| OCR Text |
Show trol there was a very marked reduction in cost and an equally marked increase in efficiency. While the Cherokee and Creek nations have a less per capita expenditure, it waa due to the watchful care of the Gov-ernment in supervising the same. That the Chickasaws are incompe-tent guardiins of their own educational funds is fully apparent from the above figures and the reports of the deterioration of their schools. No comparisons with reference to the Seminoles can be made for want of sufficient data. White children without schools.-No accurate census of the white peo-ple living in Indian Territory is available, but the number, approxi-mately, is 200,000. These people are scattered all over the country, in towns, villages, and fields, engaged in all occupations, from that of loafing or something worse, up to banking, merchandising, etc. This section was in the early days a haven for persons whose praence was undesirable in the civilized portions of the country. Many have left orphans with no homes, no known kindred, who are dependent upon a charity which is not always sufficient to keep them from want and vice. These children are growing up in ignorance, as in the present order public schools are unknown. There are, however, a great many white people of culture and wealth who appreciate the necessity of educating their children, and therefore about a dozen of the cities and villages of the Territory have attempted to establish schools, but unless they live in inwrporated towns they can not levy a tax for maintenance or issue bonds for putting up school buildings, hence their efforts have not met with much success. The title to all lands being vested in the Indians no lands can be appropriated for school purposes, hence outside the incorporated cities and towns there is no legal way by which public school districts can be organized. There are therefore thousands of children of white parents who are thus deprived of education, growing up in vice and ignorance, already feeding the United States jails at Muscogee and other points with youthful crimi-nals. The cost of education will not be exceasive compared with results of permitting thia class to continue in their present unhappy and una-voidable course. Congress should take some steps to remedy this great evil, and give schools to the 50,000 white children of this Territory. Freedmen.-There are 4,250 freedmen in the Choctaw Nation and 4,500 in the Chickasaw. These people are excluded from the benefits of the coal and asphalt royalties, and are therefore without adequate or even inadequate school facilities. The majority are poor and ignorant, and therefore unable to bear the expense of educating their children. Debarred alike from wh'ite'and red schools, Congress should provide some means by which they may be given the benefit of schools. Provision is made for the freedmen in other nations. Population.-The population of Indian Territory may be subdivided into full bloods, mixed blmds, freedmen, intermarried whites, whites, and negroes. |
