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Show XXXIV REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. models of what au India11 school should be, and pupils at home are iu-terested to learn the branclles which are being taught their more. favored rela.tives. lnindristrial educationIndian boardiupschoolsaredoiugpioneer work. There are neither precedents uor text-books to follow. In very few schools in the Unitell Statescau t,11e white child, unless,he is a criminal, learn how Lo work as well as how to read ; how to use his haudsas well as his head. Thisneed is receiving the attention of educatorsand philauthro-piscs, aurl the success of the experiment among Indians is being watched with interest by the friends of the lower classes botrh white and black. One of the first obstacles encouutered is the ontlay of funds reqnired. To fairly equip each reservation school with stock, wagons, farming im-plements and mechanical tools, and have t,hese articles used not only by children, but by children who have no inherited inclination or aptitude for civilized pursuits, must very largely increase the a.mlua1 expense of the schools; and t l~o~lgfhor such expenditure the return in the next generation will be large, the immediate returns will be meager. Never-theless it ought to he done, and appropriations increased accordingly. Even if Carlisle, Rampton, and Forest Grove could turn ant, as they ca~mota, ll the skilled mecl~anicsa nd agriculturists needed among In-dians, yet the value to the 111dian boy of mere rudimentary training in some one of the various heudicrafts will be worth to his own manhood and the civilization of his race immeasura.bly more than it will cost, and the mwate of the school xvhich ftirninhes such employment and diversion to its restless pupils mill be vastly improved. Too mncli in~por ta~~cacnen ot b e attached to the agency industrial boardiugschool. It is the center of Ir~diacri~v ilizai.iou,a nd will be until parents are willing to send their children away from home to be educated, and the goreillment is willing to assume the enormous expense of that sort of scl~ooling. Tiutil then the reservation schools will be worth as n~uchto the distant training-schools as the training-schools are to theres-ervation. The>- awaken tlie interest in edncation which first leads the pareut to surrender his child, and they so mold pnblic opinion as to make it possible for t.he ret.iirned strident to persevere in the habits learned at the East. Unless a strong pulifying influence is exerted on the res-ervatiou atu~ospherew hile the strlde~ltsa re absent, they will return to a fire-danq, of heathenism, iglrorance, and s~~per s t~ttihoaut willextinguish all the dames of intelligence and virtue that have been kindled by con-tact with civilization. In this way only oau the government hope to escape the humiliating relapses which many years ago discouraged mis-sionary societies from any further attempts at educatiug Indian pupils away from their tribes. An appropriation of not less than $50,000 should be made by Congress at its next session to properly equip existing reservation schools for industrial work. Day schools.-Eleven new day schools have been opened this year, but four day schools have become boarding.schools, and twelve have been |
