I
was determined, if possible, to make such a record in my class as
would cause me to be placed on the "honour roll" of Commencement
speakers. This I was successful in doing. It was June of 1875 when I
finished the regular course of study at Hampton. The greatest
benefits that I got out of my at the Hampton Institute, perhaps, may
be classified under two heads: --
First was contact with a great man, General S.C. Armstrong, who, I
repeat, was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful
character that it has ever been my privilege to meet.
Second, at Hampton, for the first time, I learned what education
was expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good
deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure
an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity
for manual labour. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a
disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its
financial value, but for labour's own sake and for the independence
and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world
wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what
it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the
fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make
others useful and happy.
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