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Show 16 REPORT OF THE COMMiSSIONER OF INDIAN .AFFAIRS. Your attention is invited to the following table, showing the appro. priations for a series of years: Tnnr.s 10.-Annual appropriations made by the Government since the fiaaal year 1877 for the support of Indian schools. aDeoreaae. Yon will notice that for three successive years the appropriations for Indian education have been reduced. There are over a quarter of a million Indians in the United States, and the unquestiolied policy of the Government is their civilization and final absorption into the great body of the natiou. The most effective means for this end are those exerted through a wise educational phn. It is necessary to provide mcommodations for that part of the Indian school population now outside of the doors of the schoolroom. The present plants will not do so, and it will be necessary to construct others aud enlarge those already established. They shonld have mod-ern appliances and be well adapted for their purposeu, and this will require increasing and not decreasing current appropriations. More. over, existing schools must be maintained. While the cost of main-taining a plant when once established is not so great as to establish it, yet the expense is continuous. It reaches on through the years, and though often there is little to show for the yearly expenditure-on build-ings, for instance-yet without it the buildings woi~ld soon become dilapidated and unsafe. There are 204 different school plants uow owned and operated by the Government, mngingfrom one small build-ing for a day school to the cluster of buildings and acres of ground forming the extensive institutions of Carlisle, Haskell, Salem, and others. To erect and equip them has cost large sum, nor can they be kept in good running order without other large sums; but the soundness of the work they have accomplished and are aocomplishing ' has more than paid for them all. To establish such new reservation schools as will be necessary to care for the unprovided school population, and to maintain the older~ ones, and to see that they not only hold their own but improve, mill requires, considerable expenditure, but I am confident that such expend-iture wisely made will redound to the honor and benefit of the whole people. |