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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAlRS 7 improvement of the former military post at Fort Wingate, N. Mex., now to he known as the Charles H. Burke School. This plant was secured from the War Department and the school to be established there will be primarily for the education of Navajo Indian children, of whom there are many now without school facilities. The work of reconstruction has been m, but will not be finally completed until later in the eneuing fiscal year. It will eventually accommodate 700 Indian children. ' ATTENDANICNE PFRLIC SCHOOLS.-There has been an increase in the number of Indian children for whom payment of tuition to State public schools has been authorized and prud as compared with the number for the preceding fiscal year. Authorities have been issued for payments to 737 public-school districts for 10,340 pupils, as compared with 655 school districts and 8,752 children during the fiscal year 1925. Total payments thereunder will approximate $311.000. from an aoarooriation of ~ubl icm oney. as compared wlth $260;541'during 1925: - These figures do.not include children for whom tuition has been paid from the tribal funds of the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, nor those of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma. Payment of tuition was authorized for 933 Chippewa children in 38 districts in Minnesota. In the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes financial assistance was rendered to 149 districts in which the total enrollment exceeded 15,000. EXTENSIOONF GRADEtShe.- rIe~po rt for the fiscal year 1925 an-nouncement was made of the adoption,of a policy of gradin Indian schools which would comprise six elementary grades, tf feine junior high-school, and three senior high-school grades. Extension of the courses so as to include the senior high grades, the tenth to the twelfth, inclusive, ha$ been authorized at the Albuquerque school, New Mexico, the Chilocco school, Oklahoma, and the Salem school, ,Oregon. By reference to the table showing enrollment by grades it may be seen that there were about 910 students in these higher grades during the year, and it is believed that the demand b Indian youth for high-school training is an indication of rapid eiucational progress among a large proportion of the Indians: CHANGEIN SCHOOL moo~~~. -Pur suanto recommendation of the conference of district superintendents, the boarding-school pro- / gram has been so modified that there shall be assigned each week one-half time for classroom instruction, one-fourth for vocational in-struction, and one-fourth for institutional work details of pupils. The effect of this program is to increase the proportion of the school day to he devoted to instruction proper and to decrease the time given by pupils to institutional details which are for the per-formance only of noneducational routine labor. It should be explained that pupils of the three primary grades, so far as existing regulations have prevailed, are in classroom during all daily periods, and it is desired that such attendance be extended to the fourth and fifth grades as rapidly as circumstances and avail-able monevs oermit. The school Droeram is essentiallv the olatoon L - system of "organization. Reduction of the work detail is being accomplished by the intro-duction of improved methods and labor-saving equipment, such as dish-washing machines, food trucks, laundry machinery, and other |