Then we want to have you to learn to govern your actions, not alone for the sake of the result which they will have upon yourself and those who are near and dear to you, but for the sake of your influence upon all with whom you will come in contact. Your life here will be largely wasted--I am tempted to say wholly wasted--if you fail to learn that higher, broader, and far more important lesson of your relations to your fellow-students and to all the persons by whom you are going to be daily surrounded. Your life will be wasted if you go away from here and have not learned that the greatest lesson of all is the lesson of brotherly love, of usefulness and of charity. I want to see young men who are here realize this spirit to such an extent that they will rise in chapel and give their seats to students who are strangers at the school. I want to have you get to the point where you will go to the matron in the dining room and ask her permission to have some new student who has not had a chance to get acquainted take his meals at a seat beside you.
Of the many noble traits exhibited by the late General Armstrong, none made a deeper impression upon me than his supreme unselfishness. I do not believe that I ever saw in all my association with General Armstrong anything in his life or actions which indicated in the slightest degree that he was selfish. He was interested not only in the black South, but in the white South, not only in his own school, but in all schools. Anything which he could do or say to benefit another institution seemed to give him as much pleasure as if he were speaking or acting directly for the benefit of Hampton Institute.
I had a pleasant experience of this spirit of a desire to be helpful to others a little while ago, when I was visiting a certain theological seminary in Pennsylvania. I think I was never in such an atmosphere as during the two days I spent in that institution. I was surrounded by a crowd of young men whose sole object seemed to be to make me comfortable and happy. Most of these young men were far advanced in the study of theology and the sciences, and yet they were not above serving me, even to the extent of offering to black my boots. When I came away several wished to carry my luggage to the station. This is the kind of thoughtfulness we want to have in every corner of this institution. Get hold of the spirit of wanting to help somebody else. Seek every opportunity possible to make somebody happy and comfortable. Do all this, and you will find that the years will not be many before we will have one of the best institutions on the face of the globe, and that you, in helping to make it such, have been doing things that, when you ask yourselves: "What would father and mother say about my doing this?" will enable you to answer the question with pride and satisfaction.