| OCR Text |
Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AWFAIRS. - 2.7 ' . I No work is nobler or more necessary or more trying in the work of the Indian Service than that of the field matrons and women in-dustrial teachers. During the past year 5,000 Indian familias have been instructed in the care of children and homes by 78 field matrons and their assistants. The help given by these women varies from instruction in sanitation to the superv?sion of expenditures and the settlement of domestic di5culties. They save the lives of many children. This work of the women among the Indian women in their homes should, I believe, be erected into a special department of the Indian Service. Conferences among the field matrons, as con-ferences in other lines of our work, have proved most productive of jncreased efficiency. As one result of the conference of field matrons held during the last year, they are cooperating in the collection of data on the plays and games of Indian children at home, with a view to laying sound foundations for the physical needs as to recreation of the Indian children in the schools. A special civil-service examina-tion has been planned for a position in the Indian Service of teachers of housekeeping, in order to try to obtain more and more competent employeea for this branch of the service. This examination will be extremely practical. It is planned to send circulars announcing this examination among all the settlement workers in the country, and among the workers of all other organizations of the country en-gaged in practical betterment of living conditions, whether of a religious character or not. INDUSTRIES. At the present time there is not su5cient statistical information before the office to show precisely what has been done in industrial lines during the past year. From the reports which are being re-ceived and analyzed as rapidly as possible, there appears, however, to have been a steady increase in farming, stock-raising, and indus-tries generally. In some places this increase has amounted to a genuinely popular movement. It must he remembered that Indians are not as antagonistic to work, and particularly to farming, as has often been represented. In time long ago, before the aggressions of whites, and before the constant movement of Indians from place to place kept their roots torn up, the Indians were in a very great number of cases efficient agriculturists, at least to the extent of a year-by-year self-support. Now that their homes are becoming really their own, and the Government is doing everything its means and skill permit to assist them at getting a start, these roots are striking more and more into the ground with fresh vigor. During the last season the determination of the Indians to work their farms was made the more clear by the great obstacles natural conditions placed in their way. In many cases the showing was bet- |
