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Show XXVI REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. in the mean time, be taught to raise their own subsistence from the ground, to herd cattle, or to do mechanical work, but while self-support is one of the cartlinal points to be reached, civilization, the ultimate enit. can only be rtccomplish~l through an edtlcation of the head and heart. The Navajoes and the Moquis Pueblos are capableof self-support, bnt having no schools, are still degraded heathen, apparently no nearer civ-ilization than they were half a century ago. Such education can be given only to children removed from the example of their parents and the in-flrtence of t,he camps and kept in boarcling-schools. Experience shows that Indian chilclren do not differ from white chilclren of similar social status and s~urouuclingsin aptitude or capncity for acrluiring knowledge, and opposition or iuclifference to education on the part of parents de-creases yearly, so that the question of Indian edncatio~rle solves itself mainly into a question of school facilities. But the figures contained in the tables herewith fall far short of indi-cating a purpose on the part of the government to make this q~~estiou one of speedy solntion. At a low estimate, the number of Indian chil-clren of school-going age, exclusive of those belonging to the five civilized tribes of the Indian Territory, may be placed at 33,000. Of these, not less than 8,000 could, within a short time, be gathered into boarding-schools, except for the fact that the teachers are yet to be employed, the school-build'igs are yet to be erected, and the funds for both, and for feeding and clothing the scholars, are yet to be appropriated. The whole number of children who can be accommodated in the board-ing- schools now provided at the various agencies is only 2,589. To these may be added 5,082 more, who can b d room in day schools-those expensive makeshifts for eclucational appliances among Indians-making a total of only 7,671 Indians who have yet been placed within reach of school facilities. And when it is considered that the 50 youth who spend from one to three yearsin aboarding-school must step from that into the social atmosphere created by 500 youth and 2,500 other members of the tribe who are still in ignorance, it can reaclily be seen that the elevation of an Indian tribe is being attempted by a method at least as slow as it is sure, and that what should be the work of a year will be protracted through a decade, and the work of a decade through a generation. In many cases $his policy is not only shortsighted, but in direct con-travention of treaty stipulations, as, for example, the treaty of 1868, with the E&vas and Comanches, which reads as follows: And the United States agrees that for every thirty children hetwem said ages [six and sixteen years] who can be induoedor compelled to &end school, a house shall be provided and s, teacher competent to teach the elementary branches of an English education shall be funuiahed, who will %side lemoug said Indians sin* faithfully as-oh~ rgeh is or her duty as teaoher. The provisions of this article to continue for not lese than twenty years. The one boarding-school at the Eiowa and Comanche Agency, which will accommodate 75 p~~pi liss ,f illed and the other 425 children are wait- . |