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Show REPORT OF TEE COMMISSIONER 08 INDIAN AYFAIBS. 9 EDUCATION. Education and civilization are practically synouyms, and in the pres-ent state of a11 nations the last is impossible without the first- The Indian tribes of the United States are no exception to the universal rule. The Indians who have made the most advancement are those who have assimilated the white man's educational methods in greater or lesser degree. To civilize, therefore, is to educate, and to educate means the breaking up of tribal customs, manners, and barbarous usages, and the assumption of the manners, usages, and customs of the auperior race with whom they are thereafter to be thrown in contact. Statistical infommation indicates that the present system of industrial education, supplemented by a common-school onrriculum, is making steady inroads upon the inherited tendencies of these people. The processes are of necessity gradual, and to be appreciated the conditions of to-day must be contrasted with those of a generation ago, when the system was in the formative state. Familiarity with the Indians, then and now, furnishes gratifying indications that the ultimate solution of of the Indian problem is in sight. The effect of substituting acquired for hereditary tendencies can already be seen and compared, demon-strating beyond argument that persistent efforts along the well-defined lines of the present policy, extending through a generation, will fix new habits, inculcate new aspirations, and bring the Indian into homo-geneous relations with the American people. The Indian school system is a simple one, coordinated in all its parts for the attamnment of the end to be reached. It has prepared and will continue to prepare the Indian youth of our land for the doties and responsibilities of American citizenship. For the purpose of administration Indian schools are divided into day and hoarding schools. The former are located usually upon the reservations, and are maintained for camp Indians. Some of these, how-ever, are situated off the reservations, and are conducted in buildings owned by the Indians or rented by the Government. Boarding schools on the reservations are known as "reservation schools," while those located away from the Indian land, as "nonreservation schools." Aside from these schools under strictly governmental control there aremission schools conducted by religious and benevolent associations. Public schools are also utilized wherever the State or Territorial authorities will permit coeducation of the races. RELATION OF TEE RESERVATION TO EDUCATION. Indin reservations were the outgrowth of the humanitarian policy of the Government in dealing with wild bands of marauding savages who in the early portion of the last century roamed over large sec- |
