The detailed and comprehensive report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, issued in January, 1915, emphasized the desirability of the attendance of Indian children at near-by public schools, to obviate the dreaded separation from parents which is entailed when they must be sent by the government to distant Indian boarding schools.
The report mentions the gratifying increase last year in the number of Indian children in attendance at the neighborhood public schools.
Some tribes are still peculiarly neglected educationally. The
Navajos are a conspicuous example.
Twenty-four thousand Indian children remain without schools.
The religious motive enters deeply into the psychology of the Indian, and no greater stimulus toward better living can be given them than Christianity affords. Therefore the Mission School is especially adopted to bring the Indians into helpful and constructive relationships as individuals and citizens.
Of great significance in the uplift of the Indians is the recent opening of several schools for training young Christian Indians for leadership in Christian work among their own people.
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"The transition which is now going on from the old days of hunting and fishing to the new period of commercial development throughout all Southeastern Alaska must have a profound effect upon the future of this people.
"More pupils applied for admission to the Sheldon Jackson School at Sitka this year than could possibly be accommodated. The industrial departments of this institution have received careful attention. The general claim of all this work is to give full practical and theoretical training, with a view to preparing the girls for the task of home-making and the boys as wage earners." [Footnote: Woman's Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian Church in U.S.A.]
This aim holds true also for the schools of all Protestant
Missions in the far North.