| OCR Text |
Show REPORT Ol? THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 68 SCHOOL APPROPRIATIONS. In 1877 Congress appropriated $20,000 for Indian education, and the amounts allowed annually for the last thirty years for the same purpose are shown in the following table: Annual appropriations made Dy the (foven~nzentf rom and including the fiscal year 1877 for the support of Indtm schoola. Year. I Apppr i - Per oent App~opd- Per cent atLon. J>nresse.// year. 1. auon. Increase -- -- Decrease. SCHOOL E3IPLOYEES. All employees in theIndian schools, with the exception of laborers, are in the classified service. They are'.appointed from lists of eligi-bles certi6ed by the Civil Service Comtuission as qualified for their ' respective positions. Except in a few instances this system has secured for the service as competent persons as the salaries of the respective positions would command in any event. Its chief draw-back is what might be termed a mechanical one, the inelasticity of the selective feature of the civil-service law, which not infrequently results in a long delay in filling one of the less desirable positions, the Office being obliged, of course, to offer the place to only one eligible at a time, and to allow him a reasonable period in which to accept or declme. A long series of declinations, with waits of from three days to a week between them, means sometimes a very serious delay under conditions when every day is importanLas, for instance, when the Office .is suddenly faced with the necessity of supplying an engineer to one of the school plants at a considerable distance from any center of civilization, where even temporary help is not to be had at any price. It is a pleasure to say that in all emergencies wfiich have arisen thus far during my administration I have found the Civil Service Commission not only ready but glad to cooperate in any reasonable plan for the relief of the situation, so that the inherent difficulties of the system are reduced to a minimum. |
