For many years it was customary to keep pupils at the schools from their entrance until their education was finished.
In the summer of 1905 the experiment was tried of permitting a few pupils to go to their homes during vacation. All returned in September cheerfully and willingly; and now, each summer, more than seventy boys and girls return to their homes to spend the time of vacation with their families.
In former years, it would have been too injurious to the child to be subjected to the influence of its parents, who were but slightly removed from savagery. To-day, although many of the old heathenish rites and customs still exist, they have not so deep a hold upon the natives; and it is hoped, and expected, that the influence of the students for good upon their people will far exceed that of their people for ill upon them.
During the past year ninety boys and seventy-four girls were enrolled—or as many as can be accommodated at the schools. They represent the three peoples into which the Indians of southeastern Alaska are now roughly divided—the Thlinkits, the Haidahs, and the Tsimpsians. They come from Katalla, Yakutat, Skagway, Klukwan, Haines, Douglas, Juneau, Kasa-an, Howkan, Metlakahtla, Hoonah—and, indeed, from almost every point in southeastern Alaska where a handful of Indians are gathered together.
CHAPTER XVIII
The many people who innocently believe that there are no birds in Alaska may be surprised to learn that there are, at least, fifty different species in the southeastern part of that country.
Among these are the song sparrow, the rufous humming-bird, the western robin, of unfailing cheeriness, the russet-backed thrush, the barn swallow, the golden-crowned kinglet, the Oregon Junco, the winter wren, and the bird that, in liquid clearness and poignant sweetness of note, is second only to the western meadow-lark—the poetic hermit thrush.
He that has heard the impassioned notes of this shy bird rising from the woods of Sitka will smile at the assertion that there are no birds in Alaska.