OCR Text |
Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INJIIAN AFFAIRS. XLI may be taken. The average of theenrollmentof pupils in schoolin Con-necticut, Kansas, Nevada, 1CIassach11settsa~n d Oregon is 80 per ceut. of the school population, and the average attendanceis 54 per cent. Nearly 19 per cent.of the school population among t,heIndian tribes was enrolled during the past year, and the average attendance was nearly 12 per cent. If adequate appropriations are made, the number enrolled ten years from now ought to be not less than 50percent., or22,500pt?pils. Half of these, educated in reservation boarding schoola at $150 per annum, would cost $lJ687,500; the other half, educated in day schools at $30 per annnm, would cost $337,500. Therefore, to keep one quarter of the Indian school l~opulationin boarding schools and another quarter in day schools would require an annual expenditure of over$2,000,000. Irregularity of atkud-auce would decrease the cost somewhat, though not in t.he same ratio as that between t,he averilge attendance and the total enrollment, for the reason that. the teaching force aud various other expenses could not be allowed to vary with temporary fluctuations in attendance. Deducting 25 per cent. on this account would reduce the annual expenditure to. $1,600,000. This is a low estimate, and at the same time I have not taken into account the increased cost of giving Indian youtll special training in scliools remote from agencies. Meantime, before the enrollu~entc an reach 50 per cent. of the school population, a large number of buildings must he erected and furnished and liberal a.l)propriations milst be made therefor. Only 8,700 pupils can be crowded into all the school buildings now in use, and nmny of these buildings should be replaced by new ones. The cost of education during the past year has been, approximately, $411,538, in additiou to the expense of rations and part of the cloth-ing used by pupils at agencies where rations and goods are regularly issued to all the Indians on the reservation. 'The appropriations for education for the current year, in addition to amouuts regula,rly appro-priated in fulfillment of treaty provisions, aggregate $489,400, and the appropriation asked for the fiscal year ending June 30,1884, is $917,000. This sum is required if the United States Government is to keep pace with its-duties and opportuuidies in the matter of educating Indians. I have spoken of the appropriations from which schools mnst here-after be mainl~ supported as "gratuities." It will, however, reqnire very many and very large so-called 'Lgratuitous" appropriations to pay the debt of the government to certain Indian tribes on account of nu-fnl6lled treaty obligations. In general it may be said t.hat where the t,reaty stipulated the payment 'of a certain aunual enm for education, the promise has been kept; but where the sopport of certain schools. was pledged without specifyiug the annual expeuditure to be made therefor, the promise has been only partially kept. Belonging to the latter class are the treaties with the Sioux, Navajo, Kiowa and Ooman-che, Cheyenne and Arapaho, Shoshoue, Molel, Walla Walla, D'Wamish, ~Makah, Quinaielt, Quillehute, SIKlal!a.m aud S'okomish tribes, which have im aggregate population of 68,000. Some of the treaties with |