Too often, it seems to me, in missionary and educational work among underdeveloped races, people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before, or is being done in other communities a thousand miles away.

The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mould, regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be accomplished.

This was not so at Hampton Institute.
The address which I delivered on Commencement Day seems to have pleased every one, and many kind and encouraging words were spoken to me regarding it.

Soon after my return to my home in West Virginia, where I had planned to continue teaching, I was again surprised to receive a letter from General Armstrong, asking me to return to Hampton partly as a teacher and partly to pursue some supplementary studies.

This was in the summer of 1879.