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Show 32 REPORT OF THE CO~88IONER OF INDIAN AFFATRB. and profit, while the unworthy are easily cast aside when the failure becomes known. Its effect upon the service has been of untold value. This improvement has never been more teraely or forcibly stated than in this excerpt from a commnnication addressed to the Department by an official who has continuously been in the service for thirty years in varying capacities, and who has visited numbers of schools. He says: Through politics and favoritism the Indian school service was handicapped to a considerable extent in the paat, but this objectionable featm has gradually given way to a more efficient corps of employeeq through which the achools have steadily improved and are now being intelligently conducted and rendering valuable serv-ice, with very little, if any, reasonable grounds for adverse criticism; and whilat from the frailties of human nature a waknesa may develop occsaion~lly in an employee, such instancea are rare, and, as before stated, the offender is promptly discharged or otherwise disciplined, as the nature of the offense may warrant. From the foregoing it will be seen that I regard theefficiency of the Indian schools as steadily advancing, and therefore a comparison between the conditions now and the conditions five, six, or more years ago as manifestly improved, with a marked ' onward and upward tendency. There are employed in the Indian school service 2,289 persons, of which number 1,662 are white and 627 Indian, divided as follows: Supervisors, 7 white; superintendents, 106 white; assistant snperin-tendents, 5 white; clerks, 45 white and 18 Indian; physicians, 25 white and 2 Indian; disciplinarians; 14 white and 20 Indian; teachers, 414 white and 72 Indian; kindergartners, 54 white; manual-training teach-ers, 6 white; matrons and housekeepers, 187 white and 33 Indiab; assistant matrons, 92 white and 57 Indian; nurses, 26 white and 4 Indian; seamstresses, 106 white and 54 Indian; laundresses, 77 white and 82 Indiin; industrial teachers, 75 white and 42 Indian; cooks and bakers, 135 white and 83 Indian; farmers, 51 white and 38 Indian; blacksmiths and carpenters, 63 white and 12 Indian; engineers, 43 white and 18 Indian; tailors, 11 white and 7 Indian; shoe and harness makers, 20 white and 20 Indian; Indian assistank, 41; miscellaneous positions, 59 white and 65 Indian. I NONRESERVATION WJHOOLS. The Indian boarding schools denominated " nonresemtion " are located, as a rule, near-towns and cities. They are usnally large and well-equipped plants, with modern appliances for instructing Indian boys and girls in the mechanical arts, trades, farming, stock raising, and kindred pursuits. Their principal advantages lie in contiguity to white civilization and bringing together at one place Indiau childre11 of diverse tribes. Here the Sioux and Chippewa, the Kiowa and Apache, the Mohave and the Ute, and others speaking separate tongues, and often hereditary enemies, are gathered together in early life under one common roof. Thus tribal prejudices are broken down and a more thorough knowledge of the English language is inculcated. |
