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Show SYYOPSIS OF REPORTS OF SPECIAI, INDIAN AGENTS AKD SUPEKVISORS OF IYDl.\N SCHOOLS. S. L. TAG~ARsTpe,c ial agent: While needs and defects of Indian schools vary with locality and snrroundings, I have observed a few conditions that appear common to all, and which, it seems to me, might and should be improved. All, or nearly all, the Indian children I have met appear tobe lacking in four requisites which in white children snperabonnd. As a rule they seem to possess very little sentiment, very little selfishness, very little ambition, and very little individmliem. Satisfactory progress in their education and thought development can hardly be expected until these deficiencies are in some way and in good meas-ure supplied. If it be true that these traitaare preeminently English and that the language has in no small measure contributed to their growth, it follows that the main and most persistent efforts in properly teaching it should be made. With this better teaching of English, seconded by the other common branches and a good share of industrial training, there should go moral precepts and heart culture. Read and heart would theu keep pace together, and the much.deaired result of good citizenship in due time reached. What seems to amount to a defect in the Indian school service is the toouumer-ons transfers of employees upon slight grounds. Transfers should be made only for the best of reasons, after an impartial hea~iugo r investigation. Employees in the Indian Service, by reason of their duties. example, and sur-roundings, more than any other class, should be possessed of the cardinal virtues specifically enumerated and commended in one of the Epistles of Peter. Infln-enced by them, less friction and better harmony would prevail and more satisfac-tory progress result. Incentives to have and to do should have consideration and encouragement. At the Pawnee, Okla., school the superintendent has done a wise thing, whiah might well he followed at others where conditions make it practicable. He has set apart several acres of the school farm and divided it into small garden plots, giving one to each of a certain number of boys uponcondition that they carefully and faithfully cultivate it within the time allotted them out of school hours, they to have and to be permitted to dispose of its productions for their own benefit. Self-interest is aroused and ambitions rivalry promoted. ' They quickly learn that it takes work to make money. This and kindred enterprises, with the same end in view, should be countenanced, advised, helped, and extended where at all pract~cable. I have noticed generally a lack of the right sort of reading matter at reserva-tions and schools. The number of boys andgirls becoming able to read is rapidly increasing, and when they leave school and return to their reservation homes there =ems to be scant opportunity afforded them to get or readsuchliterature asmight parkicnlarly interest them. It is my opinion that if a room could be provided at the agency or other places, where they gather at times for paymenrs, issues, or other general purposes, and supplied with a small amount of wholesome and interesting reading matter the little investment might pay and in time develop intoacircnlatingorpossibly apermanentlibray Theschoolsshonldalso. I think, be more liberally supplied with pictorial and story. .pa p.e rs, carefully chosen. A. 0. WRIGHT, supervisor of Indian schools: The first supervisor's district, of which I have had charge the past year , i 8 corn-posed of the schools in the States of Kansas, Colorado, and Utah, and the Terri-tones of New Mexico and Oklahoma, and the napaw Reservation, 1n the Indian Territory. Theeastern part of thedistrict, in 8 ansas, Oklahoma, and the Quapaw Reservation, is in the main composed of Indians in rather an advanced state of progress, with schools well organized and equipped and with a very large attend-ance. Nearly all the Indians in this part of my district have takenallotments in severalty and are living largely from the produce of their farms, though theevil effects of their being allowed to lease their farms to white men can be traced in the schools. The idleness and lackof ambition which this easy way of livingproduces 510 |