| OCR Text |
Show VI REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. with tenacity to their superstitions and inherited practices, adds to t,he ., difficulty of inducing them to abandon their own and accept the white . . . man's ways. A HOPEFUL OUTLOOK. Notwithstanding all these hindrances, however. there has been for ten or more years real progress in the right direction, and the outlook for the future is encouraging. The following points are especially worth^ of consideration, and need to be repeated and emphasized until they are fully recognized by both whites and Indians: It has become the settled policy of the Government to break up reser-vations, destroy tribal relations: settle Indians upon their own home- . . steads, incorporate them into the national life, and deal with them not , as nations or tribes or bands, but as indiridud citizens. The American Indian is to become the Indian American. How far this process has advanced during the past year will be shown nnder the head of the reduction of reservations and allotment of lands. Apublic-schoolsystem is being rapidly pruvided, whereby every acces-sible Indian boy and girl of echo01 age is to be afforded an opportunity of acquiring the rudiments of an English education and the elementsof an honorable calling. What progress has been made in this direction during the fast year is discussed nnder the general topic of education. The Indians themselves are coming to understand the present policy of the Government and are showing an increasing readiness and eren desire to adjust themselves to it. During the past year I hare had personal interviews with prominent chiefs and representative Indians from Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory, and I have been much gratified with their intelligent apprehension of the situation and with the willingness exhibited, as a general thing, to accept lands in severalty with individ. ', ual citizenship. Almost without exception they have pleaded with me for more and better schools. Another fact of significance is the growing recognition ou the part of Western people that the Indians of their respective States and Territories are to remain permanently and become absorbed into the population as citizens. While demanding the application of the prin- - . ciple of "home rule" in the seleotion of agents and other employ6s from the State or Territory in which the Indians are located, I think they also recognize the obligations which they thereby assume to recom-mend only suitable persons for appointment. If the Indians of South Dakota, for instance, are to remain forever within the limits of the State, either as a burden and a menace, or as an intelligent, self-support-ing, co-operatire factor in State life, no others except tlie Indiansthem-selres can have so deep an interest in their practical status as the peo-ple by whom they are surrounded. There is also a growing popular recognitionof the fact that it is the duty of the Government, and of the several States where they are located, to make ample provision for the secular and industrial educa- |
