IS A SCIF.XCE Agriculture, in which millions of Negroes are employed throughout the South, and in which lies their greatest hope for material prosperity, is the goal toward which Hampton is striving. Each year sees a larger class entered in farming and greater results obtained. There have gone forth from Hampton Institute in the past few years scores of agricultural workers, skilled in the true science of the farm, whose little plantations in various parts of the South are by far the best of any, black or white, in the community where they live, and whose trained industry has won the admiration and respect of all with whom they come in neighborly contact. Sam Jackson worked hard all day, ate his supper at six o’clock, spent two hours, from seven until nine, in the class- rooms, and was entirely ready for bed when taps sounded at nine-thirty. It wasn't all work, of course. There was no dearth of clean, muscle-building, eye-quickening athletics, nor of earn- est religious training. Under these ever-constant influences, the raw material began to develop morality and industry to a somewhat amazing degree. And as his labor, during the work years, brought him eight cents an hour, and his board cost him eleven dollars a month, thrift finally began to get a very fair stranglehold on Sam's natural inclination toward improvidence. His academic work, so regulated as to correlate witth his industrial training, broadened his scope of thought, and aided him in finally comprehending that service, not selfishness, is the true basis for a permanent enjoyment of his newly awakened powers. Thus did Hampton solve the problem of Sam Jackson, RRICKI.AVING AND MATHEMATICS GO HAND IN HAND ■5 and send forth, alert and vigorous, the ignorant, untrained Negro boy of four years past. There was one element in Sam's training I haven t men- tioned. It wasn’t overlooked. Rather, it is of such tremendous importance that even when dealt with separately, only those who have visited Hampton Institute will understand. And they never forget it. It is the atmosphere, the real, tho intan- gible influence of self-sacrifice, devotion to cause and principle, of hundreds of men and women for half a century. It permeates the village, an all-encompassing atmosphere of cheerful earnestness, unceasing, patient endeavor, and honest content. And of this is born the “ Hampton spirit, of which every teacher and student is justly proud. In the files in the Bureau of Statistics are hundreds of sheets, covered thickly with the records of work done by those who have gone forth. Without having felt the Hampton spirit, some of the stories they tell seem well-nigh incompre- hensible. When you yourself have known it, then you understand. Now I want to leave Sam Jackson, who is Sally as well, and of whom nearly eight thousand have passed thro the re- fining crucible of HamptoD, and talk with you about the really big question that lies back of it all. DOES IT PAY ? Eighteen years ago General Armstrong died, leaving Hampton Institute as a monument to his great task. Dr. H. B. Frissell, for many years his assistant, succeeded him. and un- der his guiding hand the work has gone steadily on. To-day the student roll numbers nearly one thousand, and the strengthening influence of the school is felt in nearly every state in the Union, but most of all where it is most needed, in the South. Few men, either North or South of Mason and Dixon’s line, deny the seriousness of what is termed the Negro problem. Of theories as to its elimination or solution there are thou- sands, but every practical man. be he from the North or South who has given the question sincere, earnest thought, agrees A BATTALION TO WHOSE RICH) DISCIPLINE HE MUST CONFORM that in the last analysis it becomes a matter of education. Not some visionary scheme by which a wondrous latter-day miracle is to be wrought, nor a standard curriculum to which all Negroes, willy nilly. must fit or be fitted. Not in these, but in the sort of training Sam Jackson got, lies the future hope of the Negro race. If Hampton simply sent out into the world eight thousand '7 Negroes equipped to earn their own living by skillful indus- trial work, I would call it good, worthy, and let it go at that. But when the almost boundless ramifications of its work are known, when one thinks of the scores of little Hamptons its graduates and undergraduates have founded to spread its work as best they may, from Booker Washington at Tuskegee to many an unknown worker in some almost unknown village, yet one and all with the Hampton spirit strong within them, then does Hampton's work assume its proper importance in the world scheme of things worth while. In view of this, and much more that a volume could but inadequately tell, the question ‘ Does it pay?" strikes you as rather absurd, doesn't it ? Yet when you know the tre- mendous strain of meeting each year a deficit of more than one hundred thousand dollars, in order that the work may go on, that aid many not fail those whose need is dire.it ceases to be as absurd as you might think. Altho Hampton has the full moral support of the National Government, and of the state in which it is located, its income from these sources is relatively small It is really a private institution, and must depend al- most entirely upon individual subscriptions for its existence- Its future lies entirely in the hands of the men and women of this country who believe in its work, and whose vision is sufficiently clear to see that in the regeneration of Sam Jackson lies not only the truest and best hope for the mental, moral, and physical prosperity of the Negro race, but an era of better understanding between black men and white, both of whose interests are best served by kindly considera- tion of each other's needs. iS I HK FINISHED PRODUCT— ALERT, THOl'GHTFUL, VIGOROUS— AN HONOR TO HIS RACE