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Show 32 00MMI8SIONE& OW INDIAN AFFAIRS. cation of business principles, as grown-up children they have fallen victims to the selfishness of those who should have been their friends. The value of money as the measure of a day's hard labor had not been sufficiently learned, and evil consequences have fallen on these Indians, who otherwise passed the nation's qualifications for citizenship. The number of nonreservation schools is excessive. These institn-tions originated in the laudable desire to civilize the Indian more rapidly. If their number had been kept within proper limits their usefulness would have been greater. In the beginning the great development of the West seems not to hare been adequately considered. The fallacious idea of "bringing the Indian into civilization and keep ing him there" was made too prominent. Proper selection of material for transfer wrtv not made. Some schools industriously taught that all Indian reservations were bad, and pursued a line of instruction and formation of character which it was foudly believed would keep the Indian in the East. T i e has shown that such a course could not and did not settle the Indian graduate in the East. Nature and conditions were against s u d ~a policy, and when he returned to his western home hewas frequently so filled to overllowing with a sense of his own importance that the fall to the old barbarism was easy. The energy of the American people has made the. great West as grand as the great East. As high a type of civilization has heen developed, and the effort of the Indian Office is proving successfnl in bringing at least a portion of this civilization tothe Indian in his home. The idea of bringing East the entire 30,000 red children now in school and of educating, civilizing, and settling them in the East is a fan-tastic dream which has not been and can not he realized. A fair trial of twenty years has been given this theory, and the pancity of results is amazing. "Bringing the children into civilization" is largely responsible for the multiplication of nonrcservation schools. To the unthinking, knowing nothing, or very little, of the real Indian in his western hom'e, of his nature and capabilities, this policy appeals very strongly. If it could he made to work successfully, it would solve many difficulties, but stern facts are against it. It is a waste of public money to bring the average Indian to an eastern school, educate him for years upon the theory that his reservation home is a hell on earth, when inevi-tably he must and does return to his home. It is not only a waste of money, but an injustice to the Indian. Is it, therefore, any wonder that such an Indian should relapse into barbarism after a few years? That the policy is wrong has been su5ciently demonstrated to justify .its discontinuance. Home education of the average Indian, not out of .his environment, but near his own people, will and does produce lasting resulk. CYvilization is around him in his western home. He will soon find natural contact with this civilization. It will help him and |