INDIAN EDUCATION. 



389 



dian Affairs upon nomination of Indian agents ; 

 the contract schools, established by religious 

 organizations, which appoint the teachers ; and 

 the mission day-schools, established and con- 

 ducted by the religious associations. Next are 

 the boarding-schools on reservations, of which 

 the schools are established and conducted by 

 the Government, the contract schools by the 

 religious associations, and the independent 

 schools, appointed by and reporting to the 

 Commissioner of Indian Affairs ; the mission, 

 reservation, and boarding-schools being estab- 

 lished and conducted by religious societies. Of 

 the boarding-schools not on the reservations, 

 none are Government schools, and they are 

 all independent of the Indian agencies. They 

 report direct to the Commissioner of Indian 

 Affairs. There are also Government training- 

 schools, established by the Government, erected 

 by the Government, and all expenditures paid 

 by the Government out of special appropria- 

 tions made for the purpose. The Secretary of 

 the Interior appoints the superintendents of 

 these schools, and the employes are appointed 

 by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. These 

 schools are immediately under the supervision 

 of the Indian Bureau. Some of the Govern- 

 ment training-schools are established by educa- 

 tional and religious organizations, and for them 

 Congress makes annually an appropriation for 

 maintaining and educating at each a specified 

 number of Indian pupils. The Hampton Nor- 

 mal and Agricultural Institute, Virginia, and 

 the Lincoln Institution, of Philadelphia, are 

 classed as semi-Government training-schools. 



The Hampton school owes its Indian con- 

 nection to what may be considered a mere ac- 

 cident. In 1875 Capt. R. H. Pratt was put in 

 charge of a number of Indian prisoners at Fort 

 Marion, St. Augustine, Fla. Several of the 

 young men among these captives were, in 

 April, 1878, placed at the Hampton Normal 

 and Agricultural Institute, Va., and subse- 

 quently Capt. Pratt was authorized by the 

 Secretary of the Interior to obtain fifty Indian 

 children from the Indian agencies in Dakota, 

 and place them in the Hampton school, to be 

 " instructed in books and manual labor." Under 

 this authority Capt. Pratt placed forty boys and 

 nine girls at the school in November, 1878, and 

 thus the Indian Department of the Hampton 

 Institute was created. At this school Indian 

 cottages are erected at the expense of philan- 

 thropic people who make contributions for the 

 purpose, and each of these cottages is occupied 

 by a young Indian and his wife. Some of 

 these married couples attend the school, and 

 others obtain the opportunity of learning 

 housekeeping. In 1884 eleven boys and nine 

 girls spent the summer months with farmers 

 in Massachusetts, the girls doing house-work 

 and sewing, and the boys working on the 

 farms. 



The Chilocco school, Indian Territory, has 

 8,640. acres of good agricultural grazing land. 

 It is about one mile south of the southern line 



of Kansas, and has suffered a good deal by in- 

 cursions of Indians and raids of cowboys. This 

 school has extensive buildings, but no shop 

 facilities. 



It is to be regretted that the existing system 

 of Indian education was not thoughtfully pro- 

 vided by wise statesmanship, and then deliber- 

 ately put into operation by a carefully con- 

 sidered Legislature, but was evolved, the schools 

 developing themselves one from another in 

 gradual transition. The school system is in 

 consequence not only imperfect as a whole, 

 but defective in parts. Meanwhile, the co-opera- 

 tion with the Government of religious philan- 

 thropic organizations, and religious work 

 among the Indians, is considered desirable. 

 It is reported that the religious organizations 

 together accomplish an amount of education 

 work among the Indians that may well chal- 

 lenge general attention and merits applause. It 

 is not considered desirable, however, on the 

 part of the Government to permit any sect or 

 educational society to use the Government in 

 any effort to proselytize, or to fill its own purse. 

 It is therefore not considered well to permit 

 any religious denomination to make its mis- 

 sionaries, as such, teachers in any of the Gov- 

 ernment schools. 



The affairs of the Indian schools are man- 

 aged by the Indian School Superintendent, 

 who reports to the Commissioner of Indian Af- 

 fairs, under whose direction is placed the 

 whole matter of Indian education, which is, in 

 fact, in charge of what is known as the Educa- 

 tion Division of the Indian Bureau. Under the- 

 existing system, combined with the methods of 

 tuition that have grown out of it, the com- 

 plaint is made that there is no uniformity in 

 the methods of instruction in Indian schools. 

 "Each school is, in all matters relating to the 

 work to be done by it, a law unto itself." As 

 a result of this absence of uniformity of method 

 in instruction, the text-books of nearly every 

 publisher in the United States are purchased by 

 the Government for use in Indian schools, and 

 it is alleged that thirteen kinds of arithmetics 

 are used, eleven kinds of geographies, eleven 

 kinds of grammars, nine primers, fourteen first 

 readers, fifteen second readers, thirteen third, 

 twelve fourth, six fifth, and twelve spellers. 

 It is also thought that text-books properly used 

 in white schools can not be employed to as 

 good advantage in Indian schools, and the rec- 

 ommendation is made that a set of text-books 

 should be prepared by the Government, and 

 the printing of them done at the Government 

 Printing-Office. On the whole it is shown by 

 experts, long connected with the Indian educa- 

 tional system, that, while good progress has 

 been made, and excellent schools established 

 in many instances, there remain very many op- 

 portunities for improvement, some of which, 

 suggested by the Indian School Superintendent 

 in the various official reports of the Commis- 

 sioner of Indian Affairs, might well be given a 

 fair examination, and if practical carried out. 



