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Show REPORT OF THE 00~8SIONER OF INDIAN AIWAIR8. 11 geography, arithmetic, etc., usually taught in the public schools of the white people; the other half of the day is devoted to industrial pnr-suits adapted to the age and sex of the pupils. The course of study in the class rooms is thoroughly coordinated with that of the 6eld, the shop, and the home. The boys are taught carpentry, shoemaking, fanning, wagon making, painting, tailoring, printing, dairying, garden-ing, masonry, baking, blacksmithing, plastering, harness making, forg-ing, steam fitting, engineering, and firing. The girls are taught sewing, mending, housework, laundering, dairying, baking, cooking, care of poultry, and the multitude of "little things" which contribute to the successful housekeeper and home maker. While all of the above are taught at the large nonreservation schools, there is a !gradual reduction in the number of industries as the scbools 'row smaller. Each school must study its own capabilities, andindus-tries are given suited to the students, their environments, and the money available for appliances and instructors. The peculiarities of each tribe fix the native industries taught at the school. When the natural talent of the Hopi oan be turned profiL ably to weaving, his children are instructed along those lines. The skill of the Mohave ran be turned to basket making or the Oneida to beadwork. The native industry should not be developed so far that there is a destruction of the commercial value of the product when brought into competition with the machine-made articles of deft Yankee construction. There is an unknown value in the basket of the Indian squaw who month after month in a primitive tepee weaves her soul, her religion, her woes, and her joys into every graceful curve and color of her handiwork. Remove these beautiful, sentimental considerations from the basket and place it by the finished product of the white man's factory, and the idea that the native industry of the Indian can be developed into a successful one, by means of which to keep the wolf from the door, does not hold out much hope. Increase and commercialize the native industry of the Indian, and its value readily falls by the inevitable law of supply and demand. For the present at least the teaching of native industries is receiving attention which will be given as long as it can be made profitable to the workers engaged in it. The Indian appropriation act for the fiscal year 1904, approved March 3,1903, contained this item: That in preparing implements and room for laundry work in all Indian schools mmugemeuis shall be made for doing by hand such an amount of eaid work as may be mfficient to teach the female pupila the art of hand laundry work. Immediately thereafter this provision was called to the attention of all the superintendents of schools, and they were requested to submit reports showing how the laundry work was done at the respective |