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Show REPORT OF THS COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. CHXXiX gospel within the reach of these benighted people, who as yet know little of true religion, and who have vague, soperstitious, and false no-tions of God and His truth. Especially that earliest Christian women shall be sent out to teach Indian women how to ameliorate their con-dition, how to keep honse, and how to make homes. Such mission-aries can bring comfort and stimulus into unhappy blank lives, will raise the tone of morality and home life throughout the reservation, and may save from downfall and wretchedness many boys and girls returned home from distant schools. Itook co~isiderableu ains to iuauire recardine the career of students educated~atC arlilse, hau~~) to:n<l,id olhrr SC~;OIR t ~ f t t~llrei t. return to the reaervatious, i111d tkel warranted in saying that, e s~~x i d e rail~l ~thge circumstanoes, they have done as well as anyone had the righi to ex-pect. In ver.v many cases the life to which they return is entirely devoid of any encouragement or stimnlus, oftentimes even of opportu. nity for living in accordance with what they have been tanght in school. In some instances, indeed, they have beeu flogged to compel them to return to the old ways. Very many of the boys who return, after hav. ing learned a trade, have no tools or capital with which to begin work; tbose who have been taught farming have no farms to cnltivate, no teams or implements with which to labor; and many girls who have learned the art of housekeeping have no houses to, keep. Nevertheless, I found many returned students occupying pos~tions in the Govern-ment service, others at work on the railroad, earning fair wages in machine shons. etc.. and still others strueeline heroicallv to overcome the almost iishrmo;~ntable obstacles wlri& they encou~lfer in striving to better their own condition and improve that of their people. I was glad to find an apparent milli~~gnesosn the part of the great majority of those whom I met to labor and to live the white man's may if only the opportunity presented itself. It is my opinion, and I have found that it is shared by a large num-ber of intell~genot bservers on tlte ground, that many of the young men and women who have beeu educated iu schools off reservations and have returned to their homes, who are now under the coutrol of the non-progressive eleu~ent aud are forced by public opinion to discard somethiug of their training and to return partially, at least, to the old ways, will, nevertheless, as they grow in years and experierice and come to take their places as leaders, assert themselves and viudioate the training wh~ch they have received. Ten years hence nlauy of tl~ose now boys and girls, ?iffident in asserting themselves and ~o~netilnes disappointing their friends, will be men and women, and will more than meet the reasonable expectations formed for them. It should be borne in mind also in the diSCu~si0no f this qaestion that the children of those who have been educated in our training schools will begin life nuder rnrv different circumstanoes from their uar~mtsa. nd that the seed sown inThaminds of the present generation will bring forth its best fruits in the lives of the next and sucoeediug generations. It is a matter of verv ureent im~oriancet hat those who have beeu ~ ~ ~~ educartd nwag from rhe reaervatibn rreei\.e lipon their reulrn, if al-lowed to go bnck, such yrotectio~l,e ncoora~en~r'uatr,~ dti 1ne1.va ssist. ante as will eosble them to 1'11llill the exnretations of their kiruds and to realize, in some degree at least, their own cherished hopes. I hare not as yet forn~ulated any general plan, but am contideut that it rill he oracticable. in an increasi~~ellavr ge n~imbero f incli~.idualc ases. to t h k a aro1111dth em such influr<ws a id open to the~us uch ~ ~ ~ ~ o r t u u l - ties as will save them from lapsing into barbarism and toenable thom to |
