68 Sketches of on Excursuni io Southern Alaska. 



APPENDIX TO NO. VI. 



Reasons for Locating an Industrial Home and School for B oys at Fort Wrangel 



and Sitka. 



1. The McFarland Industrial Hcmie for Girls is situated at Fort Wrangel. 

 It has already twenty-eight inmates, the support of each being guaranteed by a 

 separate ladies' society, or by individuals, so long as she shall remain in the 

 Home. These girls are being instructed in household arts, as well as the 

 principles of a common education. They will be fitted to be the wives of 

 intelligent, christian men. They should not leave the Home until they are 

 honorably and filly married. But it will be very difficult to find suitable hus- 

 bands for them, unless we have also a training school for Indian boys. And 

 to marry them to men beneath them, in point oi education or morality, would 

 tend to defeat the very purpose for which the Home was founded, and plunge 

 them back into barbarism and misery. The boys' school, located at Sitka, can- 

 not supply the place of one at Fort Wrangel. The two places are a hundred 

 and sixty miles apart, communication is infrequent, and the voyage by canoe 



difficult. The inmates of the two institutions cannot be brought together 

 conveniently ; and there would remain only the alternatives of building another 

 girls' industrial home at Sitka and another boys' training school at Fort Wran- 

 gel — or compelling our educated and chiustianized young men and women to 

 marry inferior and profligate companions. Were a boys' school to be founded 

 at Fort Wrangel, the two institutions would be supplementary to each other ; 

 and thus, in due time, christian homes would be established. 



2. Fort Wrangel is the gathering point for many of the tribes. The 

 Indians in their voyages up and down the coast find this, at present, the most 

 convenient place for rest and trade. At times, every tribe in the archipelago 

 is represented there. In this way, the McF^arland Home thus numbers among 

 its inmates girls of the Stahkeen, Sitka, Chilcat, Auk, Takoo, Hanega, Ton- 

 gas, Hydah and Simpsian tribes. The boys' school, located at Sitka, will 

 gather into its fold representatives of some of these tribes. The aim of these 

 schools is to provide skilled and educated workmen who can instruct the various 

 tribes in the mechanical arts, as well as in the elements of a christian education. 

 Every young man should go forth from the institution to his own tribe, fitted 

 to be a teacher in the full sense of that word ; and thus the whole archipelago 

 and adjacent mainland be enlightened and civilized. On account of its loca- 

 tion and the influence of its missions. Fort Wi angel can gather into an institu- 

 tion of this class, more tribes than any other locality. 



3. The Indians of Fort Wrangel, by reason of their superior advancement, 

 would respond to the call for students of such a school, and support it steadily. 



4. There is, near Fort Wrangel, a tract of three hundred acres of tillable 

 land already cultivated, in part. This can be purchased very cheap, and cul- 

 tivated by the boys of the school, and enough stock and vegetables raised to 

 supply both institutions. Thus the boys can be taught agriculture, and the 

 expenses of the school met in part at the same time. An available tract of 

 land, foi the same purpose, can doubtless be ibund near Sitka. 



