1
/
of
1
history-bytes
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1873
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1873
Regular price
$5.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$5.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
Kindle version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1864.
Lots of great illustrations seldom seen in the last 140 years.
Read excerpt -
The Normal and Agricultural Institute is a natural outgrowth of these earliest efforts. In 1867 General S. C. Armstrong, a young man who had distinguished himself in the battles of the Penin¬sula at the head of the Ninth United States colored troops, was stationed at Hampton as superintendent of a department of the Freedmen's Bureau. His experience during and after the war among the loyal people he had led gave him a quick sense of their needs. The thronging thousands that had come up out of bondage at the first call of liberty and occupied the land were too many for the primary mission schools to manage. The sufferings and vices incident to such numbers were prevalent, and there was danger that the freedman would slip back into the inert contentment with ignorance that belongs to slavery, and the impetus of his first hunger and thirst after knowledge be lost. Education of the most practical kind was the only lever that could raise these masses to the plane to which they were called, and the very point occupied by the Freedman's Bureau station seemed the specially appointed fulcrum for it, lying directly in the focus of the swarming camps, and of a system of waters reaching their farthest limits, and commanding easy access to the North by the coast.
By his earnest representation of these facts General Armstrong induced the American Missionary Association to buy the "Wood Farm," which was the bureau station, for the establishment of a normal and agricultural school. The position of its superintendent was given, entirely unsought, to himself, and he has been ever since its inspirer and prime mover. As far as any great work of the kind can be ascribed to one man's agency, this is the result of his en¬thusiasm and foresight and almost unlimited executive abilities.
No models existed at the North or South for an institution of the kind. It has had to be developed by the necessities of the people, but he was assisted in forming his plans by his acquaintance with the manual-labor schools of the Sandwich Islands
Lots of great illustrations seldom seen in the last 140 years.
Read excerpt -
The Normal and Agricultural Institute is a natural outgrowth of these earliest efforts. In 1867 General S. C. Armstrong, a young man who had distinguished himself in the battles of the Penin¬sula at the head of the Ninth United States colored troops, was stationed at Hampton as superintendent of a department of the Freedmen's Bureau. His experience during and after the war among the loyal people he had led gave him a quick sense of their needs. The thronging thousands that had come up out of bondage at the first call of liberty and occupied the land were too many for the primary mission schools to manage. The sufferings and vices incident to such numbers were prevalent, and there was danger that the freedman would slip back into the inert contentment with ignorance that belongs to slavery, and the impetus of his first hunger and thirst after knowledge be lost. Education of the most practical kind was the only lever that could raise these masses to the plane to which they were called, and the very point occupied by the Freedman's Bureau station seemed the specially appointed fulcrum for it, lying directly in the focus of the swarming camps, and of a system of waters reaching their farthest limits, and commanding easy access to the North by the coast.
By his earnest representation of these facts General Armstrong induced the American Missionary Association to buy the "Wood Farm," which was the bureau station, for the establishment of a normal and agricultural school. The position of its superintendent was given, entirely unsought, to himself, and he has been ever since its inspirer and prime mover. As far as any great work of the kind can be ascribed to one man's agency, this is the result of his en¬thusiasm and foresight and almost unlimited executive abilities.
No models existed at the North or South for an institution of the kind. It has had to be developed by the necessities of the people, but he was assisted in forming his plans by his acquaintance with the manual-labor schools of the Sandwich Islands
Share
