38 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



The danger to the station was greatly iucreasecT by an epidemic- of the grip, which 

 carried away 26 people in two months. This was by the superstitions of the people 

 attributed to the presence of the white men among them. However, through tact 

 and good management and the providence of God, hostilities were prevented, and 

 by Januai'y the strained situation was greatly relieved. Mutual confidence sprang 

 up between the natives and the teachers. Having heard, before going to the place, 

 of the bad reputation of the people (which, however, it was found they did not 

 deserve), and feeling that a people who knew nothing of schools would not endure 

 for auy length of time the restraints of a schoolroom, and the cost of building 

 being very great (all lumber and material being sent from San Francisco, 3,000 

 miles), the schoolhonse was built to hold about 50 pupils, and it was thought that if 

 50 pupils could be obtained among such a people, under such circumstances, it 

 would be a very great success. But to tlie astonishment of the teachers themselves, 

 and to the astonishment of the friends of education interested in these Arctic 

 schools, it was found that the total enrollment for the first year was 304 pupils, out of 

 a population of 539 people. The average daily attendance for the last seven months 

 of the school was 146, and the average daily attendance for the whole session of nine 

 months was 105. As the schoolroom would hold only about 50 at a time, the teachers 

 were compelled to divide the pupils into three classes, and hold morning, afternoon, 

 and evening sessions of school. And then, to prevent the children who belonged to 

 the afternoon or evening school from smuggling themselves into the morning session, 

 or the morning children from remaining to the afternoon or evening session, it was 

 found necessary to build two parallel snow walls some distance from the schoolroom 

 door, and when the bell stopped ringing for school the teachers ranged themselves 

 on either side, in order to sift the children that were trying to get into the school- 

 room. It was with great difficulty that the pupils were made to understand that it 

 was not proper to talk and laugh and jump over the benches in the schoolroom dur- 

 ing school as much as they pleased; nor could they understand why thirty or forty 

 visitors could not lounge about the room which was needed for those who desired to 

 study; so that upon several occasions it became necessary to exclude certain parties 

 from the schoolroom, but this exclusion of a few days was all that was necessary. 

 It was considered a great punishment not to be able to come to school. During the 

 epidemic a number of slates of the children that they had been allowed to take home 

 at night were returned by order of the medicine men, who ascribed that much of the 

 sickness was due to the slates and the pictures which the children made upon them — 

 they were "bad medicine." 



The teachers began their school work by learning the Eskimo names of the most 

 important objects in daily use and training their pupils in the English equivalents. 

 From words they proceeded to phrases, and from phrases to sentences, teaching them 

 to translate the Eskimo into English and vice versa. They gradually added English 

 letters and numbers, together with some elementary geography and arithmetic. 

 Although they had had a combined experience of thirteen years in the schoolroom in 

 the States, the teachers declare that they never had more quick-witted, intelligent 

 pupils than these Avild Eskimo children. At the beginning of the school year only a 

 few could count ten in a blundering fashion, and nine-tenths of the pupils knew 

 practically no English whatever. At the close of the first school year they had a 

 good working vocabulary, knew something of geography and map-drawing, under- 

 stood thoroughly the decimal basis of our numbers, could count up to one thousand, 

 work examples in simple addition, write and read sinq^le English words, and carry 

 on a conversation in English on everyday practical matters. The pupils showed a 

 remarkable desire to learn for learning's sake. During 1891-92 the average daily 

 attendance was 106, and during 1892-93, 160. 



In the summer of 1893 Mr. W. T. Lopp was appointed superintendent of the rein- 

 deer station at Port Clarence, and with his wife removed to that place, leaving Mr. 

 and Mrs. H. R. Thornton in charge of the mission. On the 19th of August, 1893, Mr. 

 Thornton was assassinated by two young men whom he had expelled from school for 



