558 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Among the important changes made by the new rules was the discon- 

 tinuance of the Territorial board of education, experience having 

 proved that it did not work well, and a system of local unpaid school 

 committees was inaugurated. Owing to the growth of the work it was 

 deemed advisable to create the position of assistant agent. Mr. William 

 Hamilton was appointed to this position. During tlie year comfortable 

 fi-ame schoolhouses and teachers' residences were erected at Kadiak, 

 Karluk, and Afoguak. At Douglas a substantial frame schoolhouse 

 was erected, and at Ohilcat a log schoolhouse. 



Of the Alaskan children in Eastern schools Miss Frances Willard 

 graduated at a young ladies' seminary at Elizabeth, K. J., in June, 1890, 

 and was the lirst to return to Alaska and take ixp teaching ; she was 

 appointed assistant teacher in the industrial school at Sitka. 



The inauguration of schools in Arctic and sub- Arctic Alaska among 

 the Eskimos was the special feature of educational work in Alaska for 

 1890-91. Hitherto the schools had largely been confined to the North 

 Pacific and Bering Sea coasts of Alaska, together with the valleys of 

 the Yukon, Kuskokvin, and Nushagak rivers. But in 1889 Commander 

 C. H. Stockton of the IT. S. S. TJwtis, who had recently returned from 

 a cruise along the Arctic coast of Alaska, made a personal representa- 

 tion to me of the need of schools among the Eskimo settlements of that 

 region. Upon reporting the request to the Commissioner of Education 

 I was authorized to visit the headquarters of the various missionary 

 societies and confer with the secretaries of the same with regard to the 

 establishment of contract schools in Arctic Alaska, with the result that 

 the Woman's Executive Committee of Home Missions of the Presby- 

 terian Church agreed to establish a school at Point Barrow, the north- 

 ernmost point of land on the main continent of North America. The 

 American Missionary Association of the Congregationalists agreed to 

 establish a school at Cape Prince of Wales, on Bering Straits, and the 

 Ejnscopal Board of Missions at Point Hope, lying about midway 

 between the other two. These comprised the tliree principal villages 

 on that part of the coast. School buildings were erected at Cape 

 Prince of Wales and Point Hope, and a room in the Government refuge 

 station was secured for the school at Point Barrow. 



In the spring of 1890, by permission of the Secretary of the Treasury 

 and the courtesy of Capt. L. G. Shepard, chief of the Eeveuue-Cutter 

 Service, and Capt. M. A. Healy, commanding the revenue-cutter Bear, 

 I was able to visit the entire Alaska coast of Bering Sea and the Arc- 

 tic Ocean ; also about 100 miles of the coast of Siberia, both south and 

 north of the Arctic Circle. As the captain of the ship had been 

 requested to take a census of the coast villages of that region, I had 

 unusual facilities for reaching the larger portion of the people. My 

 trip also enabled me to attend in person to the locating of the teachers 

 at Cape Prince of Wales, Point Hope, and Point Barrow, the erection 

 of the buildings, and the providing of the necessary supplies. In visit- 

 ing the various localities I found a great lack of suflicient food supply 

 in the country. The ancestois of the present population had an abun- 

 dant food supply in the whale and walrus of the sea and the fur-bear- 

 ing animals of tlie land, but the destruction of the whale by the 

 American whalers, and of fur- bearing animals by improved breech- 

 loading firearms, had so diminished the food supply that the present 

 inhabitants were slowly decreasing in number for want of food. While 

 coasting along the shore of Siberia I found a barbarous people similar 

 to the Eskimo of Alaska, with an abundant food supply because they 



