OCR Text |
Show the care of the home. They usually attend public schools, and are paid a stipulated sum for their labor, thus learning the value of labor in dollars and cents and the resultant benefik of thrift. The great portion of the money earned is placed to their credit at the school, and in many instances quite a "nest egg" is turned over when they leave school in addition to their practical training. As stated, the system is most effective in Pennsylvania, where local prejudices are not brought into play, and the ratio of the Indian population to the white is relatively infinitesimal. The results of the / system in the West are somewhat problematical and experimental at present. TheIndian schools at Salem, Oreg.; Riverside, Cal.; Phoenix, Aria.; Santa Fe, N. Mex.; Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kans., and several other points have with varying success carried out the "out-ing system" for several years past. Whether it will be as successful as at Carlisle is for the future to determine. The system has ik element of danger as well a% of good. The boys and girls are placed in families more or less remote from the school. Fur the time they are removed from the watchful eyes of the em-ployees, and the superintendent can not absolutely know that the family where the child is placed is honorable, upright, and kind, even when that is its general reputation. But with this element of dahger always present there bave been only a few mistakes made. The largest number of pupils placed under the "outing system" during any one month of the past hcal year was as follows: Carlisle, Pa., 617; Salem, Oreg., 251; Riverside, Cal., 159; Santa Fe., N. Mex., 92; Albuquerque, N. Mex., 61; Phoenix, Aria., 50; Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kans., 49; and Riggs Institute, Flandreau, S. Dak., 8; a total of 1,287 pupils. SCHOOL PLANTS AND THEIR llWROVEMENTS. The United States has invested in plants for the education of Indian children about $6,000,000. While many are new and modern in con-struction, the great majority, especially those on the reservations, are old, dilapidated, and badly located. Some of these are inheritances from the War Department in the shape of abandoned military posts. While their buildings may be good, yet they are not constructed in a manner fitting them to Indian school purposes. Many Indiin schools are located in the arid portions of the great West. The water supply for domestic and irrigation purposes is scant, and much money must be spent in order to conserve and develop it. An Indian school is very different in many respects from a white public school. For the former the Government must supply a school building suitable for class rooms and assembly hall; also-dormitories, kitchen and dining hall, shops, hospital, farm, barns, stables, etc. Employees must constantly be with thechildren, and in addition. there- |