OCR Text |
Show I REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRb. F) I three, four, and five in a bed. The Government has for years appealed to the Navajoes to send their children to school; it should now with ala,crity heed their appeal for schools to which to send them, and should furnish new buildings and equipments at once; 3,850 out of 4,000 Nav-ajo children are yet to be provided for. One small attempt was made to retain the enthusiasm and relieve the pressure by establishing a day school in a remote part of the reser-vation. Unfortouately the restriotior~t hat a day-school building must cost not over $1,000 was found to bean insuperableobstacle. In many localities this sum would be sufficient, but in a country where every-thing must betransported longdistances from any railroads the anouut is entirely inadequate. This awakening of the Navajoes is largely ascribed t,o a visit Gade to the Chicago Exposition by a party of fifteen of their representative men. The trip was worked up by Lieut.Plummer, acting agent, funds for the purpose being furnished by the Indian Rights A~sooiation. The delegation returned amazed at what they had seen, eager to relate it to the tribe, and anxious to put their new ideas into practice; A few specimen extracts from some of their formal reports to their friends are well worth quoting: We thought when we got back we oould tell the children what we saw at the fair. That is what the agent took ua there for. When westarted from home we saw farms a11 the way. They don't lay saound in the sun. There lots of white people work all the tim? for a living. I never drearnedof what I saw there. Now I have sew it. Coming hack I never slept for thinking of it. You shouldlet your children go to school. No difference how much you love them, bettor let them go to sohoul. I have wished a tho.usand times siuoe I came hack that I was s boy so I could put myself in school. I have pot two ohilaren iu, and a neighbor has put one in. The headmen were ashamed of their hogans after seeing the huuaes the white men lived in. I here told the people that after we traveled for a night and a day, the white people were taking care of the earth pll the way. Look at our country; we ought to he ashamed of it. Look at the difference. The white people are like ants, industrious, working all the time; they are thick, ooming and going all the time. Before, we thought the agent told lie when he told ns how many white people there are. All believe now 1,ocsuse so many of us saw. To see the progress of the white man, like the corn growing from the sced fast in one season. Old thioga are like the seed. From the old to the new ia like from the omit5 [Mexican cart yith wheels of solid wood] to a Studebaker wagon. We saw nice trains on the road, hut a. fine one st the fair. Indians not fit to ride in it. It seeltls that other tribes aro ahead of the Nwdoes. When I saw the big guns I tola the medicine men what did they mean by telling theyoung men that they could proteot the Navsjoos agctinst all the whites. Two white men with one of these guns eould whip all the Navajo tribe. I was mked by an ignorant Indian from Cotton Weed Wwh if there were more white men than Navajoes. I showed him the duet and grass, and told him I eould just sa soon try to count the white people; that they lived on the wstter as well se on the land. Then he sat down and wanted me tell him all I saw. I told him I could not if I talked till I was grsy. |