divided from the little town of Hampton (with its church built in 1660, of English bricks) by a wide creek, known as the Hampton River, which was populous, when we passed it, with negro oyster-dredgers. On a spacious campus, bordering on this creek, stand the buildings of the Institute—looking out upon the very reach of the Roads where the fight between the Merrimac and the Monitor opened a new chapter in naval history. Both banks of the creek are well-wooded, and the white houses, with their wide verandahs deep-set in the tender green of early spring, gave the scene a semi-tropical air. It needed only a few palm-trees to transport one to Florida. The campus, too, is rich in flowering shrubs. A marvellous rose-tree in full bloom almost covered the office-building; hard by, a great bush of wisteria (standard, not climbing) made the air heavy with scent; and tulip-trees and climbing wisteria were to be seen at every turn. In the exquisite amenity of its site lies one great contrast between Hampton and Tuskegee. The red and gully-gashed Alabama 117upland, where Booker Washington has established his city, is unkempt, almost untimbered, and as nearly bleak as any place can be in that southern climate; whereas the Hampton student may sing with literal truth:—

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But as I watched the negroes plunging their dredgers into the mud of Hampton Creek, I could not but wonder whether the downs of Tuskegee might not be the healthier habitation.

The fundamental contrast, however, between the two institutions lies in the fact that at Tuskegee the organizing and teaching staff is all black (or brown), at Hampton all white.[37] The founder of Hampton, General S. C. Armstrong, was born in the Sandwich Islands in 1839, the son of a missionary. He was a man of extraordinary strength and vitality, a muscular Christian in the fullest sense of the term. In the war, he commanded a negro regiment,[38] and after the war he put aside all opportunities of personal gain and advancement to devote himself to the 118work of the Freedmen’s Bureau. This brought him to Hampton; and here, in April, 1868, he opened his school, with one assistant teacher and fifteen pupils. Next year the attendance increased to sixty-six, and in 1870 the Institute received a charter (but no endowment) from the Virginia Legislature. In 1878 it was decided to admit Indians as well as negroes, and now about ten per cent. of the students belong to the aboriginal tribes. Armstrong had immense difficulties to contend with. The whole of the money for his enterprise had to be raised by his personal exertions; and the value of his idea—the value of 

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