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Show 4 XEPORT OF THE COMMIBSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. This increase of 1,417 in enrollment and 968 in average attendance during the past year has been secured without resort to coercion even to the extent authorized by law. Cases have arisen where force seemed necessary to induce parents to place their children in t,he schools and to keep them there when enrolled, yet I have refra~ned from using such means, preferring the better course of moral suasion and convincing arguments, and finding them utimately effective. It gives me pleasure to note the success of such methods, clearly evi-denced in the steady and healthy increase of attendance, as shown in the following tabulated statement of the average attendance of Indian pupils during a series of years: TABLE3.- rVU11~bw of India,&8 c h ~ l saa d at,wage atiendance from I877 to 135. ~~ - aPoblio sehnola attended by Indian children incloded in the average attendanoe bnt notin the "umber of soboo,%. b This excludes Poor Emtern Cherokee scbwla discantintled during 1894 and since reopened. eThi$ item is taken from table ao page 510 of reprt for 1884. made up from lster returns than tshle (m page 6. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. As noted in my former reports, I have endeavored to place as mmy Indian pupils as possible in the State public schools. Progress has been made, bst to a smaller extent and more slowly than was antici-pated. The mingling of the races in schools is not looked upon with as much favor as i t should be, and pre~udicee xists upon the part of the whites as well as the Indiaus. Still the number of Indian pupils cov-ered by contracts with public schools has almost doubled, being 487 for last year as against 259 the previous year. The system will be further urged during the current fiscal year, with the probability that more public schools will be induced to avail themselves of the Government aid of $10 per capita per quarter for coeducation of Indian children in white schools. The following table shows the public schools in which Indian pupils are enrolled, and the number contracted for: |