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Show CXXXTI REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONEE OF INDIAN AFFAIRR. Second. I found comparatively little to criticise in the schools, and was gratified to fiud so able and faithful a body of men and women as thosewham I met in these institutions. Their work ix peculiarly trying, their deprivations many, their facilities few, their disco~lragementgs reat, but everywhere I found persons of high moral character striving ear-nestly and iuteUigentlyto promote thewelf&reoft he chil~lrene ntrusted to their care. Buildings have been renovated, enlarged, repaired, and otherwise improved ; schools have bee11 better graded ancl more com-pletely organized, and there is throughout the entire service, so far as I saw it, a spirit of hopefulness and progress. My suggestions and ad-vice were most kindly received and, where possiblc, immediately acted npon. Third. The progress of the pupils in the work of the schoolroom proper, and in the various industries, is all that could be reasonably expected, and no one can witness their work without a keen realiz a t' ]on of the far-reaching and permanent results that are steadily flowing from these beneficieut institutions. Nor can any one fail to see that, if the work which they are doing can be prosecuted intelligently and vgorously for a series of years along lines in which it is now moving, it will accomplish all that the most sanguine could expect. Fourth. While there is much that is perplexing, and even discour-aging in the condition of the Indians, there is, 011 the whole, cause for congratulation in their present progress aud for hopefulness a.s to their future. I have been particularly impressed with the fact that they work. Everywhere I found them ellgaged more or less in manual labor. They cultivate the land ; t,bey tend their flocks; they euga.ge, where opportunities orer, in various occupatio~~fosr wages among white mcn, and there is every where, almost withont exceptiou,,? desire to improve their condition. There is, too, a growing recogrr~t~oouf the fact that the old life of hunting and idle~lessis passing awaF uever to return, and of the necessity laicl upon them to earn their own subsist-ence by industry, and to provide for their own comfort by thrift. They undoubtedly sulfer much by contact with the rougher elements of society that hover on the border of our aavancit~gc ivilization, bnt are feelin-g also the better forces that come to them with this advanciu-a tidc. Even where they do not understand, or possibly misapprehend what is meant by "lands in severalty." they are practically selecting indi-vidual holdings and are gradually emancipating thernselves from the embarrassments incident to tribal life. Fifth. The so-called "Messiah craze," of which so much has appeared in the public prints, is, so far as the Indians whom I have visited are concen~ed,,greatly exaggerated. There is a widespread vague hope, mingled w~ t ha trembling expectation and faiut desire, that a better dav is dawning for thcm: that a ereat deliverer is to free them from sohe of the c~~;lbarras~welf;tlus d lf111it>iti0118f i)rced upon them by the ;~dvii~~t:eiinrgil ieatio~f~i,~ wr hivli they do nor jet feel prepared, and pos. ~ i b l vto restore hoiuc of the old ceoclitionsto whir11 they look back wit11 regret. Navy of them, hornever, fully realize that thk buffalo is gone forever; that the old conditions can never retorn, and that they must alljust themselves as fully and as speedily as may be to their new en-vironment. Mingled with this material and religious Messianic hope is the rccollection of Inany of the criielties which they have suffered at the hmids of their oonquerors,and a desire to be avenged of theirwrongs. I be111 long a r~din teresting councils with the Bannacks and Sho-shones, the Mission Indians, Pimas, Apaches, Navajos, Moquis, Ghey. |
