MEMORIAL ON INDIAN EDUCATION.
ADOPTED BY THE CHICAGO MINISTERS’ MEETING.
To his Excellency the President of the United States:
The Congregational ministers of Chicago and vicinity, in their weekly session at the Grand Pacific, September 5th, to the number of thirty-five, desire to memorialize you in behalf of a modification of the recent orders of the Indian Department, whereby the use of the native language is interdicted in all Indian reservation schools, not only those that are under Government patronage, in whole or in part, but also those that are private or are under missionary societies.
From the first we have favored the policy proposed by missionaries among the Indians, now adopted by the Government, and heartily approved by yourself, of bringing these aborigines into American citizenship and of securing them land in severalty, with the surplus turned into a school fund.
Nor do we question the motives of the heads of the Indian Department. Indeed this is forefended by the fact, as semi-officially stated, that “the question of the effect of the policy of the office upon any missionary body has never been considered;” and this fact gives us the more assurance in soliciting you, that the missionary view may yet receive a due consideration.
We are clear, with the Indian officials, that in the effort to Americanize these natives, the English language must be introduced as fast as possible. But we would not do this to the total exclusion of the native tongues in the missionary and interior station schools, being confident that the final result will be more speedily secured by the use, in part, of the Indian language.
We are confident that the greatest civilizing power among any pagan people will be that which comes from the ideas and the influence of the Christian religion; and that these can be made most effective through the Bible of that religion in the native tongue. This has been the wisdom of missions in all times and countries, and none the less in those to the Indians of America. By this process alone have we secured the civilized “nations” we now have in the Indian Territory, in New York, in Wisconsin and in other parts of our country. So the missionaries to the Sioux gave them the Bible, the catechism, Pilgrim’s Progress, spelling-books and readers in their own dialect, and in this way gave them the really American ideas, as well as the religion of Christ. And what is the result? Two thousand of them gathered into the Christian church and twice that number civilized.