294 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



pounds of coal from June 1, 1890, to May 31, 1891, for which they paid 1^ cents per 

 pound, or $33.60 per ton. Now all this was in addition to the 50 tons furnished by 

 the lessees, under the lease, and makes in round numbers, for one year, 110 tons of 

 coal in addition to the wood and blubber. 



Good health depends very largely upon comfort and cleanliness, and no people can 

 he comfortable who liave to he constantly struggling to keep a miserable fire burn- 

 ing, made up from wet wood and rancid fat, nor can they be healtliy long aud be 

 without plenty of pure water; nor can their children grow up to be robust men and 

 women where drainage is unknown, and where the very air they breathe is poisoned 

 by the accumuhited iiltli of twenty years. 



"Jjut," wo are told, "the natives will not try to do anything for themselves, nor 

 attempt to improve their surroundings." 



Admitting the truth of all this, if we apply it to a small minority, I deny that it 

 ■would be just or right to leave them to their fate because of their want of knowl- 

 edge of the true status of the case, and I insist it is our duty to teach while we 

 assist and encourage them. 



Everj'- agent who has tried the experiment Avill say that the natives are docile and 

 obedient, aud can be induced to do almost anything when approached in a kind and 

 rational manner. 



For years the natives have been denied the right to buy or use sugar as an article 

 of diet, because, forsooth, some man, long since dead, got drunk from quas made 

 from sugar. 



That there have been cases of quas-making, and that, even now, a native will 

 take a drink when he has a cliance, is undoubtedly true, but there is neither sense 

 nor reason in punishing the whole community, young and old, men and women 

 alike, for the sin of one or two men who know no better, and who can, very easily, 

 be persuaded from repeating the act. There has been altogether too much said 

 about the weakness of the natives for strong drink, so much so that it is commonly 

 believed in the United States that they are in a constant state of intoxication, when 

 the facts are the very opposite. 



I was on St. George Island fourteen months, and a little longer on St. Paul, and I 

 have yet to find the second drunken man on the islands. 



Once, on board a steamer, one of the men got too much whisky, enough to keep 

 him oft' work for two hours, and that is the only case of drunkenness I ever saw on 

 the islands. 



Besides, were they the inveterate quas-makers they h.ave been represented to be, 

 the want of sugar w ould be no bar to their business, for they can make qtias out of 

 nearly everything they use as food or drink, sweet crackers, jelly, yeast, etc., enter- 

 ing largely into the composition. And, lest there be objections raised, sugar can be 

 prepared very readily so that it will not ferment, and yet be all right for ordinary 

 use as food. Two per cent of powdered borax mixed with sugar will not injure it 

 more than to prevent fermentation. The same is true of sulphate of calcium. I 

 respectfully submit that it is worth trying. 



Whenever a person is taken sick on the islands he is allowed sugar, but what is 

 the use of giving him, at the eleventh houi', the very thing for the want of which 

 his sickness originated? 



Especial attention is called to the subject of schools on the seal islands, for if we 

 are to succeed in teaching the English language to the rising generation there must 

 be a radical reform, amounting indeed to a complete change, in the present system 

 and method of teaching. 



That the lessees comply with the requirements of the lease in regard to schools 

 and teachers is true enough, but the defect is iu the system itself, which, owing to 

 many causes, is not the one adapted to the conditions existing here. One of the 

 most serious obstacles in the way of the American school has been, and is now, the 

 demand made by the church that all her children must learn Russian so as to under- 

 stand the church services. Consequently a groat deal of time is wasted in teaching, 

 or attempting to teach, the children two languages; and the result is what might 

 be expected; they repeat their lessons from day to day in a slipshod, meaningless, 

 mechanical sort of way without ever comprehending a word of English, either spoken 

 or written. 



It is not that the average native child is unusually dull or stupid, for he is not, 

 but it is because the child never hears English spoken except what ho hears in the 

 school. 



What is really needed hero is a regular industrial school in which the pupils may 

 live, and where they will be under tlie care of a husband aud wife who are trained 

 and fitted for the work, and who will care for them as though they were their own 

 children. We must have such a school if we are to succeed, for the natives are not 

 only ignorant of books and book learning, but of all the household and domestic 

 economies which go to make up the truly civilized community aud Christian home. 



I do not advocate missionary work in the sectarian sense, but I do want to see an 



