OCR Text |
Show For various reasons 47 per cent, or nearly one-half, of all eligibles receiving appointments decline them. This is sometimes due to their having waited so long that their plans haye changed, or between examination and appointment they have found other employment, or illness in the family interferes with any immediate disturbance of its personnel, or the appointee does not fancy the country or the climate into which he is to be sent, or he regardsthe salary offered as Loo low, or what not. During the last five years there have been appointed to the school service, from the civil-serpice eligible lists, 3,311 persons, of whom 1,581 declined. These were distributed as follows: Fiscal year The resignations of employees during this period were 3,012, and of those who resigned 505 returned to the service by reinstatement. Of the appointees, 1,414 were Indians, of whom 1,266 resigned. A not uninteresting feature of these dry statistics is the report that 132 employees were married during their service in the schools. FARMING AT INDIAN SCHOOLS. As it has so generally been taken for granted that most of the Indian schoolboys who return to their reservations will devote them-selves to farming and stock raising, these industries are taught at all the schools, with varying degrtes of success. The Government has been prodigal of laud for its red wards, whose start in life on their allotments is far better than that of the ordinary white boy. The allotted lands vary from the richest and most fertile to great expanses of barren sand or rock. Every school has its farmer, who is expected to teach the Indian boys to handle the plow, to sow, and toreap. Ultra scientific farming is not attempted, because the Indian as a rule has not reached a stage of mental development where he can grasp such subjects as meteor-ology and the chemistry of soils. The utmost aim of the Government is to adapt the young Indian's education to his personal character-istics and environment. Fair everyday farmersmen who have learned by hard experience how to make a crop grow in an obdurate field-are sought as instructors for the pupils. Altho, unfortunately, in many instances the right men do not come to the front, yet in the main good results have followed the plan. |