The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.2, page 61, 10 June 1875, U. of Illinois Press

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JUNE . 1875 the annual examinations, and the rhetorical exercises of the graduating class. It is a most emphatic tribute to the intrinsic merit of the school, as wed as to the wisdom of its management, that it is winning, from year to year, a more general and hearty approval from those who might naturally regard it with suspicion and distrust. Virginia hall, a beautiful audience-room, seating about 600, was crowded with a curiously assorted company of whites and blacks and intermediate complexions, representing pretty much all sections, conditions and professions, from the elite of Fortress Monroe and the F. F. V's. down to the Uncle Neds and the newspaper men. Col. Benjamin S. Ewell, president of William and Mary college, and brother of the famous confederate general, in the course of the afternoon speeches, spoke in glowing terms of the eminent success of the institute, and congratulated Gen. Armstrong as a brasher educator. Judge Hughes of Norfolk bore similar testimony, and remarked that, having been for six successive years a punctual and observant visitor of the university of Virginia, comparing its commencement exercises with these, he must allow that the comparison, considering the antecedents and circumstances of the two institutions, was exceedingly favorable to the Hampton students. He was sorry that one-half instead of one-third of the agricultural college land grant to Virginia had not been given by the state Legislature to Hampton. He acknowledged that the white citizens of Virginia were most of all persons indebted to the colored people. ''Although,'' said he, ''we are at present poor and unable to contribute in our proportion toward paying the debt, yet I hope that we shall, by and by, be able to vie with our northern friends in their noble liberality.'' Major Crocker of Portsmouth, superintendent of public schools, and Mr. Jones, formerly Gen. Lee's chaplain, now representing the Richmond Dispatch, and also for this occasion the New York Tribune, spoke eloquently to the same effect, and with cordial allusions to the growing sentiment of unity between North and South as evinced, among other things, by the recent decoration services. To return to the stated school exercises, the morning examinations in the several class rooms in algebra, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, physiology, reading, spelling, moral science, and Dr. Hopkins's ''Outline of Man,''2 were, as a whole, very creditable. A greater proportionate dependence on memory and less of mental self-reliance, perhaps, than pertains to white youth who have been intellectually trained from early childhood and under different moral surroundings, 6I