There is a tendency to increase our Indians’ course of study to longer than three years. One set having returned, the Indians, whose parental feelings are tender and strong, are more trustful of us, and readily consent to a longer absence of their children. One boy has already returned at his own expense, and another is saving his money for the purpose, both to learn more and to perfect themselves in their trade of shoemaking. The sooner the Indian can stand without government aid, the better. Any boy can return who will pay his way back. This gives a motive to work, and creates appreciation of his opportunities.
For the practical necessities of Indian life their training should be practical.
We give half the day to study and half to labor. An education which does not fit them to take care of themselves may do them more harm than good.
I think that when charity and the government are linked together for Indian work, the former should erect the buildings and maintain the teachers, the latter supply the wants of the body. United States beef and flour and shoes are as good as any body’s, but government employés, as our civil service stands, are not the men to elevate the Indian. The telling factor in all work for men is the person who does it. Unless that shall be supplied from the pure fountains of our Christian civilization it will not, as a rule, be supplied at all. I refer to the educational work at the agencies; there the government day and boarding schools should be strictly responsible to the controlling power, and their moral value will be that of the agent in charge. Missionary institutions should stimulate these, and should be conducted by superior men and women directly responsible to their Eastern supporters. I call it sham missionary work to send out Christian teachers to be supported on public pay. The churches who do that, and some do, are doing nothing. Let us first send our own teachers for the Indians, and then fit them to become their own teachers; to make the teachers is to make the people.
The free Negro schools in the South are vitalized by a number of strong central institutions under Northern men that train the picked growth of the race as teachers. This is, I think, the true relation of Eastern charity to the Indian. There should be an excellent boarding and industrial school at each important agency for this purpose. Getting fifteen dollars a month of government for food and clothing for each pupil need not in the least weaken the independence or morals of teachers. The friends of the Indian will do the rest.
The situation is critical, the opportunity is great; the rising tide of public sentiment, the movement at Washington, the eagerness as well as the exigency of the red man mean much.
But this work needs a leader; it will drag if thrown on an overloaded man. The man is as much as the money; the one will bring the other, both by wise appeals and good work that will commend itself to the country.
For more than a century Indians rejected our civilization; now their thinking men, for they are a race of thinkers, forecast the future and wish their children taught the white man’s way as their only hope.
They do not choose this; they are compelled to it. Hundreds, thousands, are waiting for an education. They beg for what they once refused.