negro education in general and industrial training in particular—was not then a tested fact, but remained to be proven in the face of much scepticism. A minor difficulty lay in the prejudice of the negroes themselves against manual training. This was still, in their eyes, the badge of servitude; and they were apt to rebel when, asking for Greek, they were given a hoe. With indomitable energy and geniality, however, Armstrong stuck to his task; and when, early in the nineties, he was stricken with paralysis, Hampton was already a great institution, and Tuskegee was firmly founded. 118 At Hampton there are now 113 buildings (65 of them of considerable size) and a home farm of 120 acres; while at Shellbank, six miles away, the school owns a farm of over 600 acres, with 150 head of cattle, 30 horses and mules, 100 hogs, and 119fowls by the thousand. The students enrolled in the Institute number 863, while the Whittier Preparatory School has nearly 500 pupils. In addition to all branches of agriculture and horticulture, fifteen trades are taught to boys, while girls are thoroughly trained in every form of domestic industry, laundry-work, dressmaking, etc. The teaching and organizing staff numbers about 200, or one to every six pupils. It is the deliberate policy of the Institute to seek for increase of efficiency rather than of numbers, and the entrance tests are correspondingly severe. 119 The Principal, Dr. H. B. Frissell, was unfortunately absent when I visited Hampton. |A Tour of the Institute.| I had met him a year before at Memphis, and learnt to appreciate his quietly commanding personality. Mrs. Frissell received us most courteously in the very beautiful old plantation-house which is now the Principal’s residence. A patriarchal hospitality is the tradition at Hampton, and we were cordially invited to remain, if not a week, at least a night. But a few hours were all we could spare; and the chaplain, Dr. Herbert Turner, very kindly constituted himself our guide. |A Tour of the Institute.| | | He took us first to “the soul of the institution,” the Memorial Church, externally a fine building, internally, to my mind, memorably beautiful. It is a cruciform structure of romanesque style; but the arms of the cross are so short that they may be called apses rather than nave and transepts, 120and the great body of the space is covered by the dome. The four great arches are
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