FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY. 79 



SCHOOLS. 



Statutory provision is made for tliree school teachers for the Bu- 

 reau's work at the Pribilof Islands. Since the native population is 

 considerably larger on St. Paul Island than on St. George Island, it 

 has been the custom for the Bureau to detail two of the teachers to 

 the former island and one to the latter. To do justice to educational 

 matters on St. Georo:e Island, two teachers are necessary, and to help 

 out until other provision is made a temporary assistant is employed 

 from time to time at a nominal salary to teach a number of the smaller 

 children and to give instruction in household duties to some of the 

 larger ones. An additional teacher to give full time to the work is 

 urgently needed on St. George. 



The Bureau is fortunate in being able to have the services of persons 

 who are genuineh' interested in their work, and in the last few years 

 the results secured have been highly satisfactory. The Bureau has 

 made special effort to provide suitable materials for carrying on the 

 school work. The scope of this work includes not only instruction 

 along the usual formal lines but in practical matters as well. 



St. Paul Island. — For various reasons the school year 1018-19 was 

 shorter than usual. The number of days in which formal instruction 

 was given was 116, and the total number of pupils enrolled was 59. 

 Percentage of punctuaUty was 97 and attendance 98. 



^luch attention was devoted to the teaching of EngHsh. The 

 tenacity with which the natives of the Pribilofs cling to the use of the 

 Aleut tongue is remarkable. The teachers on St. Paul, when taking 

 up their work in the latter part of 1918, after having been absent on 

 leave during the summer, noted how much the children had lost in 

 their ability to use English in the preceding vacation. Since Aleut is 

 not \sTitten on St. Paul Island, anything which tends to encourage 

 composition upon the part of the children tends to stimulate the use 

 of English. 



The teachers state that the school library was well patronized by the 

 pupils and that several of the young women of the village axe regular 

 applicants for books. 



By way of indicating some other lines of instruction afforded by the 

 St. Paul school, the following extracts are taken from the report for 

 the year 1918-19 by Mr. and Mrs. Haley: 



Sewing has been kept up all the year. The sewing cla-sses are always popular. 

 This year there have been three classes: The senior girls, the junior girls, and a class 

 of boys. The materials furnished flirectly by the Bureau have been greatly enjo\ ed. 

 P.ach of the senior girls has made by hand a pair of bloomers and a hemstitched towel. 

 The class of boys (the oldest boys of the junior school) has learned to use thimbles, to 

 eew "over and over," and to hem. This class was .started at the retjuest of the boys 

 themselves. The junior girls did all their work with one kind of stitch. The sewing 

 lessons have alternated with darning lessons, but darning does not appeal to the girls 

 as sewing does. The knitting class did not begin until after Russian Christmas. It 

 was taught this year, as last year, by a native woman. 



The young women of the island were gi\en an opportunity to come to the junior 

 school building once a week after school hours for a reading class. They chose Ameri- 

 can history stories for the class work. The severity of the weather during the winter 

 made this gathering rather irregular. 



St. George Island. — The 1918-19 school year on St. George Island 

 began October 7, 1918, and ended April 1, 1919. The initial enroll- 

 ment consisted of 32 pupils ^17 girls and 15 boys. Due to the de- 

 parture of one boy from the island and the death of another, the enroll- 



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