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Show s 168 XL DINE DOO WAASHINDOON In 1936 the council chose an executive committee to plan the government and constitution of the Navajos. A constitutional assembly met in 1937. The constitution it wrote was turned down by the Interior Department. In spite of this, the tribe held an election in 1938. The Navajos chose a 74-member tribal council, with Jacob Morgan as chairman. Tribal headquarters were moved to Window Rock, and a modern town grew up around the tribe's new capital. After the election of the Navajo Tribal Council, the far-flung groups of Navajos began to think of themselves as one people. Now they had a way to take action as a united tribe. They would take control of their own affairs. They were anxious to govern themselves. But some elements of Navajo life were still strongly tied to the United States government. Education, for example, was one of the People's greatest concerns. Yet, through the first part of this century, the Bureau of Indian Affairs still made most of the decisions about how Navajo students should be educated. Education Only three hundred students went to government boarding schools in 1903. By 1910, though, attendance was on its way up, and less force was used to make students attend. More schools were built to teach more children., Twenty-five years later, Navajos went to boarding schools at Keams Canyon, Little Water, Tuba City, Shiprock, Leupp, Chinle, Crownpoint, Toadlena, and Wingate. Some parents sent students to schools as far away as Albuquerque, Grand Junction, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Fort Lewis, Fort Apache, and the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California. But all the problems with the old schools had not yet been solved. Harsh discipline still caused a great deal of pain to the children and their parents. Children still had to suffer through long hours of hard work. Students marched from one class or job to the next. Conditions were still worse than they should have been. During this period, many students found that they were misfits when they came home from school. School graduates were often strangers in their own homes. Their new tastes and habits did not fit with the traditional ones. Parents and children hardly knew what to do. So, when a child came home, he was blessed and purified of Anglo influence. Then he was thrust back into the old way. |