122 REPORT ON THE INTRODUCTION OF 



AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS RECOMMENDED 



IN ALASKA. 



Department of the Interior, 

 Bureau of Education, Alaska Division, 



Washington, I). C, December 15, 1890. 



Dear Sir: In 1884 Congress passed " an aet providing a civil gov- 

 ernment for Alaska," which was approved by the President on May 17 

 of that year. 



As the act provided for no legislature or legislative control, or for 

 any taxation, all educational matters were devolved upon the Secretary 

 of the Interior, and he was charged with the duty of making " needful 

 and proper provision for the education of the children in Alaska." 



This he has commenced to do through the Bureau of Education in 

 the establishment of elementary and industrial schools, in which are 

 taught a few of the mechanic arts. 



In the growth of tbese schools and in the development of the educa- 

 tional system the time has come when the conditions of the country 

 and people demand an enlargement in the line of the act of July 2, 

 1862, providing schools for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic 

 arts, and the supplementary act approved March 2, 1887, establishing 

 an experiment station in connection with agricultural schools, and also 

 the act approved August 30, 1890, for the better support of the schools 

 for the benefit of agriculture and tbe mechanic arts. 



There are in Central and Arctic Alaska about 400,000 square miles 

 of moss-covered tundra that is especially adapted to the grazing of the 

 reindeer and is practically useless for any other purpose. 



To reclaim and make valuable this vast area, to introduce a large and 

 permanent industry, where none previously existed, to take a barbarian 

 people on the verge of starvation and lift them up to a comfortable 

 self-support and civilization, is certainly a great and important work. 



In the States and Territories situated in the temperate zone, one of 

 the leading features in the course of instruction in an agricultural 

 school is stock raising. In Alaska the environment would cause the 

 care, management, and propagation of domestic reindeer to be one of 

 the leading industries. 



The stocking and utilizing of the vast plains of polar Alaska would 

 be a great event under any circumstances. But just now it is espe- 

 cially important and urgent, from the fact that the destruction of the 

 whale and walrus has brought numbers of Eskimo face to face with 

 starvation, and something must be done promptly to save them. This 



