successful physician in Boston, and a member of the School
Board of that city.
About this time the experiment was being tried for the first time, by
General Armstrong, of educating Indians at Hampton. Few people then had
any confidence in the ability of the Indians to receive education and
to profit by it. General Armstrong was anxious to try the experiment
systematically on a large scale. He secured from the reservations in
the Western states over one hundred wild and for the most part perfectly
ignorant Indians, the greater proportion of whom were young men. The
special work which the General desired me to do was to be a sort of "house
father" to the Indian young men--that is, I was to live in the building
with them and have the charge of their discipline, clothing, rooms, and
so on. This was a very tempting offer, but I had become so much absorbed
in my work in West Virginia that I dreaded to give it up. However, I
tore myself away from it. I did not know how to refuse to perform any
service that General Armstrong desired of me.
On going to Hampton, I took up my residence in a building with about
seventy-five Indian youths. I was the only person in the building who
was not a member of their race. At first I had a good deal of doubt
about my ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself
above the white man, and, of course, he felt himself far above the
Negro, largely on account of the fact of the Negro having submitted to
slavery--a thing which the Indian would never do. The Indians, in the
Indian Territory, owned a large number of slaves during the days of
slavery. Aside from this, there was a general feeling that the attempt
to educate and civilize the red men at Hampton would be a failure.
All this made me proceed very cautiously, for I felt keenly the great
responsibility. But I was determined to succeed. It was not long before
I had the complete confidence of the Indians, and not only this, but
I think I am safe in saying that I had their love and respect. I found
that they were about like any other human beings; that they responded
to kind treatment and resented ill-treatment. They were continually
planning to do something that would add to my happiness and comfort. The
things that they disliked most, I think, were to have their long hair
cut, to give up wearing their blankets, and to cease smoking; but no
white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until
he wears the
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