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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONEB OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 29 1 regard the well-dressed and well-fed Indian child who can reel 03' the list of Presidents, or draw a map in colors, as 'Lcivilized," without 1 I asking a further question as to what becomes of him after quitting school for good. Finally, perhaps, an undercurrent of hostility will be felt, though for obvibis reasons it will not show itself on the surface at once, which a keen discernment can trace to its origin within the ranks of the Indian Service itself. Its motive force is a fear lurking in the breasts of a certain class of employees, lest the dissolution of the nonreservation schools will mean the loss of their jobs." I wish, hdwever, to record here my belief that this factor will be the least potent of all we shall have to reckon with; for it is a fact that the members of the great rank and file of the Service are as true men and women, and as loyal subordinates, as can be found anywhere in the public employ. The timid ones at this juncture will be those who are conscious of their own lack of conspicuous merit or those who have been so long running in a rut that the prospect of being jarred out of it appalls them. To meet these several criticisms in their order I would ask the privilege of saying: (1) Because the Government has built up a system which changed conditions have rendered no longer effective for good, there is no rca-son why it should continue pouring out its money in the same interest when it can put this money to better use elsewhere. That is poor economy, and worse progress. (2) The town in which an Indian school is situated may still have an institution of which it can afford to be proud, and the &st pro-jector of the Indian school may have just as firm and lasting a monu-ment, if the school is made over to the local authorities and main-. . tained still for educational purposes, but not exclusively for one race. (3) The public-spirited citizen who believes education to be 'at the bottom of all advancement in a country l i e ours ought surely to wel-come the broadening of the scope of a school, and if the same money now spent on putting an '' institutional " brand on the children of our red brethren-the greatest lovers of free life and haters of " institu-tionalism " to be found anywhere in the world-is diverted so as to fit a good many more of these children to pursue intelligently the only livelihood open to them, it seems to me that it is bound to bring a big-ger harvest of genuine civilization. (4) There is no cause for alarm among workers in the Indian field because our Service may be shorn of an outer hinge no longer of any practical utility to the cause for which it exists. If it would be right to continue a useless appendage because it means a pay roll for a few -more employees, it would be right to keep the Indians in ignorance and economic bondage indefinitely because the complete solution of |