occasion to push his chair up a long, steep hill that taxed
his strength to the utmost. When the top of the hill was reached, the
former pupil, with a glow of happiness on his face, exclaimed, "I am so
glad that I have been permitted to do something that was real hard
for the General before he dies!" While I was a student at Hampton, the
dormitories became so crowded that it was impossible to find room for
all who wanted to be admitted. In order to help remedy the difficulty,
the General conceived the plan of putting up tents to be used as rooms.
As soon as it became known that General Armstrong would be pleased if
some of the older students would live in the tents during the winter,
nearly every student in school volunteered to go.

I was one of the volunteers. The winter that we spent in those tents
was an intensely cold one, and we suffered severely--how much I am sure
General Armstrong never knew, because we made no complaints. It was
enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong, and
that we were making it possible for an additional number of students to
secure an education. More than once, during a cold night, when a stiff
gale would be blowing, our tend was lifted bodily, and we would find
ourselves in the open air. The General would usually pay a visit to the
tents early in the morning, and his earnest, cheerful, encouraging voice
would dispel any feeling of despondency.

I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but
a type of that Christlike body of men and women who went into the Negro
schools at the close of the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting
up my race. The history of the world fails to show a higher, purer, and
more unselfish class of men and women than those who found their way
into those Negro schools.

Life at Hampton was a constant revelation to me; was constantly taking
me into a new world. The matter of having meals at regular hours, of
eating on a tablecloth, using a napkin, the use of the bath-tub and of
the tooth-brush, as well as the use of sheets upon the bed, were all new
to me.

I sometimes feel that almost the most valuable lesson I got at the
Hampton Institute was in the use and value of the bath. I learned there
for the first time some of its value, not only in keeping the body
healthy, but in inspiring self-respect and promoting virtue. In all my
travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton I have always
in some way sought