This bill is practically as wicked as the one for which it is offered as a substitute. As the New York Independent says, it “imposes a fine of $8,000 per year upon an institution for permitting the child of a teacher to recite to his own father.” Such legislation is a disgrace to the century. Private and missionary schools should have the fullest liberty in this Republic to teach whom they will. A missionary school opens its doors and says, in the language of the gospel whose teachings it is bound to follow, Whosoever will, may come. The Georgia Legislature sets itself up above the gospel, and says, Whosoever will, may not come. Shame upon the State that, while calling itself Christian, dares to legislate in violation of Christian principle. It will not, it cannot prosper, till it changes its course. What the final outcome will be we cannot yet say; but this is certain, the legislation will be against our principles and our work. In the meantime, it is pertinent for us to ask the churches if they intend to stand by us as we attempt to stand for the principles on which as an Association we rest—principles that we believe to be the very essence of the gospel? To close this year with a debt would certainly be a great discouragement in our work. Friends, bend to the rescue with a will.
THE INDIAN LANGUAGE IN MISSION WORK.
There has been severe and just criticism on the policy of the Indian Commissioner prohibiting the use of the vernacular in the schools among the Indians, not only in those sustained by the Government, but in those supported wholly by private contributions. We wish to give due credit to the Commissioner. He is honest in his purpose, and his general aim is good. He is right in wishing to make the Indian a civilized man, and not a civilized Indian. The Indian dross must be taken out and the manhood-gold polished. A man’s language is a part of himself, and the language of the Indian, while it is rich in metaphors relating to natural scenery, comparatively pure in reference to the social virtues, and exalted in its conception of the Great Spirit, yet, in many respects, it holds him to his old life, with its cruelties and superstitions. It is true that as the Roman and Greek languages, conveying originally only human and mythological ideas, came at length to be the vehicle for Christian meanings, so may the Indian’s vernacular. But the process is long and tedious, and the number of Indians who use it is so small and its vocabulary is so meagre, that the effort to make it a permanent vehicle for thought and speech is not worth making, especially as there is a language so much better just at hand. The only question relates to the mode of transition from the one to the other, and how far the Indian tongue can be made a means of more speedily and accurately teaching the English; or, rather, how far the Indian language can be used to help the Indian into a Christian civilization.
Here is the Commissioner’s great mistake. No square rule is wise. It depends on persons, locations and surroundings. For example:
1. The Indian pupil at Hampton or Carlisle is surrounded by English-speaking people, and he will learn English perforce, as an Englishman learns French in France, or German in Germany. Yet even here the process is slow. The Indian youth is so bashful that he makes reluctant use of his opportunities, so that it requires three or four years to acquire the English language at Hampton; and withal, an interpreter is an essential helper there.
2. The Indian boy at the Santee Normal School has only the teachers as his English-speaking associates; the rest are Dakotas. He must spend toilsome years in getting a little knowledge through a dense medium, when an occasional Dakota word would at once illuminate the meaning of the English. What the pupil wants is English ideas, rather than English words. Whatever will give this should be used.
3. But the greatest difficulty is in the schools at out-stations, which have a missionary aim. Here the idea is mainly the making of Christian character and life. The teacher is usually a native, a pupil from the Santee or Oahe schools. He has some knowledge of English, enough to enable him to give more precise and better meaning to the Dakota, but not enough to enable him to teach or preach in it, and if he could his hearers would not understand him. He must use his native tongue mainly, or not work at all. The Missionary Societies would find their work ruinously crippled if these out-stations were cut off. They are the pioneers of missionary work.
4. Then, again, there is the mass of the adult Indians that can never learn a new language. They must hear the gospel in their native tongue, or never hear it. The President of the United States, Secretary Lamar and Commissioner Atkins have all committed themselves to the value—nay, the necessity—of religion as a lever for the elevation of the Indian. Do they mean now to forbid the Missionary Societies from training teachers and preachers for these people? This is an assumption of authority that befits Russia, and we are sure the people of these free United States will submit to no such Star-Chamber dictation.