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Show 1 REPORT OF THE COM&IISSIONER 01UNDIAN AFFAIRS. 11 tal feelings are entitled to consideration. Doubtless deference to their wishes will sometilnes depr~veth eir childreu of educational advantages ilt a nonreservation school, whose value canbe appreciated neither by pare~tnt or child. yet an overzealons attempt to enforce even a bless-ing is apt to arouse a distrust and autagonism, which in the loag run prevents rather thau promotes the good results desired. If it comes to be understood by Indians that they mnst attend home schools and should attend distant schools, they will be more approachable on the latter subject and more ready to listen to the arguments in favor of a longer termof schooling and a more thorough courseof industrial train-ing than most reservation schools can offer. I am advised that a large majority of the pupils attextding nonresen'a-tion schools have been secured without any sort of compulsion. Urgent I requests are often made by parents as well as young people that they may be allowed the privilege of education in a training-school, andre-tnmed students, especially, who know by experience what the advan-tages of these schools are and are worth, urge them upon their friends and relatives. Unt t,he few instances of compulsion are so exaggerated that their effect in prejudicing Indians against the schools is entirely disproportionate, and I am satisfied that a better state of feeling will and a better class of popils be secured if moral suasion only is resorted to for the tilling of nonreservation schools, even though tem-porarily the attendance should fall below the capacity of the buildings. An effort is also being lnade to define the localities from which the respective nonreseryation schools, both Government and contract, may draw their pupils, the object being twofold: First, so far as practicable, it will keep the young people within the climate aud latitude to wldch they are nccustomed. This will, of course, favorably affect the health question. It will also tend toinsure to the pupils training in such industries as they are likely to pnrsuein after life, and instruction in the methods of farming, care of stock, and out-of-door work generally, which prevail in their home localities. Second, it will modify, if not wholly break up, a practice, which has gradually grown until it has become pernicious, of having many differ-ent schools se:brclling for papils on the same reservation. Notmit.h-standing the fact that the source of supply is ample and there are many more children thau the schools can care for, there has arisen rivalry and competition in obtaining Indian pupils. This leads to the making of promises to parents and pupils and holding out of inducements 1 which are very difficult of fultillment aftermard, and very disappointing to the Indians when not strictly fulfilled according to their under-standing of the arrangements made. Soclt a course also fosters inthe Indian an iclea, which ? is too ready to cherish, that he confers rather than receives a favor giving up his child to be educated free of any . expense to l~i~nself. Of course lines car lot at once be too strictly or arbitrarily drawn |