The great war which so deeply moved the population of the United States has left many traces in Soldiers' Homes, and men deprived of legs or arms, or bearing marks of indelible wounds, are to be met with wherever there is any considerable gathering of people all over the Union. The clerk at the bar of the hotel, to whom we were talking a moment ago, was a captain in a regiment of militia, and served with distinction, having risen to the grade he occupies by conduct and courage during the war; and if he is known among his friends by the title of "Colonel," he deserves, probably, the brevet conferred upon him by the authority of the general public around him. The conductor of the train on the Pennsylvania Railroad, to whose attention we were so much indebted, was an ex-officer of volunteers, was engaged at the first battle of Bull Run, where he was wounded, and in several other actions. And our good friend the Major, who enabled us to pass many an hour listening to his admirable rendering of negro minstrelsy, bore in his body a proof of the dangers he had passed, in the shape of a Confederate bullet, or it might have been (for I am not quite sure now) a projectile of the Federal persuasion. And so on. Scarcely a day passed that we did not meet someone who had been fighting on one side or the other.
One great change has come over Americans since I was last here, and, whether it was the ridicule to which they were exposed or to a sense of their greatness as a nation that it be due, it is to be commended. Except by a professional interviewer, not one of the party was asked, "What do you think, sir, of our country?"!
The welcome which an Englishman who is entitled to admission into good society receives all over the States, in the best houses, and from the best men, is as gracious and warm as ever. It seems as if a reaction against the suspicion, jealousy, and harshness which marred the political relations of the Republic and Great Britain in times gone by, moved those who behave with so much courtesy to Englishmen, and that they seem to say, sotto voce, "Come and see how I forget the wrongs done to the United States by the Ministers of George III. and his successors! Admit that I can be as magnanimous as I am rich and cultivated! I am of your house, but I have transplanted all the good qualities of your race to American soil, and grafted them on the tree of liberty which towers aloft in all the splendour of Transatlantic luxuriance above us."
CHAPTER IX.
THE RED MAN AND HIS DESTINY.
Captain Pratt—Carlisle Barracks—An Indian Bowman—The Indian Question—The Pupils' Gossip—The "School News"—Indian Visitors—The White Mother—The India Office—White and Red—Quo Quousque?—Indian Title Deeds—The Reservations—The Indian Agencies—Missionary Efforts—The Red Man and the Maori.
On the 5th of May the party visited Carlisle Fort or Barracks, one of the ancient military establishments of the Republic, where in the old times, speaking in an American sense, a considerable force was usually concentrated to keep watch and ward over the western frontiers, now extended thousands of miles away to the Pacific. The Barrack, which is a large quadrangle capable of containing a couple of regiments, is appropriated by the Government to this great experiment, the systematic education of the Indians of both sexes, whose families send them to school for the purpose of learning English and useful arts, mechanical and other, which may be of advantage to their people. It was, perhaps, one of the most interesting of the many little excursions which the Duke of Sutherland and his friends made in the States, and as it was the only one of the schools which we had an opportunity of seeing I shall proceed to give a little account of what we witnessed. In the first place let me express the sense which every one of us entertained of the real sterling qualities of Captain Pratt who is in charge of the school, and of the devotion and solicitude for their charges of those ladies employed in the training establishment. It may be asked how casual visitors could judge of these things? The discipline, order, progress, and perfect method visible in every room, and the intelligence and good understanding between the teachers and the pupils which could be perceived throughout the establishment, were adequate proofs, I think, that the praise is well deserved. At the time of our visit there were something under three hundred pupils, of whom perhaps two hundred were boys, and these were engaged in their class-rooms, each section of Indians being arranged according to nationality, if such a term can be used. But, indeed, the tribes of Indians differed from each other in personal appearance far more than do the races which inhabit the European continent. It is true they nearly all have straight wire-like black hair and eyes set deeply and rather obliquely in faces which are frequently of the Mongol type. But there is great diversity in the shape of the head, the angle of the jaw, the formation of the mouth and nose, the colour (when not tainted or "improved" by an admixture of European blood, whether Mexican or American or other) being pretty uniform, a rich bronze, with something of a copper hue, predominating in the young people. The boys were dressed in a plain neat uniform of greyish-blue, military tunics and trousers, well shod and comfortably equipped in all respects. The girls, amongst whom, perhaps, taste for eccentric finery was not unobservable, wore dresses less uniform in appearance, generally neat and always clean; but their foot gear was rather eccentric. The rooms, spacious barrack-like apartments, well ventilated, were appropriated to the classes according to age and progress, the boys being separated from the girls. The walls were hung with maps and furnished with educational coloured prints, and boards for arithmetical exercises were in each apartment. The desks and stools were such as would be seen in an ordinary school, and if one had not looked at the faces of the pupils and been struck by some of the strange characters on the walls he would have thought himself in the middle of some ordinary school; save, perhaps, that his ear would have missed the curious humming noise which marks the industry of idleness or of legitimate work in similar establishments in Europe. But here were all these young savages, poring over their books or boring with their pens, looking up at the visitors scarcely with curiosity and applying themselves again to their work, or answering questions put to them with the composure which must be a portion of the Red Man's nature.
I cannot recollect how many tribes there were represented at the Carlisle school; but I was struck by the race-distinctions which could be observed when Captain Pratt, standing on a raised platform, called out the names of each tribe. The little batches, in some instances only one or two, stood up briskly and looked somewhat proudly about, as much as to say, "We are Sioux (or Apaches, or Ponchas, or Creeks), not like these other fellows." And the young ladies were, if one might judge from their expression, quite as proud of their own people as the boys. But the names these poor children receive are ludicrous. Not content with calling them by English names, or American, singularly misapplied, very often, as a name may be, their own Indian nomenclature is translated into English, so that we heard reading and reciting beside "Luke Phillips" and "Almarine McKillip" (a Scotch Creek) "Maggie Stands-looking" and "Reuben Quick-bear." There was something of sarcasm, I think, in the address of a Creek boy to the visitors. He said: "The Indian boys had come here to learn something about the use of the bow and hunting. Their people believed that if boys grew up to manhood without learning they would be of no use; therefore they had sent the boys here to get education." Then, after some moral if trite reflections, the lad said: "You must understand that nearly everything that was made was made both for the present and the future. This barracks was not built for Indians, as I do not think the men who built it ever thought that it would be an Indian school; but things were made to do good both in the present and in the future." And then quoth he, looking at his white friends straight in the face: "The education which we are getting here is not like our own land, but it is something that cannot be stolen nor bought from us." And the white man did not turn red at the words! I do not pretend to judge of the actual progress made in learning, but the very intelligent self-possessed teachers reported uniformly that they were satisfied. The most useful education, perhaps, which these Indians receive is in practical mechanics, and a visit to the workshops attached to the barracks was amply repaid by the sight of these industrious young fellows hammering and leathering away in the various departments. They have actually completed waggons of a most satisfactory construction, complete in all their parts, so much so that orders have been received for as many as can be supplied for the use of Agencies. They make and repair their own shoes. They have sent out a hundred and twenty double sets of harness. They make coffee-boilers, cups, pans, pails, and all the articles known to the tin-smith; and the girls are taught to hem and sew and knit in the English fashion; but it must have been not many a long year before the white man landed, when the ancestors of these Indian maidens exercised the same mystery with fine sinew and skin in the wonderful work of which specimens are handed down to us to-day. On one point alone, perhaps, there was something to regret; the health of the children was not all that could be desired. Well clad, regularly fed, I presume on wholesome food, cleanly lodged in well-ventilated rooms, these wild children of the plains scarcely came up to the expectations one would form of them in the matter of chest-measurement; and although many were remarkable for fine physical development, Captain Pratt confessed that their sanitary condition was not everything that could be desired, and that losses from consumption and other causes were rather serious. But they have plenty of out-door exercise. They have games in which they rejoice. They drill and march to the sound of their own band, a very good brass band of eight performers, each of a different tribe, who played "Hail Columbia!" and the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the like, with energy and zest; nay, with harmonious concurrence. When we went out into the large open square, there appeared before us a wonderful being in feathers, waving plumes, wampum and all the leathern panoply and peltry adornments of an Indian, painted, and armed with bow and arrow, probably such an one as Captain John Smith may have seen as he went exploring the woods of Virginia on his way to the sacrifice from which he was saved by Pocahontas. A target was erected at a distance of a hundred yards or so, and had I been in the centre of it, I should have been perfectly safe from the arrows which the Indian warrior discharged at it. But we were told that with a good bow a strong-armed Indian will drive an arrow right through a buffalo, and in that case I would suppose that the buffalo was very near to him indeed.
Of course it is but natural to find very varying degrees of intelligence amongst the pupils, and the rate of progress was by no means uniform, but a committee of examination which recently visited the school declared that the manifestations of advancement in the rudiments of English education were to them simply surprising. It was with admiration bordering on amazement they observed the facility and accuracy with which the children passed through the various exercises, in reading, geography, arithmetic, and writing, of the schoolroom; the accurate training and the amount of knowledge displayed were, they reported, the fullest proof not only of skilful teaching, but of great aptitude and diligence on the part of the children. Considering the brief period during which the school had been in operation, and the fact that the children entered it in a wholly untutored condition, the evidence was conclusive of the capability of culture. They go on to say: "We are fully persuaded that improvement equal to that which we have witnessed in the case of these children of the plains, if made in equal time by American children, would be regarded as quite unusual. And when the difficulty of communication consequent upon the diversities of language is taken into account we can but feel that the results of which we have been the witnesses to-day justify our judgment of them as amazing."
One of the most interesting features connected with the attempts to educate the Indians at Carlisle is the 'School News,' a little publication which, as I understand, is conducted by Indian pupils taught in the establishment, edited by Samuel Townsend, a Pawnee Indian boy. It is published once a month, and costs 25 cents or 1s. per year. It takes as its motto the lines:
"A pebble cast into the sea is felt from shore to shore,