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Recent careful investigation shows that the product of the Indian schools is so generally successful and of good standing that the conclusion is overwhelmingly against any adverse criticism of the Government's system of Indian education.

The war service of 10,000 young Indians brought them distinct educational value in a better use of English, greater self-confidence, respect for authority, and disciplined industry that will add strength and character to their citizenship. The social and domestic life of the Indians is steadily improving. Marriage by tribal custom is notably giving way to legal rites. At present there is hardly more than one-fourth the drunkenness among Indians that prevailed 10 years ago. The missionary workers have been a powerful aid. Their number among the Indians has doubled since 1900, with a corresponding increase of churches and church attendants.

The Indian's industrial progress is especially noteworthy. Their individual funds on deposit have increased in the last eight years in excess of $20,000,000. During that period they have expended for homes, barns, and modern farm implements $18,000,000 and have added $13,000,000 to their capital in live stock. The Indian's transformation from a game hunter and wanderer to a settled landholder and home builder is everywhere evident. Nearly 37,000 Indian farmers are cultivating almost a million acres, 47,000 are engaged in stock raising, and their live stock is worth close to $38,000,000. Their last year's income from the sale of crops and live stock was approximately $14,000,000. The Indians are dependable wageworkers. Their annual earnings in public and private service exceed $3,000,000. Their number receiving rations and supplies not paid for in labor has decreased one-half in the last seven years.

There are not many defenders of the earlier processes of treaty making and treaty breaking, but the constructive plan, followed now for nearly a third of a century, of allotting the Indians land in severalty, of conducting hospitals and schools for physical and mental betterment, and providing them guidance in the productive use of the soil and its related industries, if not a perfect one, is the best plan yet devised for a dependent people and is amply justified by results.

Sincerely yours,

CATO SELLS, Commissioner.

CITIZENSHIP FOR INDIAN SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.

Indian soldiers and sailors who served in the World War and have been honorably discharged, may, by recent congressional enactment, be granted citizenship by courts of competent jurisdiction without affecting their property rights, individual or tribal.

This legislation received my hearty indorsement, and I hail it as a just and fitting tribute to the intelligence, patriotism, and courage of the young men of a virile and enduring race, whose forefathers three centuries ago brought friendly greetings to the Pilgrims in their days of struggle and hardship and for half a century kept inviolate treaty covenants with these first builders of our national life. The great war with autocracy, so lamentable in its horrors and desolations, has, nevertheless, put into the experience of every victorious power engaged in it something that will live through coming

ages, and among these compensations is a better understanding between the Indian and the white man and a closer unity of their common interests and purposes in the land that must forever sustain both races.

NO BACKWARD LURE.

'I feel some degree of satisfaction in having adhered to the policy of not allowing the Indians to be featured as a unique attraction in the various exhibition enterprises of the white man.

There is much in the native life of the Indian which is worthy of preservation, and our educational system does not overlook this. Of course, our primary purpose is to teach him first the practical side of an everyday livelihood, and we stress those things which fit the Indians to be industrious, thrifty, and capable of making their own way in the world, and changes are urged in tribal customs and habits to adapt them better to the necessities of self-support. We have no other choice than to regard the Indian as a fixed component of the white man's civilization and to see that he is equipped to take care of himself.

At the same time, we aim to protect and conserve all that is elevating and cultural in his tribal lore, handicrafts, music, ceremonies; in a word, his tribal art, much of which should live not only in his weird traditions but as a racial coloring and charm to the accomplishments he is destined to contribute to our composite progress in the years to come.

In the following letter I offered some justification for the course pursued during the last seven years in discouraging the requests for delegations of Indians to suspend their home duties in order to enliven some occasion with a spectacular display of primitive feasts or ceremonies, the usual chief features of which are "Wild West " performances:

Mr. C. R. HAMILTON,

Advertising Manager,

Southwestern Exposition and Fat Stock Show,

Fort Worth, Tex.

MY DEAR MR. HAMILTON: Owing to my recent absence in the field, I am taking the first opportunity to acknowledge your letter of December, 5, 1919, in which you refer to the Fat Stock Show and Rodeo to be held at Fort Worth next March, and request my assistance in procuring a band of 25 or 30 Indians from South Dakota to add an entertainment feature to the event.

I am very cordial toward the general purposes of the stock show, knowing the fine results of previous exhibitions, and should like to further its success in every way practicable, all the more so because of local considerations and my high personal regard for its promoters. I feel, however, that you will desire my cooperation only within the limits of what is consistent with the larger welfare and progress of the Indians themselves, which impels me to offer a word of explanation.

Administrative trust for some years has led me into a close study of Indian conditions, during which I have learned that aside from much superficial, and some vicious, thought supporting the withdrawal of all Federal protection and the abandonment of the Indian to shift for himself, there is a sincere and growing feeling that the process of his civilization should be hastened, and responsive to that sentiment I have sought earnestly for ways and means which, without a radical change of racial nature, would lead the Indian to comprehend and appropriate the fundamentals of our American life, with its approved moral, social, and industrial standards.

To this end the Indian Service has stressed its efforts for more healthful and elevating home conditions; for the education of the Indian youth, so that they shall have the language, the vocational training, and the ideals that give access to the avenues of honorable self-support; and especially for the encouragement and guidance of all, both young and old, in the pursuits of agriculture, stock raising, and other fields of remunerative labor.

I ask your indulgence to say that the results appearing on many of the reservations have been gratifying beyond, expression. The limits of this letter will not permit statistical corroboration, but the facts are unmistakable to anyone visiting the Indian country. The reservations are now quite generally typical of the remarkable transformation going on. Nothing there is plainer than that the old order, or rather disorder, is rapidly changing and that a new generation is creating a new leadership that speaks in the intelligence of all faces below middle age, that is found in the prevailing home life, that is seen in the improved breeds of live stock, in the use of modern machinery for farming operations, and that is strikingly prominent in the interest shown by most of these Indians in all the products of their labor displayed at fairs, including the exhibits of their healthy babies. Unquestionably, a new spirit and new conceptions of living are in control of these communities, where not so very long ago the red man heard only the call of his untamed impulse.

I have made it my business to go among these later conditions and note how the old barbarous customs and degrading influences with their pagan dances, their superstitious medicine men, and all the feathered and painted heraldry of wild indolence are giving way to the sure beginnings of initiative, industry, and thrift, and to the desire for their children's education and social betterment. I am especially impressed with the increasing number of Indians who are accepting fee-simple patents to their land-more in the last 3 years than in the 10 preceding-and are thus becoming full-fledged citizens and taxpayers ready to assume their obligations under State and Federal laws and to exercise complete control of all their property; and in all this I see something definitely progressive and hopefully promising which makes it urgent that no backward step be taken.

Whatever encourages the Indians to array themselves in warlike costumes of the past, to participate in old-time dances, and the like, must in a measure emphasize the habits and customs of long ago which, if the Indian is to assume the burdens and enjoy the privileges of citizenship, should disappear. Moreover, such exhibitions tend to give the public a wrong idea of existing conditions by featuring the Indian as delighting in the atmosphere of the past and in exhibitions of his uncivilized state at the expense and in the discouragement of the progressive, industrious Indian whose children are in school, whose wife is a good housekeeper, and who is applying himself to the industrial activities which are in harmony with the white man's civilization. So that, everything considered, I must believe that the best interests of the Indians everywhere demand that they be not attracted away from their homes, the care of their stock and crops, and their general domestic duties to the transient return at

some distant point of old-time performances which tend to justify the too frequent charge that they are not progressive and that little benefit has come from the Government's guardianship.

I prefer, therefore, to adhere to my uniform practice, and trust that the management, whom I would otherwise gladly oblige, will accept my attitude of declination as entirely defensible and consistent with the settled policy which the Indian Bureau has found to be wise.

Sincerely yours,

CATO SELLS, Commissioner.

EDUCATION.

The promise of the Indian race lies in the education of its children, morally, mentally, and industrially. To perform this important function, Indian schools have been developed throughout the Indian country adapted to the particular needs of the race. To be of permanent value, these schools must equip the children to assume as adults the responsibilities of citizens. These institutions have become the milestones marking Indian progress.

The peak of attendance in Indian schools was reached in 1915, when 26,128 Indian children were enrolled, and there has been a gradual yearly decrease since then, both in attendance and the number of Government schools.

Under new rules governing enrollment, published in my last annual report, the following schools were abolished:

The Otoe, Ponca, and Shawnee Schools in Oklahoma; the Cushman School, Tacoma, Wash.; the Southern Ute School, Ignacio, Colo.; the Sisseton, Yankton, and Hope Schools, South Dakota, and Martin Kenel School, North Dakota; the Oneida School, Wisconsin; the White Earth School, Minnesota; and the Kickapoo School, Kansas, as well as a number of Government day schools in many localities.

These reductions do not mean that Indian children are deprived of facilities for their education. Whenever one of our schools is abandoned its place is taken by the public and private school, thus merging the child of the Indian into the same educational processes as that of the whites. In 1913 there were enrolled in public and private schools 25,988, and at present about 29,123 Indian children. This figure, however, does not show all the Indian children who are attending schools, other than Government, but only those of whom reports are made.

The Indian who has absolved himself from governmental supervision and taken up his home in the ordinary life of our people, usually enrolls his children in school with those of his white neighbor, and, while racially remaining an Indian, he takes his place in the nation as an American citizen. In his own life he thus visualizes the Indian Bureau's years of endeavor and indicates the approach of the day when his race will be fully absorbed into the body politic.

But this reference to the decreasing number of purely Indian school activities by no means implies that their complete absorption is near at hand. There still remains, and for many years will remain, a large population which must have the Government's educational aid; this is especially true of the Southwest. There should no longer be delay in making adequate provision for more than 10,000 Indian children in that section who are not in any school, to the end that there shall be equal opportunities for enlightening forces among the race whose progress as a whole we are pledged to promote.

Elsewhere I have mentioned the impossibility of maintaining interested and efficient teachers and other employees without compensation comparable to the requirements demanded.

FUNDAMENTALS IN EDUCATION.-Following the period in which both war and a ravaging epidemic seriously disturbed the normal activities of our schools, I felt that some measure of emphasis should be given to a few of the basic principles essential to our educational system, as a vantage ground from which to accomplish reconstructive tasks, and am gratified at the responsive spirit and encouraging results along the lines presented in a letter of August 16, 1919, to all school workers, from which excerpts are given below relative to moral and religious training, improved social morale, and more thorough and systematic instruction, especially in all industrial class work.

I would urge the thought that the Indian school must build character; that there must be no neglect of the pupil's moral nature; that the highest success of everyone is conditioned upon a discrimination between right and wrong; and that there is nothing more essential to true education than the "ought " and the "ought not" in mental growth. Although comprehensive outlines on manners and right conduct were not given in the tentative course of study, definite time is set apart for such instruction and should be faithfully used. Every school library has, or should have, reference books for teachers on moral training, and every conscientious teacher will be true to the moral element in personal example and in class room methods. Moreover, all superintendents should see that the broadly tolerant spirit of the general regulations for religious worship is fully sustained. There should be no curtailment of the impartial privileges therein extended to all Christian denominations whose missionary efforts have become so helpful to our work. The influence of the Sunday school, the facilities to pupils for church attendance, and the moral features of the general assembly must not be overlooked. In our preparation of the Indians for citizenship, we should hold firmly to the prime truth that good men and good women are the safety of society; that in no form of government is civic righteousness so essential as in a democracy where the rulers are the people whose individual rectitude must determine the collective morality of the State and the standards of public ethics.

I am impressed that the social status at many of our schools can be greatly improved. Too often petty differences and personal preferences grow into open discord and not only embarrass the best administrative efforts but become apparent to pupils and a harmful influence in their midst. Probably nothing

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