“To me the most pathetic sight in the world is a score of little red children of nature corralled in a close room, and required to recite lessons in concert and go through the conventional daily programme of one of our graded common schools. The white child, born into a home that has a permanent building for its axis, passing most of its time within four solid walls, and breathing from its cradle days the atmosphere of wholesale discipline, is in a way prepared for the confinement and the mechanical processes of our system of juvenile instruction. The little Indian, on the other hand, is descended from a long line of ancestors who have always lived in the open and have never done anything in mass routine; and what sort of antecedents are these to fit him for the bodily restraints and the cut-and-dried mental exercises of his period of pupilage? Our ways are hard enough for him when he is pretty well grown; but in his comparative babyhood—usually his condition when first captured for school purposes—I can conceive of nothing more trying.
“My heart warmed toward an eminent educator who once told me that if he could have the training of our Indian children he would make his teachers spend the first two years lying on the ground in the midst of the little ones, and, making a play of study, convey to them from the natural objects right at hand certain fundamental principles of all knowledge. I dare say that this plan, just as stated, would be impracticable under the auspices of a Government whose purse-strings are slow to respond to the pull of any innovation. But I should like to see the younger classes in all the schools hold their exercises in the open air whenever the weather permits. Indeed, during the last year of my administration I established a few experimental schoolhouses, in regions where the climate did not present too serious obstacles, which had no side-walls except fly-screen nailed to studding, with flaps to let down on the windward sides in stormy weather.”[[39]]
The day schools, for the most part, are of simple construction. The teachers’ quarters are built adjoining, or the teacher occupies the ell or detached cottage. There is usually attractive land large enough for a garden. Except in the northern reservations, the day schools are more or less open-air affairs. In many of them the children are provided with a luncheon at noon. Among the poorer Indians, the school luncheon furnished by the Government constitutes the only substantial meal the Indian children receive. Most observers agree that boys and girls six to thirteen years of age should not be separated from their homes during the entire year. The day school surrounds the children during school hours with a wholesome environment and encourages them to work at home in the field and garden and promotes real education, culture and advancement.
The boarding-schools on reservations were considered by Mr. Leupp to be an anomaly in the American educational system. He aptly states:—
“They furnish gratuitously not only tuition, but food, clothing, lodging, and medical supervision during the whole period for which a pupil is enrolled. In other words, they are simply educational almshouses. Nay, though ostensibly designed to stimulate a manly spirit of independence in their beneficiaries, their charitable phase is obtrusively pushed forward as an attraction, instead of wearing the brand which makes the almshouse so repugnant to Caucasian sentiment. Thus is fostered in the Indian an ignoble willingness to accept unearned privileges; from learning to accept them he gradually comes to demand them as a right; with the result that in certain parts of the West the only conception his white neighbors entertain of him is that of a beggar as aggressive as he is shameless. Was ever a worse wrong perpetrated upon a weaker by a stronger race?”[[40]]
The boarding-schools have somewhat changed their character, and they are certainly reduced in numbers since Mr. Leupp’s administration. His successor, Honorable Robert G. Valentine, recommended their restriction, and the present administration has still further curtailed them. The day schools are far preferable, also are the non-reservation schools. Indians who are exceptionally bright need not attend reservation boarding-schools, but will find opportunity to study under better conditions elsewhere; like Eastman at Dartmouth; Roe Cloud at Yale.
Of Indian education at the present time there is little criticism to be offered. The tendency seems to be toward agricultural training with a sufficient grounding in primary and secondary education to enable the pupils to write intelligent letters, keep accounts and become familiar with American history, etc. This is all that need be expected of the Government schools, and advanced learning may be obtained in the colleges.
While all this is true, we must record, that in the early years of Indian education grievous mistakes were made. These have had their effect on the Indian body at large. Chief among these were the contract schools established years ago by act of Congress. These were schools located either on the reservations and known as boarding schools, or at a distance.
CLASS IN AGRICULTURE JUDGING CORN, CHILACCO INDIAN SCHOOL