About this time the experiment was being tried for the first
time, by General Armstrong, of education Indians at Hampton. Few
people then had any confidence in the ability of the Indians to
receive education and to profit by it. General Armstrong was
anxious to try the experiment systematically on a large scale. He
secured from the reservations in the Western states over one
hundred wild and for the most part perfectly ignorant Indians,
the greater proportion of whom were young men. The special work
which the General desired me to do was be a sort of "house
father" to the Indian young men--that is, I was to live in the
building with them and have the charge of their discipline,
clothing, rooms, and so on. This was a very tempting offer, but I
had become so much absorbed in my work in West Virginia that I
dreaded to give it up. However, I tore myself away from it. I did
not know how to refuse to perform any service that General
Armstrong desired of me.
On going to Hampton, I took up my residence in a building with
about seventy-five Indian youths. I was the only person in the
building who was not a member of their race. At first I had a
good deal of doubt about my ability to succeed. I knew that the
average Indian felt himself above the white man, and, of course,
he felt himself far above the Negro, largely on account of the
fact of the Negro having submitted to slavery--a thing which the
Indian would never do.
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