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Show REPORT OF THE OOMMISSIONEE OF IXDIAN AFFAIRS. 41 The plan of the Indian Department relative to the civilization of these people is predicated upon the theory outlined. This plan was practically begun about twenty-one years ago, when there were not 5,000 children in all the Indian schools. Taking this into consideration, the results of one generation are conclusive that the time is not far distant when the Indian will have so advanced that his education may safely be turned over to the States, with whose population the adults will be rapidly assimilating. The data above presented is a complete refutation of the statement:, that the educated Indian returns to his reservation to take up the; blanket and his old customs. That such was the case eight or ten. years ago may have been partially true. Then the reservations were. wilder, conditions more primitive, and the number of pupils returned' quite small. Now conditions have changed, and where then there was, one returned student in the tribe, now there are hundreds. Then the boy or girl who had been educated in the white man's ways was com-pelled alone to battlefor his or her new rights, and it is no small won-. der that there were many modernmartyrs on Indian reservations, where everything combined to wean him or her away from the acquired habits. But the seeds thus implanted have grown an hundredfold, and to-day the returned student is the most prominent factor in the development and upbuilding of his tribe. The sum of the whole matter is that the average Indian girl or boy is doing as well in his own environment as the same type of the: American. 1 The danger attending the education of the Indian lies in the Gov-ernment holding out places of profit in o5cial life to those who grad-uate from the schools. The policy of years ha9 been parental in dealing with the tribes, to pay them annuities and issue rations, until unfortunately there has grown up in the minds of some, not unnatu-rally, the idea that after their school career is closed the Government will continue to furnish support and maintenance as employees of schools or agencies. The general public is not thus called upon to support either Indians or whites under such circumstances. The schools, therefore;'seek persistently to teach them to earn wages for themselves independently, to seek outside opportunities for work, and not wait for gifts of life to be handed to them unsought or not labored for. Hundreds have left the reservations and are mingling with the white people in the eager struggle for existence. It is difficult to obtain more than meager data concerning the results of education upon these brave students, who are putting in active practice the inevi- ' table laws of existence. Abolish rations and annuities, throw the / educated Indian on his own resources, and the settlement of the ; Indian question is the natural sequence. 8, |