OCR Text |
Show nothing like training in the arts of preservation and repair to promote thrift and independence and a landable personal pride. This shonld have large plaoe in the manual training of an Indian community. In all such manual work I should insist npon the invaluable habit of analysis into the elements of construction, and I should teaoh those elements as such, hecauae they are of nniveraal application. But the applications shonld he fre-quent, far more frequent than is necessary in a d i t e community, for the reason that the home circle is apt to valne the training in exact proportion to the useful products. At first I doubt the wisdom of introducing ideas of art in either drawing or tool work, as we understand art and according to our standards. An Indian haa his own long-cherished ideas of art, which are widely different from ours, and he is quite sure to acorn any decided attempts to introduce our higher notions. We must reserve our pearls till a higher plane has been reached. Thrift, industry, comfort, and cleanliness are absolutely essential to any real progred. The chmf difficulty is in the beginning. It is hard to begin low enough. I spent several hours among the representatives of 42 tribes at Buffalo. I mms away with the conviction that the first Indian school shonld have a great deal of Ipdian and not much white man in it. Our civilization must enter as a wedge mth a very th~n edge. To attempt the rehements of literature and art would be to sow seed on stony ground. I do not mean that the Indian child is without capacity, but that the Indian community can not receive and cherish it. If we aim too high we shall not hit them, and they will remain just where they have atwd for a hundred yeas. Hence in all the manual work skill must be aimed at to an unusual degree, and the range of work must he extremely practical. In a mannal training school for white boys the aim is intelligence, not skill, but here the aim shonld include skill also. To be sure, the elements must be slowly and thoroughly taught, hut their application to a useful product must quickly follow, so aa to justify the elements in the stupidest observer. Rare and costly tools must he avoided, and evenschool furniture and appliancas must not he too fine. In the education of Indian girls domestic science and household economy should hold the larger place, but even here the arta and customs of our homes must be introduced slowly and withgreat discretion. A girl's training must recommend itself to the Indian mother. I need not enlarge npon the training which ia of most worth to an Indian girl who 1s soon to have a home and children. snd to live with or beaide her parents. Her parents and her husband must be proud of her. The value of what she got at school must be self-evident. She will not quarrel with her father's paint and feathers if he prefers such evidence of blue blood and a renowned ancestry, but she will cheerfully consent to a better schooling for her girls than she herself received. In matters of dress and food much may be conceded to Indian fashion and fancy. They are largely matters of sentiment and involve no principles half as important &4 that of respect and consideration for one's parents. The needlework taught at school shonld be plain and should quickly culminate in garments, bedding, rugs, eto. Thecooking should include every good point in the culinary arts of the Indians, with judicious advances. And so on. You who have lived among the Indians can see where you have succeeded and where you have failed. Above all, do not lose your faith in progress, though it be very slow. There ia nothing more tenacious than inherited tastes and fancies, and nothing is more suicidal than a spirit of intolerance in matters of pure sentiment. If these suggestions shall serve to strengthen anyone in the rightcourse, or to make the right course seem more clearly right, my object will have been aooom-plished. TEE NECE~SITOYF TEACHWQTH E INDIAN BOY TO IMPROVE TEE ALWTB~NT TEE mVmNXENT HAS ~'IVEN HIH. [Mr. RUSSELLR A ~ ~ PGFap. e rintendent Omahs Boarding Sohool. Neb-.] Every Indian bo who has land should form a trust. by which is meant that he should combine alf hia resoarcar, nativc. capacity, ac nired growth. nneleseloped ossihilities, and material wets into one organic who?e for the porpoee of making Rimsdf a citizen wbo ia a credit to his conutry's flag. ? i p~er son i* trnly edncated whodocs not have the habit of indnshp embeddedin his clt.trocter. No llrrnon i.i n safe and satisfactory citizen who does not have the hallit of industryemheddedin hischaracter. Tho Indian boy'sallonnent provides |