—Indian youth not revengeful.—General Armstrong testifies that, “in nearly two years’ experience, we have found no signs of the revengeful nature ascribed to the Indian. ‘They are like other people’ is a common remark among us, and is the sum of Indian character.”
—A full-blooded Indian chief writes to his half-brother at Hampton from Crow Creek: “I am going to write you a letter. I never forget you. Try to learn all you can while you are down there. I wish I were young so I could go down and learn too. I want you to learn all you can and come back and teach your brothers. Try to learn and talk English too. Don’t think about coming home all the time. If you do you can’t learn much. I like to have you write a letter back and tell me how you are.
Wizi—That’s I.”
—Rev. Mr. Denison of Hampton writes of the twelve captive Indian warriors from Florida received by him into the church: “We are not deceived into thinking that these Indians present a highly civilized type of piety, but after careful observation, we are forced to believe that, as regards the pith and marrow of Christianity, they are our beloved brethren, for this one thing they do if ever men did it, forgetting the things that are behind, they press toward the mark. One point in theology they understand, and only one. It is to walk the new road in the help of Jesus, and they show their faith by their works. They are patient in study. They are always found on the side of law and order. Digging in the earth is not the chief joy of an Indian warrior, but Koba writes: ‘I pray every day and hoe onions.’”
—Bed-making by Indian youth.—Mr. James C. Robbins, a colored graduate of Hampton who recently had oversight of Indian boys under Gen. Armstrong, gives the following account: “When they first began to make beds, the sheets were either tucked up under the pillow or laid on the outside. One boy was found to have seven sheets, who did not know the proper use for two. The janitor helped me carry a bedstead into the sitting-room, the boys were called in and seated in a semi-circle, and I began the process of bed-making, the boys grunting and laughing as it proceeded. When the clothes were neatly tucked in, and the pillow shaken and put into its place, I said, ‘Now boys, I will show you how to get into bed,’ which I did. Then, through the interpreter, I asked who was willing to try it. He hardly put the question when a boy who had objected to having his hair cut when he first came, stepped forward. He began where I did, and followed every movement, so closely had he observed. No sooner did he finish than there was a stunning applause. He was then asked to show us how to go to bed, and when his head touched the pillow and he drew the clothing up over him, up went another shout.”
The Chinese.
—Dr. Legge, the professor of Chinese at Oxford University, says, “If the present rate of conversion of the Chinese to Christianity continues, by the year 1913, there will be 26,000,000 of church members, and 100,000,000 of professed Christians in the Chinese Empire.”
—The Chinese government is removing the old restrictions which withheld Chinese merchants from trading with other nations, and is adopting a policy of encouragement to a wide-spread foreign commerce. The Chinese Ambassador at Washington stated that a steamer, commanded and manned by Chinese wholly, would soon appear in San Francisco laden with the products of Chinese industry.