coal, or a candle getting extinguished, were ever threatening those engaged in the works. It was in such an atmosphere and amid such surroundings, however, that the dawn of a new era sent its beams across his chequered pathway. It was there that he heard for the first time of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which was destined to shape for him his life-course. The institution in question is near to the small town and bathing resort of Hampton, in Virginia, and the channel, commanded by Fortress Monroe, was the scene of some lively naval fights during the Civil War. The institution was founded in 1868 by General S. C. Armstrong, and two years later was incorporated by the State of Virginia. Its object is stated to be "to train young men and women of the negro and Indian races to become teachers among their own people." Booker Washington happened to overhear two men in the coal mine conversing together about this school, and he resolved to find out everything possible about it. The revelation had for him something more than passing interest; strange new hopes had been kindled in his soul. If he had asked, Who was Samuel Chapman Armstrong? he might have learned that he was an officer who had served in the Civil War, and that he was born in the Hawaiian Islands in 1839. The General was a genuine, warm-hearted friend of the coloured races, and as he became to Booker Washington an exemplar, or even something like an apostle, who did more than any other human teacher to mark out his pathway of life, some reference may be made to the pressing needs of the freed negroes in the years which immediately followed the close of the Civil War. There are now some ten million coloured people in the Southern States, but at the time in question there were less than half of this number. Nevertheless, the crisis was sufficiently serious to be even alarming. Thus a contemporary writer says:—

"Such sudden emancipation, on so vast a scale, is unequalled in the annals of history. The nearest parallel to it is the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. A nation, numbering about two millions, was then suddenly emancipated. But as for their sustenance and preservation a succession of miracles took place, it is not necessary for our present purpose to pursue the parallel. No instance in secular history equals the present position of the freed negroes of North America. The crisis has come in a manner and at a time that could hardly have been anticipated by the wisest forecaster of political events."

Great as was the need for earnest effort after hostilities ceased, however, the want and suffering had been far more acute in days that had gone before. The contemporary writer just quoted adds:—

"From the very beginning of the war hundreds have suddenly poured in, as at an hour's notice, upon the cities of the Northern States. One of the camps was inundated by a thousand of these naked and starving fugitives in a single day, and this whilst the snow was coldly and silently covering the surrounding landscape. After the Federals had gained possession of Memphis, there speedily turned into it a long train of negroes, so miserably destitute that, having nothing whatever with them of food or clothing but the rags of two or three years' wear, and only the clouds and the trees to shelter them, these human multitudes were far worse off than the comfortably-kennelled dogs of their white brethren. When General Sherman passed through Georgia, he was asked how many negroes had followed his army. The reply was, 'Ten miles of them.'"

Charitable and Christian people were moved to do what lay in their power not only to relieve present sufferings, but to enable the coloured folk to make a new start in the world. Associations were formed, money was collected, even the Government took care that rations should be distributed. The result was that the outlook soon showed signs of improvement. At one time Levi Coffin of Cincinnati reported that there were thirty-five camps in the Mississippi Valley which contained about 650,000 coloured fugitives, but these camps soon became self-supporting. The more acute want and suffering were soon relieved, but it soon became more and more apparent that service of a more permanent kind would have to be undertaken if the coloured people were to be raised from the low condition into which slavery had reduced them. People of the shrewder sort clearly saw that great results might be expected from education and industrial training. Although the prevailing ignorance was of the densest kind, all were most anxious to learn. Wherever a camp appeared it was certain that schools would speedily follow; and in what must have appeared an incredibly short space of time no less than 250 schools were established in that Mississippi Valley alone. The contemporary anonymous writer in the Leisure Hour who has already been quoted, and who appears to have been thoroughly well acquainted with the negroes' characteristics and condition in their transition state, adds this word-picture of the general outlook at the time to which reference is being made:—

"They are most anxious to be taught, and most docile under direction. Their ignorance previously was universal and extreme. It is no wonder that their religious camp-meetings had become associated with the most grotesque ideas and narrations. It is no wonder that their phraseology was a caricature of civilised language. For how could they be expected to manifest intelligence without any education? So deplorably destitute of instruction were they that very few even of their preachers could read the simplest words. Old men amongst them who had preached the Gospel to their black congregations for upwards of forty years, were found totally ignorant of the alphabet, and, of course, had never read a verse of Scripture. How could the Sermons, the prayers and the religious ideas of such 'pastors' be other than grievously deficient?"

When the depressed conditions under which these coloured people had previously lived were duly taken into account, the most wonderful thing of all was seen in the rapid strides they made in the betterment of their temporal condition or outward surroundings. The days no longer passed in dull or even painful monotony. Labour, which had hitherto been to them hard bondage, not easy to bear, had become a privilege and a pleasure. Having survived the too exaggerated notions of what the new era might mean for them, and the inevitable reaction of disappointment which followed, they could now take stock of life and realise that they had been enormous gainers by at last coming into that inheritance for which their forefathers had so earnestly longed and prayed. The responsibilities, and even the commonplace things associated with freedom, were intensely prized. In contrast with the loose and demoralising customs which had been characteristic of slave-worked plantations, marriage became a bond not to be dissolved. Now that they were becoming able to read it for themselves, the Bible became a prized book, which the negroes regarded as being peculiarly their own. So far from disappointing those who sought to aid them, now that their ex-owners, the planters, were so greatly impoverished, or even ruined, the negroes surprised their friends by the readiness with which they adapted themselves to their new life. The way in which habits of industry and economy were formed struck observers with peculiar force, as being an exceedingly hopeful sign. Nor did the freer air, which they now breathed, in any measure weaken those Christian ties which had held them together in their days of bondage. Their religious meetings were well maintained, but of course under happier conditions. The sad or even strangely weird songs which had been sung by night with bated breath, as it were, in the slave-cabins could now be