Fresh from the degrading
influences of the slave plantation and the coal-mines, it was a
rare privilege for me to be permitted to come into direct contact
with such a character as General Armstrong. I shall always
remember that the first time I went into his presence he made the
impression upon me of being a perfect man: I was made to feel
that there was something about him that was superhuman. It was my
privilege to know the General personally from the time I entered
Hampton till he died, and the more I saw of him the greater he
grew in my estimation. One might have removed from Hampton all
the buildings, class-rooms, teachers, and industries, and given
the men and women there the opportunity of coming into daily
contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a
liberal education. The older I grow, the more I am convinced that
there is no education which one can get from books and costly
apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact
with great men and women. Instead of studying books so
constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn
to study men and things!
General Armstrong spent two of the last six months of his life in
my home at Tuskegee. At that time he was paralyzed to the extent
that he had lost control of his body and voice in a very large
degree.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84