THE INDIAN IN SCHOOL
The thought of educating the natives of America was first conceived by
the earliest explorer-priests, prompted by ecclesiastical ambition and
religious zeal. Churches and missionary societies among the early
colonists undertook both to preach and teach among the children of the
forest, who, said they, "must either be moralized or exterminated."
Schools and missions were established and maintained among them by the
mother churches in England and Scotland, and in a few cases by the
colonists themselves. It was provided in the charters of our oldest
colleges that a certain number of Indian pupils should be educated
therein, and others, as Dartmouth and Hamilton, were founded primarily
for Indian youth. The results, though meagre, were on the whole
deserving of consideration. In the middle of the eighteenth century
there were said to be some Indian boys in Stockbridge, Mass., who "read
English well," and at Harvard several excelled in the classics. Joseph
Brant, though a terror to the colonists during the Revolution, was a man
of rare abilities and considerable education; and Samson Occum, the most
famous educated Indian of his day, was not only an eloquent preacher and
successful teacher but an accomplished hymn-writer. The visit of "the
great Mohegan" to England in 1765, when he preached more than three
hundred times and raised some ten thousand pounds for Dartmouth College,
was perhaps the most striking incident of his career.
From this early chapter of Indian education we find it clearly proven
that individual red men were able to assimilate the classical culture of
the period, and capable, moreover, of loyalty toward the new ideals no
less than the old. The utter disregard of hygiene then prevalent, and
the further facts that industrial training was neglected and little or
no attention paid to the girls, would account to the modern mind for
many disappointments. However, most of the so-called "failure" of this
work is directly traceable to unjust laws, social segregation, frequent
wars, strong drink, and the greed of the whites for Indian lands, one or
all of which causes destroyed many promising beginnings and
exterminated whole tribes or drove them from well-established homes into
poverty and exile.
EARLY MISSION AND CONTRACT SCHOOLS
Beginning with the first years of the nineteenth century, practically
every religious denomination in America carried on more or less
educational work among the natives. In some cases the Indians themselves
contributed toward the expense of these schools, and in others the
United States Government gave meagre aid. As early as 1775 the
Continental Congress had appropriated five hundred dollars for the
support and education of youths at Dartmouth College. This was, however,
less an act of benevolence than of self-interest, since its avowed
object was to conciliate the friendship of those Indians who might be
inclined to ally themselves with the British during the struggle for
independence.
From the year 1819 to 1848 ten thousand dollars annually was distributed
by the Government among mission schools of various denominations, and in
the latter year there were one hundred and three such schools, with over
three thousand pupils. In 1870 the appropriation was increased to one
hundred thousand; and about 1873, during Grant's administration, already
described as marking a new era for the red man, the Government began to
develop a school system of its own, but did not therefore discontinue
its aid to the mission boards. On the contrary, such aid was largely
increased in the form of "contracts."
The usual rule was to pay a fixed sum (commonly $167 per capita per
annum) for each pupil actually in attendance, the religious society or
individual to whom the contract was given providing buildings, teachers,
and equipment. It does not appear that there was any unjust
discrimination between religious bodies in the application of these
funds, and the fact that in the course of a few years a large and
increasing proportion passed under the control of the Bureau of Catholic
Indian Missions must be attributed entirely to their superior enterprise
and activity. This was a period of awakening and rapid growth. By 1886
the total appropriations for Indian education had risen to more than
$1,000,000, and the contracts aggregated $31,000. In ten years more the
Catholics alone drew $314,000. But, during this decade, the policy of
assisting sectarian schools with the public money, claimed to be a
violation of the American principle of separation of Church and State,
had been continuously under fire; and in 1895 it was finally decided by
Congress to reduce the contracts 20 per cent. each year until abolished.
Meantime, the Methodists first in 1892, followed by all the other
Protestant bodies, voluntarily relinquished their contracts, but the
Catholics kept up the fight to the end; nevertheless, in 1900, all
Congressional appropriations for sectarian schools were finally
withdrawn.
Naturally this reversal of a policy of such long standing, even though
due notice had been given, worked serious hardship to schools
established in the expectation of its continuance. Bishop Hare's
valuable work in South Dakota was crippled, particularly as the
principle at issue was so interpreted by the Indian office as to forbid
the issue of treaty rations to children enrolled in mission schools,
although they would have received such rations had they not been in
school at all.
It was held by the Bureau of Catholic Indian missions that Indian treaty
and trust funds are in a different class from moneys derived from the
taxpayers, and that it is perfectly legitimate for a tribe to assign a
portion of its own revenues to the support of a mission school. The
Supreme Court has since declared this view to be correct, and
accordingly this church still utilizes tribal funds to a considerable
amount each year. Rations were also restored to certain schools by act
of Congress in 1906.
As in the case of the sectarian protests against President Grant's
policy in regard to manning the Indian agencies, I believe that
religious prejudice has been a real misfortune to our people. General
Armstrong, in an address given at Lake Mohonk in 1890, expressed the
well-founded opinion that the industrial work of the Catholic schools is
as good as any, often superior; the academic work generally inferior,
while on the moral and religious side he found them at their best.
CARLISLE AND HAMPTON
The Carlisle School in Pennsylvania was the first non-reservation
boarding school to be established, a pioneer and a leader in this
important class of schools, of which there are now thirty-five,
scattered throughout the Middle and Western States. General R. H. Pratt
(then Lieutenant Pratt), while in charge of Indian prisoners of war at
Saint Augustine, Florida, made important reforms in their treatment,
which led in 1878, when their release was ordered by the War Department,
to a request on the part of twenty-two of the younger men for further
education. Seventeen of these were received at Hampton Institute,
Virginia, General Armstrong's celebrated school for freedmen, and the
next year an Indian department was organized at Hampton, while General
Pratt was authorized, at his own suggestion, to establish an Indian
school in the abandoned army barracks at Carlisle.
The school opened with 147 pupils. There were many difficulties and much
unintelligent opposition in the beginning, but wonderful success
attended General Pratt's administration. For many years Carlisle has
enrolled about 1,200 pupils each year, keeping almost half of them on
farms and in good homes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where they work
for board and wages in summer, while a smaller number attend the public
school during the colder months. They earn and save about thirty
thousand dollars annually. This "outing system" was devised by General
Pratt, and has been adopted elsewhere, though not always with equal
success.
Periodical attacks have been made upon the Carlisle school, usually from
political or purely selfish motives; but it has survived them all.
General Pratt's policy was to take the young Indian wholly out of his
environment and the motives as well as the habits of his former life,
and in support of it he has opposed some of the methods of the
missionaries. His advice to his graduates is to remain east and compete
in civilization. He has worked with tremendous energy and great
single-mindedness, and has often been undiplomatic in his criticisms,
thus incurring some enmity. But, upon the whole, his theory is the very
backbone of Indian education, and in fact we are following it to-day.
It is the impression of the most advanced members of the race that he
has rendered to them and to the country a particular service, and that
the wonderful progress demonstrated by the Indian in recent years is due
in large measure to his work, and to its results as seen at Hampton and
Carlisle. These schools are visited by hundreds of people every year,
and have furnished a convincing object-lesson to the many who opposed
Indian education on theory alone. The other thirty-four non-reservation
schools were secured with comparative ease after he had proved his case.
The Indian department at Hampton Institute, which opened in 1878 with
General Pratt's seventeen prisoners of war, flourished for more than
thirty years, and provided for the education of more than one hundred
Indian pupils each year in "the hand, the heart, and the head." General
Armstrong, one of America's heroes of peace, was an enthusiastic
champion of the red man's cause, and as an object-lesson to the public,
as well as in training native teachers and leaders, his great school has
contributed much to the new era. It was decided by Congress a year or
two ago to withdraw the Government appropriation of $20,000 annually
from the Hampton school, but notwithstanding this, more than thirty
Indian pupils remain to work their way through, with some assistance
from free scholarships.
Hampton claims to have been the first school to begin keeping systematic
records of its returned Indian students, and by means of these records
the school is able to show satisfactory and encouraging results of its
work for Indians.
In reply to the oft-asked question: "Do educated Indians go back to the
blanket?" it should be said, first, that return to Indian dress in
isolated communities where this is still the common dress of the people
is not necessarily retrogression. It may be only a wise conformity to
custom. Investigation has shown, however, that very few _graduates_ of
any school ever do reassume Indian dress or ways. Of those who have
attended school but two or three years in all, a larger proportion may
do so. A northwestern school reports that out of a total of 234
graduates only three are known to be failures. The most recent Carlisle
report shows that of 565 living graduates, all but 69 are known to be
profitably employed in a wide variety of occupations; 110 are in the
Government service. There are also 3,800 ex-students, not graduates, of
whom a large majority are successful. Hampton has 878 living returned
Indian students, of whom 87 per cent. are recorded as doing well.
In 1897 the Indian Bureau required all Indian agents and superintendents
to report upon the conduct and usefulness of every student returned from
a non-reservation school. Such an investigation was sure not to be
unduly favorable, and the report showed 76 per cent. of successes. In
1901 a more careful inquiry raised it to 86 per cent.
MISSION SCHOOLS OF TO-DAY
It must not be supposed that the downfall of the contract system and the
development of Government work has meant the end of distinctively
mission schools for Indians. Although a few have been closed, there are
still many in successful operation under the various church boards, the
Indians themselves willingly contributing to their support. Indeed, this
feature of partial self-support is much in their favor, as it is certain
that an education that costs the recipient something is of more worth.
Except for a few plants taken over by the Government, the Catholics
continue to conduct their fine agricultural boarding-schools, notably
those among the Sioux. Bishop Hare of the Episcopal Church began his
labors among the same people in 1873; and in nothing was his
statesmanlike breadth of mind more clearly shown than in the foundation
of a system of excellent boarding-schools, of which at one time there
were five under his watchful care, where from thirty to seventy children
each were sheltered and taught in the atmosphere of a sunny Christian
home. It was impossible to carry them all after the discontinuance of
all Government aid, either in money or rations, but, although the Bishop
died in 1909, Saint Mary's at Rosebud and Saint Elizabeth's at Standing
Rock remain a monument to his memory.
The Presbyterian Church conducts two successful boarding and a number of
day schools; and the Congregationalists have concentrated their efforts
upon a large training-school at Santee, Nebraska, under the veteran
missionary teacher, Rev. Alfred L. Riggs. At Santee the Indian boys and
girls are given a practical education developed to fit their peculiar
needs--its goal the training of teachers, preachers, and leaders in
every walk of life. Here I received my first impulse toward a career in
1875-6. In all these schools, even those where the material equipment is
insufficient, there is more emphasis upon character-building, more of
permanence and in general higher qualifications in the teaching force
than under Government.
VIRTUES AND DEFECTS OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM
There has been nearly $90,000,000 appropriated by Congress since 1876
for Indian education. The appropriation for 1915 was over $4,500,000.
Yet even more is needed. The Indian Bureau estimates 77,000 Indian
children of school age; of these about 27,000 are provided for in
Government schools, 4,000 in mission and 25,000 in public schools,
leaving about 20,000 entirely neglected, besides an estimated 7,000 sick
and defective children, who need hospital schools or some form of
special care.
The present system includes day and boarding schools on the
reservations, as well as the large industrial schools off the
reservations. In 1913 there were reported two hundred and twenty-three
day schools and seventy-six reservation boarding-schools. The training
in the former is elementary; and the most advanced goes little beyond
the eighth grammar grade in the public school, though at Carlisle and a
few others there are short normal and business courses. In 1882 a
superintendent was appointed to inspect and correlate these widely
scattered institutions, and a few years later a corps of supervisors was
put in the field. Since 1891 there have been institutes and summer
schools conducted for the benefit of the teachers.
It is the rule in all boarding-schools that one half the time of each
pupil be given to industrial work, which includes most of the labor
involved in running the kitchen, dining-room, laundry, sewing-room, and
school farm or garden, as well as systematic training in housekeeping,
agriculture, and the mechanical trades. The age of graduation is usually
from seventeen to twenty-five or even more. This retardation is to be
attributed partly to the half-day system; partly to frequent transfers
from one school to another, and consequent loss of grade; and in the
poorer schools to inefficiency of teachers and lack of ambition on the
part of pupils. It must be remembered, moreover, that the subjects and
methods of study, in language, mathematics, and abstract ideas of all
kinds, were entirely foreign to the untutored Indian mind. It is
difficult to study in a foreign language even when the subject of study
is familiar; the Indian student is expected to master subjects
absolutely unknown to him in his own life. Yet I have heard teachers
experienced in public school work declare that these children of nature
are as responsive as white children; in writing and drawing they excel;
and discipline is easier, at least among the wilder tribes. The result
in thirty or forty years has opened the eyes of many who heretofore
held the theory that the Indian will always remain Indian.
Admitting that these schools compare well with state institutions which
are on a similar basis, and are controlled by political appointments,
there are some abuses, as might be expected. While there are fine men in
charge of certain schools, there are others who are neither efficient
nor sympathetic with the cause of Indian uplift. Most regrettable is the
fact that the moral influence of such schools has been at different
times very low. The pupils themselves have come to look upon them as
political institutions and to discard all genuine effort. It is a case
of serve the master and he will not bother you; all else is merely show.
I believe that there has been some improvement in recent years, chiefly
on account of the protection given by the rules of the civil service.
Let the teacher set an example of honest living and the scholar will be
sure to follow; but if the one is a hypocrite, the other will become
one. Remember, you have induced or forced the Indian mother to give up
her five and six year old children on your promise to civilize, educate,
Christianize--but not subsidize or commercialize them!
Some of the reservations are oversupplied with schools, while others,
notably the Navajo, have almost none. In the former case, the Indian
parents are kept in an anxious state and often very unhappy. Since the
Indian Bureau has required the superintendent to keep up his quota of
pupils, or the number of teachers and the total appropriation will be
reduced in proportion, he may be compelled, as some one has said, to
"rob the cradle and the grave"--in other words, he is not careful to
omit those under age and the sickly ones. Much harm has been done by
placing children in an advanced stage of tuberculosis in the same
dormitory with healthy youngsters. Irregular attendance is too often
tolerated; and a serious evil is the admission of children of well-to-do
parents, who dress their young folks extravagantly, supply them with
unlimited spending money, and who, in all reason, should be required to
pay for their support and education.
Another drawback lies in the fact that each new Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, usually a man without special knowledge or experience in the
complex work over which he is called to preside, comes out with a scheme
for reforming the whole system. Perhaps he advocates doing away with
Carlisle and the schools of its class, and places all the emphasis upon
the little day schools in the Indian camps; or it may be vice versa. All
the advance we have made is through _all_ of these schools; we cannot
spare any of them. We should be a thousand times better off if the
reformers could rid us of the professional politicians, but I fear this
is impossible. I have abandoned all hope of it, after long experience
both in the field and in Washington. I would give up anything rather
than the schools, unmoral as many of them are. The pupils become every
year better fitted to choose and to combat the evil in their
environment. They will soon be able to prepare themselves for the new
life without taking notice of what does not concern them. I rejoice in
every real gain; and I predict that the Indian will soon adjust himself
fully to the requirements of the age, be able to appreciate its
magnificent achievements, and contribute his mite to the modern
development of the land of his ancestors.