Page:Boys Life of Booker T. Washington.djvu/57

Rh made Washington an exceedingly happy man. He immediately wrote that he would accept the position. Some weeks later he reached Hampton, ready to enter upon his new duties. His job was a rather peculiar one. The Indians in the United States, who had been put upon certain territories out West, after being taken from their land in the South and Southwest, had no system of education and were entirely without schools of any kind. General Armstrong wanted to help them. He said he believed that they could be educated, and he wanted to try it. The Government of the United States gave its consent and agreed to cooperate with him.

They brought from the West to Hampton about one hundred Indian boys to be educated. These boys were very ignorant; Booker Washington says that they were almost wild. Washington's task was to live in the same building with these Indian boys and look after them—to be a sort of "house father" to them. He had a hard job. The Indians are a very proud people. They felt themselves superior to the white race, as well as to the black race. They had a special dislike for the negro because he had been a slave, and the Indians would not be slaves; they preferred death to slavery. These boys were not only very ignorant, but it was very hard to make them understand,