REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 38 



indeed the general policy of the National Gallery of Art should have 

 the advice of a committee composed of the most distinguished artists, 

 sculptors, and students of art in the country, which body might, for 

 purposes of administration, be divided into subcommittees to deal 

 with the various aspects of the National Gallery. Steps have already 

 been taken to organize such a committee, and conferences have been 

 held looking to that end, and I hope before very long to bring a defi- 

 nite plan for its constitution to the attention of the Regents. 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY. 



The Bureau of American Ethnology has been engaged in investi- 

 gations among the Indian tribes of the country for upward of a quar- 

 ter of a century. The object of these investigations has been two- 

 fold — to preserve a record of the native races of this country, and to 

 place at the disposal of the General Government information which 

 would enable it successfully to deal with the tribes. For this latter 

 work the first requisite is a working knowledge of the tribes, and 

 the Bureau has collected data relating to some (50 families of lin- 

 guistic stocks, and upward of 300 tribes. It has located and classi- 

 fied these, and has made progress in the study of their history, rela- 

 tionships to one another and to the whites, their needs as wards of 

 the Government, and their capacities for and adaptability to civiliza- 

 tion. For this purpose it was deemed necessary to give attention to 

 the culture of the tribes, especially their languages, social organiza- 

 tion and government, systems of belief, religious customs, and arts 

 and industries, as well as to their physical and mental characteristics. 



It has not been possible to study all of the tribes in detail, but only 

 to investigate a sufficient number as types to stand for all. The re- 

 sults of the work heretofore accomplished are embodied in published 

 reports, and in many manuscripts preserved in the archives of the 

 Bureau. It has been deemed advisable to take stock, as it were, and 

 to issue a summary of our present knowledge of the tribes. This has 

 taken the form of a handbook of American Indians, the first volume 

 of which has appeared and received much favorable comment. No 

 effort will be spared to push this work to a conclusion, and as much 

 force and time as are necessary for this purpose will be employed 

 during the year. In order to keep this summary within the compass 

 of an easily consulted handbook, many important subjects have been 

 treated merely in outline. 



The next special subject to which a publication will be devoted 

 will be the languages and their dialects, for which a handbook in at 

 least two volumes is in progress, the first being now ready for publi- 

 cation. It is the work of our -first American philologist, assisted by 



