The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918

"Dr. Peabody has devoted himself especially on bringing out the growth of Dr. Frissell's carefully-thought-out educational ideals, whereby he added the value of work to the necessity of it in a complete education. Under Frissell, as is so well shown, Hampton entered on its second stage, its relation to the philosophy of education. Men came from all over the world to study the question of the training of native races. Inspired by his work, Frissell saw the possibilities on every side, and looked far into the future. Thus, as has been said, his set purpose broadened the school to include Porto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and even Africa, making it what he loved to call it, a 'race laboratory.' That he succeeded appears in the constant stream of officials, educators and philanthropists from all over the globe coming to Hampton that they may study and copy its methods. The vision of the future which was given to Dr. Frissell was not so much a vision of a new race, as with Armstrong; it was for Frissell a vision of a new humanity.

"It is this vision of 'Education for life' which Dr. Peabody brings out so clearly—both its meaning and its value. The oldest friends of Hampton have hardly understood it before, so well does he explain it, and so thoroughly does he show that its purpose is to make men and women. Artisans and skilled workmen come out of it, but its first purpose is to develop individuals and all its interests tend to this end. This explains its limitations also, and answers many complaints. The white teacher who recently left because there was 'no future' for her own career; the educator who complained of a system which continued to educate on general lines when some vocational diversion would be more profitable; those who support the objections of the 'Crisis' that Hampton is not a university—all these critics fail to understand the new philosophy of Hampton and its dominant human motive. It would be a great mistake if, as appears to be hinted here, any concessions should be made to the demand of these last critics, whose aims would destroy the whole idea of Hampton, and its value as a world experiment. The author of the book and distinguished student of social ethics so strongly brings out its claim to a new education, for a new world that (to repeat) the reader cannot fail to inquire if this is the solution of the future in our forthcoming new world.

"Dr. Peabody brings us to the beginning of the third era and pays a deserved tribute to the new principal. Rev. James E. Gregg, who enters on the task at a critical time. Just now, when the race question is acute both here and everywhere, and when the new democracy is demanding a new education, there could hardly be a greater opportunity for the man or the school.

This inadequate sketch of a most informing and inspiring book may well be closed with a few paragraphs which sum up the aims of Hampton Institute:

"'In short, the fundamental issue in all education for life is between a training to make things and a training to make character. Is a man to be taught carpentering primarily that a house shall be well built, or that in the building the man himself shall get intelligence, self-mastery and skill?'

"'The principle was definitely accepted that these shops and classes were maintained, not as sources of profit, but as factors in an education for life. Young men and women were not to be regarded as satisfactory products of Hampton Institute because each could do one thing and get good wages for doing it, but because each had been trained to apply mind and will to the single task, and had made it not only a way of living, but a way of life.'

"'Trade education as conceived gradually developed and finally realized at Hampton Institute is a development of the person through the trade, rather than a development of the trade through the person. The product is not primarily goods, but goodness; not so much profit as personality.... These students become delivered from the benumbing conditions of modern industry by the emancipating and humanizing effect of the Hampton scheme of industrial training, and those who are thus initiated in a large view of their small opportunities are likely to find their way, not only to those occupations, which are still open at the top, but to those resources of happiness which are discovered when work has become a vocation, and labor has contributed to life.'"

NOTES

In the introduction to Book II of Negro Folk-Songs the author, Mrs. Natalie Curtis Burlin, has some interesting paragraphs showing the connection of this music with certain origins in Africa. She says:

"That Negro folk-song is indeed an offshoot from an African root, nobody who has heard Africans sing or even beat the drum can deny. The American Negroes are sprung, of course, from many tribes; but whereas the native traffic in slaves and captives brought individuals from widely separated parts of the continent to the coasts and thus to the European slavers, the great mass of Negroes that filled the slave ships destined for America probably belonged—according to some authorities—to the big linguistic stock called Bantu, comprising some fifty million people south of the equator. The Zulu and Ndau tribes, whose songs I studied, are of this stock. Yet, as there are over a hundred million Negroes on the Dark Continent, whose different traits are probably represented in some form in this country, all statements as to musical derivations could be made with final authority only by one who had studied comprehensively the music of many different tribes in Africa. This much, however, one may most emphatically affirm: though the Negro, transplanted to other lands, absorbed much musically from a surrounding civilization, yet the characteristics which give to his music an interest worthy of particular study are precisely those which differentiate Negro songs from the songs of the neighboring white man; they are racial traits, and the black man brought them from the Dark Continent.

"The most obvious point of demarcation between Negro music and European is found, of course, in the rhythm. The simpler rhythms natural to the white man (I speak of folk-music, the people's song, not of the elaborate creations of trained musicians) are usually even and symmetrical. Throughout western Europe and in English and Latin countries, the accents fall as a rule on the stressed syllables of the spoken tongue and on the regular beats of the music. The opposite is the case in Negro songs: here the rhythms are uneven, jagged, and, at a first hearing, eccentric, for the accents fall most frequently on the short notes and on the naturally unstressed beats, producing what we call 'syncopation' of a very intricate and highly developed order. The peculiarity of this syncopation is best explained to the layman by drawing attention to the way in which the natural rhythms of the English language are distorted to fit the rhythm of Negro music: where the white man would sing, 'Go down Moses,' the Negro chants, 'Go down, Moses,' while a phrase like 'See my Mother,' becomes in the mouth of the colored singer 'See my Mother.' These identical accents are found in even the wordless vowel refrains of native African songs. Rhythmically the Negro folk-song has far more variety of accent than the European; it captivates the ear and the imagination with its exciting vitality and with its sense of alertness and movement. For this reason Negro rhythms and white man imitations of them popularized as 'rag-time' have spread far and wide and have conquered the world to-day. The black man has by nature a highly organized rhythmic sense. A totally uneducated Negro, dancing or playing the bones, is often a consummate artist in rhythm, performing with utter abandon and yet with flawless accuracy. My African informant, Kamba Simango, thought nothing of singing one rhythm, beating another with his hands and dancing a third—and all at once!

"Melodically as well as rhythmically, American Negro songs possess distinct characteristics. One of these is a very prevalent use of the pentatonic or five-tone scale, corresponding to the black keys of the piano. If one comes upon a group of colored men unconsciously humming or whistling at work, most often it is the five-tone scale that utters their musical thoughts. This scale—along with other scales—is heard in black Africa also, and in the music of many simple peoples in different parts of the world. Indeed, just as totally unrelated races at certain stages of culture seem to trace many of the same rudimentary symbols and designs on pottery and in textiles, so in music, the archaic simplicity of the five-tone scale would seem almost a basic human art-instinct. Yet the highly developed civilization and the carefully defined musical systems of China and other nations of the farthest East retain the pentatonic scale in wide use, the Chinese in their philosophical and mystical theories of music, linking the five-tones symbolically with the heavenly bodies. It is surprising how much variety can be achieved with those five tones. One of the most graceful melodies that I know in all music is the popular Chinese 'lily Song' which I recorded from a Chinese actor and which possesses the sheer beauty of outline and the firm delicacy of a Chinese drawing. Indeed, the melodic possibilities of the five-tone scale, containing a charm absolutely peculiar to that scale, instead of being limited, seem almost endless.

"American Negro music, is however, by no means restricted to this tonality, for we find a broad indulgence in the major and minor modes of modern art, and also there are many songs in which occur tones foreign to those scales most common of which is perhaps the minor, or flat, seventh. Then, too, there are songs framed in the scale with a sharp fourth; and we also find, though more rarely in Negro music, the augmented interval of three semitones. Those of us who have noted Arabic folk-songs are accustomed to associate this latter interval with Semitic music; occurring as it does in African music also it reminds us of the contact between the black population of Africa and the Semitic peoples in the white north of the continent whose caravan trade brought them into communication with the more savage interior, while their ships touched at ports along the coasts and even landed colonists on the Eastern shores, where Arab trade across the Red Sea must have existed since early Bible times. As the age-old slave traffic brought captives from African tribes out from the heart of black Africa to the north, we can readily see how, since the very dawn of history, Negro and Semitic cultures must have touched. One of the Bantu legends in my collection from Portuguese East Africa is probably of Semitic origin, and the song which it embodies seems also tinged with foreign color. Without doubt, Semitic tunes and musical intervals found their way to African ears, while, on the other side, African Negro drum-beats and syncopations must have influenced Berber, Moorish and thus perhaps even Spanish rhythms.

"Another characteristic of the Negro, musically, is a harmonic sense indicating musical intuition of a high order. This instinct for natural polyphony is made clear in the recording of the Negro songs in this collection, wherein I have noted the four-part harmony as sung extemporaneously by colored boys who had had no musical training whatever. Some of the most beautiful improvisational part-singing that I ever heard arose from the throats of utterly illiterate black laborers in a tobacco factory. One has but to attend a colored church, whether North or South, to hear men and women break naturally into alto, tenor or bass parts (and even subdivisions of these), to realize how instinctively the Negro musical mind thinks harmonies. I have heard players in colored bands perform one part on an instrument and sing another while all those around him were playing and singing still different parts. Yet it has been asserted by some people that the harmonic sense of the Negro is a product of white environment and that the black man owes his intuitive gift to the slave-holders who sang hymns, ballads and popular songs in his hearing! With all due allowance for white influence, which has been great, of course, the fact remains that in savage Africa, remote from European culture, many of the most primitive pagan songs are sung in parts with elaborate interludes on drums tuned to different pitches. Indeed the music of the Dark Continent is rich in polyphonic as well as rhythmic suggestions for the European. Perhaps the war may help to prick some of the vanity of the white race, which, looking down with self-assumed superiority upon other races, is quick to condemn delinquencies as native characteristics, and to ascribe to its own influences anything worthy; whereas the reverse is, alas, all too often the case. Certainly the art of Africa, of India, of the Orient and of North America owes to the Anglo-Saxon only corruption and commercialization. As for American Negro music, those songs that are most like the music of the white people—and they are not few—are the least interesting; they are sentimental, tame, and uneventful both in melody and rhythm. On the other hand, such melodies as 'Go down Moses,' 'Four and Twenty Eiders on Their Knees,' 'Run, Mary, Run,' these speak from the very soul of the black race and no white man could have conceived them. They have a dignity barbaric, aloof and wholly individual which lifts them cloud-high above any 'White' hymns that the Negro might have overheard. Austere as Egyptian bas-relief, simple as Congo sculpture, they are mighty melodies, and they are Negro."

D. Appleton and Company have published for Professor Ulrich B. Phillips of the University of Michigan a volume entitled American Negro Slavery.

Lincoln, the Politician, by T. Aaron Levy, and Latest Lights on Abraham Lincoln, and War Time Memories, works published by Badger and Revell respectively, are two important volumes throwing light on the Civil War.

Among the Washington University Studies has appeared a monograph by C. S. Boucher entitled The Secession and Cooperation Movements in South Carolina, 1848 to 1852.

notes

1

On account of ill health Mr. W. B. Hartgrove, who was preparing this article, had to turn over his unfinished manuscript to the editor, who completed it. The story is based on the "Life of Josiah Henson," "Father Henson's Story of His Own Life" and "Uncle Tom's Story of His Life."—The Editor.

2

Henson, "Uncle Tom's Story of his Life," p. 15.

3

Henson, "Uncle Tom's own Story of his Life," p. 53.

4

Henson gives this interesting conversation:

"How far is it to Canada?" He gave me a peculiar look, and in a minute I saw he knew all. "Want to go to Canada? Come along with us, then. Our captain's a fine fellow. We're going to Buffalo." "Buffalo; how far is that from Canada?" "Don't you know, man? Just across the river." I now opened my mind frankly to him, and told him about my wife and children. "I'll speak to the captain," said he. He did so, and in a moment the captain took me aside, and said, "The Doctor says you want to go to Buffalo with your family." "Yes, sir." "Well why not go with me?" was his frank reply. "Doctor says you've got a family." "Yes, sir." "Where do you stop?" "About a mile back." "How long have you been here." "No time," I answered, after a moment's hesitation. "Come, my good fellow, tell us all about it. You're running away, ain't you?" Henson saw that he was a friend, and opened his heart to him. "How long will it take you to get ready?" "Be here in half an hour, sir." "Well go along and get them." Off I started; but, before I had run fifty feet, he called me back. "Stop," said he; "you go on getting the grain in. When we get off, I'll lay to over opposite that island, and send a boat back. There's a lot of regular nigger-catchers in the town below, and they might suspect if you brought your party out of the bush by daylight." I worked away with a will. Soon the two or three hundred bushels of corn were aboard, the hatches fastened down, the anchor raised, and the sails hoisted. I watched the vessel with intense interest as she left her moorings. Away she went before the free breeze. Already she seemed beyond the spot at which the captain agreed to lay to, and still she flew along. My heart sank within me; so near deliverance, and again to have my hopes blasted, again to be cast on my own resources. I felt that they had been making a mock of my misery. The sun had sunk to rest, and the purple and gold of the west were fading away into gray. Suddenly, however, as I gazed with weary heart the vessel swung round into the wind, the sails flapped, and she stood motionless. A moment more, and a boat was lowered from her stern, and with steady stroke made for the point at which I stood. I felt that my hour of release had come. On she came, and in ten minutes she rode up handsomely on the beach. My black friend and two sailors jumped out, and we started on at once for my wife and children. To my horror, they were gone from the place where I left them. Overpowered with fear, I supposed they had been found and carried off. There was no time to lose, and the men told me I would have to go alone. Just at the point of despair, however, I stumbled on one of the children. My wife it seemed, alarmed at my long absence, had given up all for lost, and supposed I had fallen into the hands of the enemy. When she heard my voice, mingled with those of the others, she thought my captors were leading me back to make me discover my family, and in the extremity of her terror she had tried to hide herself. I had hard work to satisfy her. Our long habits of concealment and anxiety had rendered her suspicious of every one; and her agitation was so great that for a time she was incapable of understanding what I said, and went on in a sort of paroxysm of distress and fear. This, however, was soon over, and the kindness of my companions did much to facilitate the matter."—Father Henson's Story of his own Life, p. 121.

5

Henson, "Uncle Tom's Story of his Life," p. 162.

6

Years thereafter when taking dinner with a distinguished gentleman in London the thought of enjoying such privileges while his only brother was in slavery dawned suddenly and impressed itself so forcefully upon him that he immediately arose from the table, unable to eat. He soon returned to America and at once proceeded to devise means to free his brother. Mr. William Chaplain, of New York, had repeatedly urged him to flee by way of the underground railroad, but he was so demoralized and stultified by slavery that he would not make an effort. Mr. Chaplain made a second effort to induce him to escape but he still refused. Henson finally arranged to sell the narrative of his life to secure funds for his liberation. The book sold well in New England and the requisite four hundred dollars being raised his brother was freed and enabled to join him in Canada.—Father Henson's Story of his own Life, pp. 209-212.

7

Liberator, April 11, 1851.

8

For the inscription we are indebted to the Cambridge edition of the poems of Mrs. Browning, edited by Harriet Waters Preston, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, p. xii. Translation: Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who united to a woman's heart the learning of a savant and the inspiration of a poet, and made her verse a golden link between Italy and England. This tablet was set by grateful Florence in 1861.

9

The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, edited by Frederic G. Kenton, 2 vols., Macmillan, New York and London, 1898. Vol. I, p. 21.

10

Letters, I, 23.

11

I. e., Franklin Pierce.

12

Letters, II, 110.

13

Letters, II, 183.

14

Quoted from Browning Society Papers, Part XII, by Elizabeth Porter Gould in The Brownings and America, p. 55.

15

Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Life and Letters of Robert Browning. 2 vols. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1891. Vol. I, p. 8.

16