have thought it better to multiply pictures. The life of the Hampton Institute is above all things a life of learning by doing, and the pictures show the methods and processes better than an equal amount of space given to descriptive text. It is now about a third of a century since Gen. S. C. Armstrong founded the Hampton Institute. Its primary purpose was to give the right kind of instruction to young colored men and women who had emerged from slavery and who needed to be taught and trained in good conduct, the rudiments of book knowl edge, and the plain tasks that go with farming, the ordinary handicrafts, and the duties of home and family. It was also plainly seen from the beginning that a great many of these young people so taught must go forth to become the teachers of the children of their own race.

Some ten years later circumstances brought a handful of young Indians to Hampton, and experience soon showed that their association with the young negroes was not only feasible, but in many ways mutually beneficial. The United States Government has now many years contributed annually toward the support of a considerable number of Indian boys and girls averaging somewhere between fifteen and twenty years of age.

for

The institute community at the present time may be said to contain on a rough estimate 1,000 souls. Of these about 100 belong to the white race and somewhat less than 200 to the Indian race, the rest being negroes. The white element includes teachers,

superintendents, matrons, and others engaged in one way or another in car

A CLASS IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

rying on the various branches of work, together with the wives and children of some of the corps. The general population estimate as given above does not include the 500 or 600 colored children enrolled in the Whittier School. These come from the humble homes of the surrounding neighborhood, and are taught by the most approved methods and the most kindly and accomplished body of teachers, who carry them from the kindergarten through successive grades. all on a plan of object-teaching that never for one minute loses sight of the general conditions under which these children have been born and the range of social and industrial possibilities that the future has in store for them. There are small school children in thrifty Northern communities who do not greatly need to be taught in the schools to save their pennies. But no lesson is more needed among the negroes of the South; and the children of the Whittier School are bank depositors in connection with the Penny Provident Fund system of New York. In the present month of April every one of them will spend a part of the school day out of doors working in a little garden plot. Meanwhile, as a part of the shop work I found last month that these tiny children, girls as well as boys, had been engaged in fashioning the

sharpened stakes which were to be used in marking off the little patches of ground. Over in the institute's department of agricultural science I found Professor Goodrich-a man deeply versed in the chemistry of soils and all the methods of the agricultural experimentalist-giving a part of his time on a holiday to the kindly task of working out on paper the planting scheme for the Whittier children's gardens, in order that the best practical and educational results might be obtained.

A large part of the secret of the future unlocking of the South's vast possibilities of wealth and culture and happiness lies in the thorough and contented acceptance of agriculture by the colored race. Generally speaking, the young colored people of the South associate farm and plantation life with the most repellent drudgery And so they look instinctively toward the gre garious life of towns, with the accompaniment of the good clothes and the luxuries that do not go with the old tumble-down cabin of the farming life that they have known. Nevertheless farming must go on in the South, and the negro race must continue to do the bulk of the farm work. The negro's best chance for the advancement of his personal fortunes now lies in the purchase and cultivation of a piece of land. A large part of

THE HARNESS SHOP.

the mission of the Hampton Institute is to teach the young negro that it is just as fine a thing to be a good farmer as it is to be President of the United States.

Besides the home farm immediately adjacent to the buildings of the community-a tract comprising 150 to 200 acres there is another and much larger institute farm four or five miles away comprising about 600 acres. The practical work of carrying on these farms serves a twofold purpose. First, it enables a large number of the students of the institute to pay their way through several years of Hampton life and schooling. Second, it exemplifies the best principles and methods in tilling the soil, raising live-stock, gardening, fruit culture, and so forth. The surplus products of the large farm are readily marketed in the neighboring town of Hampton and at the great hotels. Particular care is taken that every colored boy who learns scientific agriculture on the large scale shall also be carefully shown exactly how to carry on a

HOUSE BUILT AND FINISHED BY HAMPTON STUDENTS.

small farm.

Thus there is conducted as a constant object-lesson a model four-acre farm, with its small barn and appurtenant buildings, its proper succession of crops, and its diverse problems from the point of view of the soil and from that of the pocket-book. Dairying is taught with the best possible machinery and appliances; but at the same time the young student of farming who cannot hope to be able to buy patent separators and various other expensive parts of the equipment of a modern creamery is shown how to get the same results with ordinary milk. pans and a cheap thermometer by giving proper concern to the factors of time, temperature, and cleanliness.

In the domestic science building I was passing through a room which is kept as an object-lesson in the simple but effective draping and furnish. ing of a sleeping chamber. My guide was Major M a young colored man who embodies in his own character and personality the answer to many questions that one hears asked. One

CLASS IN BRICKLAYING.

feels distinctly better off to remember that the major is one of our own fellow-citizens, for he is the sort of fellow one would like to, have near by in an emergency. General Armstrong had commanded negro troops for two or three years during the Civil War and had learned their splendid qualities. Many Americans learned a like lesson in Cuba in 1898 and in the Philippines in 1899. The institute's plant includes a sawmill and wood-working factory on the water edge. The major as a lad had come to Hampton and had begun work in the mill, thus earning his living while he studied. He has character, capacity. frankness combined with tact, the sense of time and discipline that go with the ample military drill that all Hampton boys receive, and the practical experience in the thorough performance of plain work that gives him an unconscious sense of commanding the situation. Some time we shall have a great many such American ne groes as the major.

We were, as I have remarked, passing through

rooms in the domestic science building where negro girls are taught things that they greatly need to know. Pointing to a box-like washstand, painted white and neatly draped with some inexpensive material, the major remarked in passing that not a single student, boy or girl, was allowed to go through Hampton without being able to use tools well enough to make that article of furniture.

Almost nobody in the North, certainly, knows how few colored women in the South can sew well enough to make the simplest garments. And there are still fewer who understand those conditions of isolation which add to the desirability, on the part of the colored race, of a proper knowledge of the old-fashioned domestic arts. The very foundation for the training of the girls at Hampton Institute is to be found in the domestic science building. Some of the pictures accompanying these running comments convey sharp impressions and give pleasant hints of the work that is carried on in that most delightfully arranged and appointed establishment.

AT THE TURNING LATHES.