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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