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Show 20 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. of lighting, both from natural and artificial sources. Windows are so grouped as to furnish light in the most satisfactory manner and with least damage to the eye% Two methods of improving the artificial system of lighting are available at Indian schools-electricity and gaso-line gas. Each of these has been installed and is now iu operation at several different schools, although they are of such recent introduction that sufficient time has not elapsed for absolutely practical and concise data to be obtained as a basis for measuriug their respective merits ns to efficiency and cost. It can, however, be stated without reservation that so far as they have beeu tried each has proved satisfactory under the conditions imposed. The Pipestone school has beeu lighted with gas for the past year, and in a very recent report the superintendent expresses himself with great satisfaction at the results attained, so far as the character of light and cost of production are concerned. A simi-lar gas plant has been in operation at the Menomouee school for sev-eral months, and reports of equal efficiency have been received. On the other hand, at those places, such as Oneida, Rosebud, Pine Ridge, and other schools of similar class, electricity has proven equally satis-factory. I am satisfied, however, that for the smaller schools and in those sections where coal is very expensive the most economical system of lighting is that of gasoline gas, using the Welsbach burners. The ring or needle bath system has now beeu tried at so many schools that it has passed the experilnental stage. It, is considered by those who use it to be the most economical, efficient, aud hygienically satis. factory system of bathing yet invented for use at Indian schools. It is espmially satisfactory ineliminating the dangersof contagious infec-ti0116 due to careless attention upon the part of employees. Order and system being the foundation stone of any proper system of education, too much attention can not he devoted to their early impress upon the minds of the young; nor is the infusion of esthetic principles or the appreciationof the beautiful alld artistic to be ignored, since their refining and elevating attributes assiht lnaterially in the cul-tivation and enlightenment of the precepts. Therefore it is deemed important that every detail in oonneotiou with the improvement of these Indian schools should be carefully weighed, beautified, and refined-more especially their exterior environments, where the time of the pupil is spent in recreation and pleasure. Theschool anthoritiesare instructed to have due regard for these principles, to which end unsightly banks and rugged hillsides are made to give place to swarded slopes and plains with flowers and shrubs. At some of the schools, roads and pathways are little better than ditches, and form heterogeneous grid-irons, devised without thought or syatem, which, taken together with the possible verdureless landscape, present a most doleful and unin-viting aspect to the scenery, all of which operates detrimentally upon both pupils and employees. An effort is made to impress upon the school people the necessity for joining the useful to the ornamental, improving the surroundings of the school, and, where possible, the |