THE INDIAN NO PROBLEM. 15 



the Government must guage its actions to suit the purposes of 

 the missionary, or else the missionary influences are exerted 

 to defeat the purposes of the Government. 



Thus the Government in paying large sums of money to 

 churches to carry on schools among Indians only builds hind- 

 rances to Indian citizenship. 



Twenty-six years ago, under the orders of the Department, 

 I went West after children for an Eastern Indian school. I 

 found communities aggregating 11,000 Indians. They were 

 not nomads ; they were village dwellers, agriculturalists, 

 stock raisers, and their communities were among the oldest 

 within the limits of the United States. 



They had been under the influence of a church for 250 

 years, and at this time the power of that church over them in 

 all their affairs was absolute. They paid taxes and tithes to 

 it alone, and yet there was not one single Indian in the whole 

 ir,ooo that could either read or write in English or any other 

 language. 



When I brought up the subject of education, I was met 

 with the strongest possible opposition, and confronted with 

 the fact that the Indians had been commanded by the officials 

 of that church not to obey the Government and send their 

 children to school, to learn the language and ways of the 

 country in which they lived. 



We make our greatest mistake in feeding our civilization 

 to the Indians, instead of feeding the Indians to our civili- 

 zation. 



America has different customs and civilization from Ger- 

 many. What would be the result of an attempt to plant 

 American customs and civilization among Germans in Ger- 

 many, demanding that they shall become thoroughly Ameri- 

 can before we admit them to the country ? 



It is equally a mistake to think that the Indian is born a 

 savage. He is born a blank like all the rest of us. Left in 

 the surroundings of savagery, he grows to possess a savage 

 language, superstition and life. 



