316 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



The people who did not elude the boarding school, and their chil- 

 dren, are the Modern Indians of predominantly Indian descent. I 

 have described the regime of the boarding school; it was designed to 

 change the "heathen ways," to eradicate the Indian culture. This it 

 did with the greatest success. The entire fabric of the culture as it 

 existed up to 1890 was rapidly eroded and eventually destroyed.^* 

 Indeed, as Colson (1953, p. 288) says of the Makah, given the fact 

 that some of the children were enrolled at 3 and 4 years of age, the 

 ensuing process was as much enculturation as it was acculturation. 



Many of those of the Modern Indian group went on to other Indian 

 schools, or to preparatory school and college. Some of these are now 

 in the middle class. Others of the Modern Indian group who attended 

 Indian vocational schools are still in the lower class, as are many who 

 did not go beyond the Cherokee boarding school. The variation 

 within the lower class is a result of years completed in school, con- 

 tacts and experiences outside the reservation such as military service, 

 and the differing White models available. Some models were teachers ; 

 others were neighbors and traders, many of whom represented a dif- 

 ferent stratum of White society. 



CONCLUSIOInT 



The period from about 1890 until the beginning of the Collier 

 Administration was one in which rapid acculturation took place. 

 During this era the Conservatives were set off as a distinct group for 

 reasons which we have seen. The evidence suggests that they are likely 

 to remain limited in acculturation because the process has slowed down. 

 Children of Conservative parents are now in school only 5 hours 

 daily. The present curriculum does not exert intensive accultm-ative 

 pressures. At the end of the school day, children return to homes 

 where their parents rear them in the Conservative way. In addition, 

 the dropout rate of high school students is very high. ^^ Therefore, 

 Conservative children who leave school are not exposed to the total 

 influences of the contemporary educational program. The effect of 

 the school is substantially minimized as an agent of change. 



The churches, too, have lost much of their earlier influence in the 

 acculturative process. The early churches were administered by 

 zealous missionaries who brought with them the Protestant Ethic and 

 who attended to all spheres of their parishoners' lives. Now, the 

 churches which the Conservatives attend are, in large measure, 



35 It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the ethics or morality of force, but it seems evident 

 that, if acculturation and assimilation are goals, rapid change Is more efifective than slow change — a recent 

 theme of Margaret Mead (1956). 



3' The attendance in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades is so low that the Indian Education Committee recom- 

 mended building a consolidated school to include only elementary and junior high school grades. 

 Education beyond the ninth grade would be completed In the county schools. 



