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Show COMMISR~OXER OB INDIAN AFFAIRS. 29 ancestral barbarism of their race. 'Intermarrying with each other and with the whites, they are gradually building up, with varying success, homes and characters. Reservations are being broken up. Inherited lands are being sold, 'and sturdy American citizens are buying them and settling among the Indians, -and following the wake of all comes the public school, where in time the white and Indian will mingle. The indiscriminate issuance of rations has been discontinued. The old, infirm, and helpless receive this aid, and "old folks homes" are being established to care for those who can no longer care for themselves. At the old ration agencies work has been provided in lieu of the pauperizing allowance of. sub-sistence. The able-bodied are thus compelled to work in order to meet. , the demands of existence. The teachings of the schools is being prac-tically put into operation. Effort is constantly being made to "give the Indian a white man's chance." The logical results will be the extermination of the Indian as an Indian. Year by year there will be added to the body of the people a class of citizens who will do credit and honor to the generosity of a great nation. While many may fail to attain a high degree of culture and refinement, the whole will not dis-credit the earnest desires of the friends of the American Indian. In no phase of the Indian question has greater progress been made than in the education of Indian children. Careful instruction adapted to future environment is given in 303 schools, which a generous Gov-ernment has provided for its wards. These establishments are on the .extensive scale of Carlisle, Haskell, and Chilocco, with seven or eight hundred bright Indian boys and girls assiduously pursuing their studies, or on the modest plan of a little day school of 25 pupils, tucked away in a mountain gulch on an Indian reservation far from railroad and civilization. Each is working out the destiny of the Indian. Modest as well as splendid homes and cities are springing up on the old reservations. TheIndianisthus brought into contact with, and, after education, into a portion of that civilization. Business adminis-tration of schools and agencies has been substituted for the haphazard polioieu of the past. Me6 of education, experience, and businas qualifications now control the destinies of the agencies and schools. These men are directing the energies of returned Indian pupils, and as a result ignorance, thriftlessness, and their attendant evils are beginning to disappear. Civilized homes and contented citizens can be the only result. The education of the Indian costs about 84,000,000 per annum. It is money well spent, in that it is uplifting a race of native-born people to the high grade of citizens. It is annually sending back among the whilom warriors of the older generation 2,000 or more educated, civil-ized youths to leaven the old mass, to break down tribal customs, and |