OCR Text |
Show 36 REPORT OF THB COMM6SIONER OF INDIAN mFAIRS. Day school building No. 4, on the Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak., waa destroyed by fire cawed by lightning, and has been rebuilt. A new day school building has been provided for the Maricopa Indiins of Arizona. This school has evexy prospect of being a com-plete success, and will supply a demand made by the Indians for some educational advantages. Owing to delays incident to securing a proper line for the water supply, the building of the Pryor Creek school on the Crow Reserva. tion in Montana hm been neceusarily delayed. The preliminaries have been settled, plans prepared, and the plant will soon be under contract. Congress, in the appropriation act for the fiscal year 1901, set aside $75,000 for the erection of Sheman Institute at Riverside, Cal., and subsequently in the act for the fiscal year 1902 increased thiv amount to $150,000 for buildings and $10,000 for additional land. Plans for buildings and improvement of grounds were formulated early in the spring, and the plant is now under contract. The oldmission style of architecture has been adopted as p&uliar and suitable to climatic and other conditions surrounding the school. It will be a complete indus-trial school for the Indians of southern California. It will be opened with a capacity of three or four hundred pupils during the year. The scholastic population of this section is so large that no difficulty is anticipated in maintaining the school with a full attendance at all times. After considerable research, based upon reports of United States Indian Inspectors James McLaughlin and Walter H. eraves, a new site for the Moqui (Arizona) Indian school has be,en selected. It lies in the same canyon, and while not an ideal location, yet is the best which can be secured. Plans for the water a;nd sewer systems and buildings to accommodate 150 pupils have been prepared, which will probably be placed under contract at an early date. Plans for extensive improvements at the Osage (Oklahoma) Agency boarding school, consisting of improved water, sewer, and heating systems, with new buildings, have been prepared, and will be com-pleted during the year. These additions and improvements will add materially to the appearance and efticiency of this school. In the annual reports of this Department for several years past attention has been directed to the necessity of constant expert examina-tion of Indian school plants. The yearly expenditures on this account amount on an average to half a million dollars, and in the utilization of this large sum reliance had to be in the great majority of cases on the nntechnical judgment of agents, superintendents, and other officials. Reports indicated that such reliance was not always well founded. To cure thia defect in the service, on July 17,1901, recommendations were made that two positions of supervisor of engineering and supervisor of construction, each at a salary of $2,500 per annum, be created, which |