parade? Such displays appeal to the admiration of the casual and indiscriminating people who form a large proportion of our visitors, but they cannot win the approval of the true educator.

The Indian is already well versed in the spectacular; his painting and his ceremonies are all of that order. He should be brought to a realizing sense of the dignity of labor by some other method than chapel talks. He should be shown by example that it really is honorable to work; that it is not only honorable, but imperative; that his attaining and maintaining true manhood depends upon it; that any person or class that persists in idleness will and should perish.

ates.

I am not a pessimist, and I have unbounded faith in Indian education; but it is not heresy to suggest that we are in very many instances getting away from our proper course. Schools have now been in existence long enough that we must expect to be judged in some measure by results. We have been asked for and accorded time, but it is unfair to ask for all time before the effectiveness of our system is estimated by the products. Many graduates have gone out, as well as many hundreds of under-graduPeople are watching these young men and women, and want them to demonstrate that they have the capacity to get along in the world without being sustained by a government position, and they want to see that number sufficiently large to remove them from the danger of being considered freaks. To this end we will do well to discard a good deal of tinsel, and, while teaching, let it be in the line of making our charges a plain, honest, God-fearing people, capable of earning a living under the conditions that actually confront them.

The country has been looking for the end of distinctive Indian schools, and we merit censure if the next few years do not witness the close of many of them and the education of their former inmates side by side with other children. It is impossible to have a self-reliant people so long as any form of reservation be tolerated, be it bounded by the limits of an agency or a class school. Cannot we do more to hasten the time when we can engage in other pursuits, conscious that we have brought two races so near to each other that the line of demarkation is obliterated and all are granted equal opportunities and held to the same requirements?

DISCUSSIONS

A. WHAT SHOULD BE THE PERCENTAGE OF INDIAN BLOOD TO ENTITLE PUPILS TO THE RIGHTS OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS?

SUPERINTENDENT H. B. PEAIRS, HASKELL INSTITUTE, LAWRENCE, KAN.

The fact that there are a great many children in Indian schools who are only part Indian is the cause of considerable discussion upon this subject. We are very often asked: What Indians are entitled to the privileges of government schools? Indians not members of the five civilized tribes, viz., Cherokees, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles,

and Choctaws, may attend government schools, is the usual reply, and is, I believe, correct under existing laws.

Whether there should be any change in such regulations is then the question to be considered.

I would draw this conclusion, then, that where Indian children, whether all or part Indian, are not within possible reach of the state for educational purposes, the national government should provide for them. Where Indians live within reach of good public schools, I believe they should be encouraged to attend them. I know of cases of this kind, however, where Indian children are not given opportunities equal to those given to white children, because the Indian parents do not pay taxes.

The question is a complex one, and it seems to me that no sweeping general law can be safely applied as to what should be the percentage of Indian blood to entitle pupils to the rights of government schools.

The nation must see to it that all of its people have educational opportunities. Where local or state government cannot reach any community of people, be they white, black, or red, I believe the national government should do so.

B. HOW CAN WE SECURE THE SYSTEMATIC TRANSFER OF PUPILS FROM DAY TO RESERVATION SCHOOLS, AND From reseRVATION TO NON-RESERVATION SCHOOLS?

SUPERINTENDENT J. C. HART, ONEIDA INDIAN SCHOOL, WISCONSIN

The Oneidas are a tribe of 2,000 near Green Bay, Wis. They have 65,000 acres of land, and there are on the whole between 400 and 500 children of school age. Two hundred are in outside schools, 100 being at Carlisle, 50 at Hampton, etc. We have a capacity for 220 pupils, and five years is sufficient to prepare them for going to a higher school. If they cannot go to any other school, eight years will give them an education sufficient to enable them to carry on business, and to carry it on with considerable success.

Last year eight different representatives of outside schools came to Oneida seeking pupils without any notice to me. This is a great waste of time, and is a matter which should have been turned over to the superintendents of the school to determine who are fit for transfer and who are not. These representatives would have taken Indian pupils without my knowledge and without examination. These things are unfortunate and are disastrous to the pupils. I do not know that we can devise a set of rules that can be absolutely perfect and satisfactory for the transfer of pupils. If they are willing to go, I doubt if a law can be made to prevent them. It is assuming a great deal to send children away from their parents for several years.

My idea is that the superintendents with the day-school teachers on the reservation ought to know the pupils so well that when the proper time comes for transfer they should be able to make a list, showing who, in their opinion, should go, and that those only should be solicited who are physically and mentally able.

C.

CHILDREN SHOULD AT LEAST BE ABLE TO SPEAK, READ, AND WRITE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, BEFORE BEING PLACED IN A NON-RESERVATION SCHOOL

C. F. PIERCE, SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN SCHOOL, FLANDREAU, s. d. After fourteen years' experience in both reservation and non-reservation schools, I am fully convinced that, as a general rule, no child should be sent to a non-reservation school until he has attained a fair knowledge of the English language, and has reached the age of thirteen years.

To adopt the policy of removing the Indian child from the reservation at an age of six or seven years, as is advocated by many persons, would necessitate closing or curtailing the reservation day and boarding schools, thus removing the greatest factor for advancement on the reservation.

Aside from the benefits to be derived from the presence of the child at the reservation school, there are also other reasons, from the standpoint of the child, why he should not be transferred from his home until he has passed a few years at school there.

First, the period in a child's life from six to fourteen years is a very important one, probably the most important of his early life; and climatic changes at this time have frequently been the cause of a breaking down of the constitution.

Scrofulous or tuberculous tendencies are more liable to become manifest during this period, and changes in altitude and temperature only tend to hasten the general breakup of the system. For this reason alone I contend that none but pupils of at least thirteen years of age should be allowed to transfer to any non-reservation school, where the change involves any material change in climate.

Again, the young child entering a training school does not appreciate the character of the work that should be accomplished there, and has little desire to do; the school is simply his home, and he is contented to remain there and drift with the current.

He may advance, but never with the same spirit that inspires the pupil that enters with the thought that it is a school, and that he has a task before him which he should be able to complete within a certain number of years. At the age of about fourteen years the reservation child, if he has been regular in attendance at the day school, should be ready for the sixth or seventh grade, and four years added to his knowledge already obtained should prepare him for the life he will be most likely to lead, or, in a few cases, for higher education.

At this age he enters, prepared for a broader life, with the intention of reaching a higher plane, with the knowledge that he is no longer a child to be led, but that he should rely to a greater extent upon his own strength for his standing.

Surrounded by new influences, he soon acquires new ideas and habits, and falls into line to take up the march of advancement, keeping step with others toward citizenship, with prospects for success largely in his favor.

Finally, the boy who has been taught habits of industry at the reservation school is better prepared to take up industrial training at this time than at an earlier age. At the age of fourteen years he is ready physically and mentally to take up this industrial training, not only in theory, but in practice; and I think experience has shown that better results can be obtained in the non-reservation schools between the ages of fourteen and eighteen than at other periods, provided, of course, that the proper foundation has been laid in the reservation school.

The industrial side of the Indian's education should receive highest consideration, for it is by habits of industry and frugality that he must finally make his success in life, and become a self-supporting and respectable citizen in every sense of the word.

D. THE INDIAN EMPLOYEE

C. J. CRANDALL, SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN SCHOOL, santa fé, n. M. There are few schools and agencies at present where Indians are not employed. It is safe to say that at least one-third of the employees in the school service are Indians. Indian employees in the service, as a rule, come from one or another of the large Indian schools that annually turn out a class of so-called educated Indians. The great objection to our system is that really the Indian is not educated when he leaves our schools, neither in the academic sense nor in the real sense of his responsibilities to himself

and the state. Education, therefore, as it is limitedly applied to the Indian, may often do him as much harm as good. This is best seen when positions are given to Indians for which they are partially or wholly unfitted. There has been too great an inclination to promote the Indian employee to some position which he could not creditably fill ; then, when he failed, to charge the same to the race. There can and should be but one way of treating the Indian employee, and that is in putting him on a level with the white employee. Require him to take the same examination that the white employee must undergo, instead of assuming that a certificate of graduation from one of our Indian schools shall be evidence of his fitness for the teacher's position. To make the Indian especially favored above his white compeer does him more harm than good. To give him a position simply because he is an Indian puts a premium on Indian blood, the evil of which is to be seen in our present ration system, and on those reservations where the government has large sums on deposit to the credit of the Indians.

The needs of the Indian employee are, first, to learn that he is on an equality in all respects with the white employee, and can hold his position only by rendering efficient service; that he can aspire to those positions only for which he is qualified; that his being an Indian is neither a particular advantage nor a barrier in securing employment in the Indian-school service.

It may be said that, as a rule, the Indian makes a satisfactory employee. I am in favor of giving the Indian the first chance, when he is equal or superior to the white employee, but I make it a rule never to recommend him for a position which I feel that he cannot fill with credit.

E. THE NECESSITY OF TEACHING THE BOY TO IMPROVE THE ALLOTMENT THE GOVERNMENT HAS GIVEN HIM

F. F. AVERY, SuperintenDENT OF FORT SPOKANE BOARDING SCHOOL, MILES, WASH. The arguments in favor of this proposition are plain and simple. Permanent location and ownership of a home are helpful to most of us, and especially helpful to the individual who is constitutionally inclined to roam, and yet particularly unfitted to roam among the conditions created by modern civilization.

Land is capital, endowment, opportunity. His allotment is the largest amount of capital, the best endowment, the most available opportunity, that the average Indian boy has. It is located where he is familiar with general conditions. Fortunately it is also, for a time, inalienable.

I thoroly believe that the average Indian boy should be educated and encouraged to cultivate his allotment. But this merely follows from a belief that it was a wise and beneficent thing to give him an allotment and to make it, for a term of years, inalienable. It seems appropriate to defend the two convictions together.

By way of concrete illustration, allow me to mention brief papers which a number of Indian boys with whom I am personally acquainted recently prepared as a class-room exercise on the subject: "What shall I do when I leave school." All of them were written without assistance or suggestion-except as to the subject. Some were quite crude in a literary way. But they, nevertheless, encouraged me as to the mental result of the education the boys are receiving. Each boy stated definite plans for using and improving his allotment. Each, of course, proposed to build a house, and none forgot shelter for stock. I am more hopeful of them than I should be if they were yearning to get away from their allotments into towns, and were expecting to be merchants or clerks, to work in the mines, or follow trades, or to be lawyers, doctors, or preachers. I have no prejudice against any of those callings. I simply believe that these particular boys are more apt to succeed on their land than elsewhere. If, for a few years, they hear no gospel of discontent, do not learn that the reservation is a disgraceful pen from which

they ought to escape, and are simply given by a good agent some part of the business advice and protection which the fortunately born white boy gets from his father and his neighbors, I think they will become useful, independent, and self-supporting citizens, sõ that there will presently be no "Indian problem" of any kind. For the solution of the problem in question is near at hand.

Leasing lands to the white neighbors is, in the majority of cases, wholly demoralizing. It is not any better for the able-bodied Indian than it is for the able bodied white man to receive an income without doing, or having ever done, anything to earn the income.

Population is congesting in cities. Mechanical industries are being minutely specialized and passing into the joint control of enormous corporations and labor unions. The professions are overcrowded. In the meantime the farm-owner and the farmer remain fairly prosperous and comparatively independent citizens. Looking at the matter broadly, does it not seem wholly desirable to attach to the land, and to country life, all who can be so attached, especially the Indians, to whom citizenship and civilization are new facts not yet fully assimilated?

RUSSELL RAtliff, superINTENDENT OF OMAHA BOARDING SCHOOL, NEBRASKA Every Indian boy who has land should combine all his resources-native capacity, acquired growth, undeveloped possibilities, and material assets-into one organic whole for the purpose of making himself a citizen who is to be a credit to his country's flag.

No person is truly educated, no person is a safe and satisfactory citizen, who does not have the habit of industry imbedded in his character. The Indian boy's allotment provides him a location for himself, a focal point for his habit of industry. His mind, his body, his land, are all potential energy. By working his allotment he can improve his land, develop his body, train his mind, educate himself as a whole.

The farming and stocking up of an allotment help decidedly toward forming settled habits of life. Cows, pigs, and chickens, if properly cared for, require that someone stay at home and attend to them. In proportion as the Indian or anyone else roves over the country, his real advance movement will be correspondingly slow. Progress comes rather by uniting settled life with intelligent and purposeful communicative relations.

Leasing an allotment to white men may furnish a young Indian with money enough to live as well as his father lived. Farming it intelligently for himself will give him a great deal more. It will not only provide him with money enough to live better than his father lived, but will also keep him from being idle and doing worse. In making some more money he will make a very great deal more of himself.

Learning to cultivate the land intelligently, that is, with mind and thought as well as hand, should also help him to avoid that false idea, too often gotten, that the few years spent at school have so highly cultivated and refined the student that any such work as tending a farm will soil his intellect. Farming is all the time gradually becoming more and more a matter of head-work and management as well as a matter of manual labor. There is no lack of room and no lack of compensation for all the thought and study the farmer can bestow upon his work. If the Indian boy wishes his mind to keep on growing after he leaves school, he can find as much room for expansion of ideas on his farm and in his field as at the clerk's or teacher's desk.

F. PRACTICAL METHODS IN INDIAN EDUCATION

S. M. MCCOWAN, SUPERINTENDENT OF PHOENIX INDIAN SCHOOL, NEW MEXICO It is my opinion that practical methods in Indian education, when cleared of all educational millinery, means nothing more or less than practical faculties of sensible men and women. Experience has proven to my satisfaction that there is no royal road to