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.
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