Opening of Religious Services and Schools.--Mrs.
Peake a Teacher.--Singing in the Schools.--Christmas
Festival.
The religious and educational part of the mission has been one of
blessedness and promise. And in this, as in everything else, I have
aimed to teach self-development. In connection with the gathering of
the people in religious meetings, I proposed to commence Sabbath and
week-day schools, with such teachers as I had at hand. Meanwhile, some
of the children of the vicinity, getting perhaps some hint of my
intention, or prompted by an impulse from on high, called on Mrs.
Peake, and requested her to teach them, as she had taught the children
in Hampton.
It was with much gratification that I learned this request. I soon
found from observation, as well as information, that we had in her a
teacher of the choicest spirit, and of peculiar qualifications. She
was happy in having pupils as ready to learn as to request
instruction. Her school numbered at first only about half a dozen, but
in a few days she had between fifty and sixty. These scholars were
found to have generally very fair intellectual capabilities, and a few
evinced quite rare talents. Among these was her own little daughter,
five years old, named Hattie, but familiarly called by the pet name of
Daisy. She learned to read simple lessons fluently in a very short
time. Others also exhibited a precocity which from day to day rewarded
and stimulated the ardor of this devoted teacher.
Mrs. Peake was not satisfied with the ordinary routine of the week-day
school room, but felt that the teacher of a mission school should aim
to educate the children for eternity as well as for time. She found
great assistance in the primer, catechism, and other elementary
religious books, with which she had been furnished. She felt that the
teachings of the week-day school ought to be largely preparatory to
the rehearsals of the Sabbath school. What an impression for good
would be made upon the rising generation, were this course universally
pursued!
Mrs. Peake deeply realized that every undertaking, and especially that
of training the young, should be begun and continued with prayer. She
not only prayed with her pupils, but taught them to pray. Having a
rich store of scriptural knowledge, and feeling its worth, and the
importance of simplifying it to the young, in order to awaken their
interest, she bestowed special attention on catechetical instruction.
Not satisfied with having Scripture truths committed to memory, she
explained and inculcated them, with line upon line and precept upon
precept, drawn from her own knowledge and experience. I can not think
that this spiritual instruction interfered in the least with the
other, but rather was a handmaid to it, furnishing a pleasant as well
as profitable variety, awakening and developing heart and mind at
once.
Mrs. Peake also considered singing an important part of a right
education. Among the favorite hymns first learned and sung in her
school were, "I want to be an angel," "There is a happy land," "Around
the throne of God in heaven," "Here we meet to part again," "In heaven
we part no more," and others of kindred spirit, so familiar in the
Sabbath schools at the North. How ardent was her desire to win the
young intellect and affections for Jesus and heaven! With strict
appropriateness may we apply to her the poet's language,--
"And as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
She tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."
While Mrs. Peake attached prime importance to the training of the
rising generation, she felt that great improvement might be made among
the adults. This view inspired her action from the first in Hampton,
and with a blessed result, that is now apparent to all. She was
accordingly very ready to gratify the desire of a number of adults for
an evening school, notwithstanding her increasing infirmities. The
result is, that several, who scarcely knew the alphabet before, now
begin to read with considerable readiness.
In these multiplied labors, she exhibited a martyr spirit, of the true
type. Often when she was confined to her bed, her pupils would be
found around her, drawing knowledge as it were from her very life.
Again and again did Dr. Browne, brigade surgeon, who concerned himself
for her like a brother, advise her to consider her weakness, and
intermit her exhausting duties. The scene of these labors was the
Brown Cottage, near the seminary, fronting on Hampton Roads. The
school room was the front room, first story. Her own family apartment
was the front room, second story. It will ever be a place about which
precious memories will linger.
It was proposed that, on Christmas day, the children of the school
should have a festival. All the week previous, they were busy, with
their teacher, in preparations and rehearsals. A large room on the
first floor of the seminary was decorated with evergreens for the
occasion, and at one end a platform was constructed. At an early hour
in the evening, the room was crowded with colored children and
adults, and soldiers and officers. The programme opened with the
singing of "My country, 'tis of thee." Chaplain Fuller read the
account of the nativity of Christ. Dr. Linson prayed. Then the
children discoursed very sweet music in solo, semi-chorus, and chorus,
and at intervals spoke pieces in a very commendable manner,
considering that it was probably the first attempt of colored children
in the South.
Little Daisy, (Mrs. Peake's only child,) about five years old, was the
acknowledged star of the evening. She sang very prettily in solo, and
also in connection with the chorus. She sang alone the whole of the
hymn, "I want to be an angel."
[Illustration: LITTLE DAISY.]
I spoke of the contrast between the present and the past. A year ago,
_white_ children in Hampton could enjoy a scene of this kind, but
_colored_ children were excluded. But now times have changed. The
white man's child is away, and the colored man's child is on the
stage, and swells the choral song. And this is but a miniature picture
of what will be. The present is prophetic of the future. The few
hundred children about Fortress Monroe, now gathered into schools,
after the pattern of this first school, are types of one million of
children throughout the sunny South, on whom the sunlight of knowledge
is yet to shine.
After the concert exercises, the members of the school and others
repaired to the Brown Cottage. Here we were conducted into the school
room, which, like the concert room, was tastefully decorated with
evergreens; and we filed around a long table laden with refreshments,
and surrounded with Christmas trees, loaded with good things, all
gotten up spontaneously by, and at the expense of, the colored people
in the neighborhood. The viands were partaken of with a relish, and
by unanimous consent it was declared a merry Christmas of the right
type; the children sang, "Merry Christmas to all! Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all!"