268 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



the past six years," and the Secretary "is further requested to 

 report whether rehgious symbols, emblems or garbs of any 

 particular religious denomination or society are permitted to 

 be worn or used or publicly exhibited and kept, by employees 

 in the Indian school service, or within or upon property under 

 government control in the Indian service." 



Here was a dead set made at the Sisters and Catholic 

 mission schools which were taken over into the govern- 

 ment service, — all made with the intent of crippling and dimin- 

 ishing whatever religious power and good Catholic teachers 

 and missionaries might derive from the public announcement 

 and exhibition of the faith they believed in. It was an act of 

 hostility to the Church and her teachers, and it came in spirit 

 (and in fact, when coupled with the Valentine order) within 

 the Constitutional prohibition against Congress taking any 

 steps "prohibiting the free exercise" of any particular religion. 

 Neither Congress nor the government has any right to de- 

 prive Catholic Indian children of the privilege of learning 

 their Faith in the manner in which it could be freely taught 

 outside the government school. If it does, then it is a dis- 

 crimination against them, virtually a prohibition against "the 

 free exercise thereof." 



This is more evident when we consider that the only schools 

 in which a religious garb is worn are Catholic schools. If 

 it were a case in which teachers, who were Sisters garbed in 

 the habit of their order, were employed to teach Protestant, 

 Catholic and pagan Indians in a mixed assemblage, the argu- 

 ment against a religious garb might have some force. But why 

 Catholic Sisters should be prohibited from wearing their dis- 

 tinctive habit while teaching Catholic children passes com- 

 prehension. Because they put in practice what they teach 

 in precept, therefore they are to be condemned. When these 

 schools were taken over by the government, and thenceforth 

 run as government schools, it certainly could not mean that 

 Catholic usages, customs and garb were to be remorselessly 

 suppressed. Yet that is exactly what Commissioner Valentine 

 seeks to do. Let us review the facts. 



In 1874 the Grey Nuns from Montreal entered the United 

 States government service as teachers in the Indian School for 

 Sioux children which was established at Fort Totten, Devil's 

 Lake Agency, N. D. The Indians of this Agency are Catho- 



