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Show 20 Affairs was created. The National University and learned societies initiated studies useful to administrators, on all phases of Indian life. "The new economy and the new humanism ought to chart the course of American culture; the problems of our continent are problems of education and of social reform; in a word, problems of culture and not of race." Collier, John. "Nuevos Conceptos Sobre La Unidad Indigena," America Indigena, Vol. 1 No. 1 (October, 1941), Mexico, D.F., pp. 11-15. English Summary: Mr. Collier incorporates with his own thoughts on "The Emerging Concepts of Indian Unity," those of D'Arcy McNickle, Indian of the Flathead Tribe, expressed at the University of Oklahoma. The record of the nations throughout the Americas in dealing with their Indian populations has been similar, as has also been the experience of the Indians themselves. The Indian Congress at Patzcuaro brought the nations serving Indians together, ended the isolation of Indian populations, and proclaimed a unity that had never ceased to exist. Efforts to destroy a civilization that was highly developed spiritually and culturally, and which made significant material contributions to the world, have failed. Mr. McNickle, in his remarks quoted by Commissioner Collier, describes the policy of attempting to make white men out of Indians as at an end. "The Indian has refused to give up, biologically, and he has refused to yield, culturally." The Indian has his own contribution to make; the new policy and effort seek to utilize his capacities to serve both local and national purposes. Indirect administration, recognized at Patzcuaro as a fundamental principle in Indian work, releases social resources and reinforces local democracy. And, in the words of Mr. McNickle, "The Indian people, the whole Indian population of the hemisphere, to whom democracy has always been the way of life... may yet determine the way in which this nation and the nations of this hemisphere go." The problems of Indian administration now are one of..."encouraging leadership, of training in the use of resources either by the group or by the individual, as the people within the group determine, and of providing the machinery of organization through which groups ...make known their wants and adjust their internal problems." Mr. McNickle suggests that the Indian people may not be destined for complete "civilizing," as we call Europeanization. It has always been supposed that the Indian has no choice but to accept as his own ways of industrial civilization, which are wholly alien to him. |