FURTHER COMMENTS ON EDUCATION
There is not a white parent of intelligence in America who would send
children to school if in that school there was danger from disease. When
Cornell had a small epidemic of typhoid fever, the institution was
closed; the same is true of Milton Academy when a few pupils were taken
with scarlet fever. Phillips Academy, at Andover, closed its doors some
years ago when less than four per cent of the student body became
affected with measles. Yet in past years these Indian schools have
continued in the even tenor of their way, including among their
membership children suffering from some form of tuberculosis or
trachoma. I observed that with my own eyes in Minnesota in 1909.
You cannot expect the Indian—who is just as human as we are ourselves—to
wax enthusiastic over education when such intolerable conditions obtain.
All the Indian knows is that the child comes home sick, and he having no
facilities for proper treatment, unless the child’s constitution is
unusually strong, the child dies or is disabled.
Right here I wish to pay a tribute to one of the leading Sioux, Chief
White Horse. He said: “I sent my own boy to school first, as an example
to the others. I sent my children to a nearby school until they were old
enough, and then I was one of the first to send them to Hampton,
Virginia, to school. They all came home and died of consumption.”[41]
While we all believe in education, yet I affirm that there is neither a
man nor a woman in all America who would willingly, and gladly, send one
child after another to a school so managed that the children contracted
tuberculosis and died. The average white man and woman would refuse to
send other children to such a school, after the first one had died; and
a system of education productive of consumptives, would be indignantly
denounced in unmeasured terms. President Lincoln wrote a beautiful
letter to Mrs. Bixby, when she gave to her country five sons who were
killed in battle during the Civil War. Mrs. Bixby was a white woman, and
of some education. Lincoln’s letter to her is celebrated in the United
States. Poor old White Horse was an untutored Indian, and yet his faith
in the white man and his ways rose to sublime heights. He deserves a
place among the heroes of peace. In return for his simple trust, we
murdered his sons and daughters.
There has been a wide diversity of opinion among persons as to the
wisdom of our general educational policy for Indians. This is not
confined to those employed by the Interior Department, who serve as
Superintendents and teachers. It is more largely shared by missionaries
and other observers.
Many of the persons who furnished me with data for my table of
statistics also wrote out their views at considerable length. These are
valuable in that they are sincere; they come from men and women who are
in direct contact with the people. We will omit all those who agree with
our present policy. It may be summed up thus: to give the Indians
vocational training; to ground them in the rudiments and to make of them
farmers, mechanics, carpenters, stockmen, lumbermen, weavers, etc.,
rather than to attempt to fit so many of them for higher callings. It is
well to consider the opinions of several persons residing in separate
communities in the great West, and I herewith append their statements,
but omit the names of the writers.
“Allow me to make one more remark. As far as I can see, the fact that
the condition of the Indians is not satisfactory is due largely to the
nature of the education provided for them. I think that the education
given them is too high and far above their condition in life. It seems
to me to be an attempt to make them leap from the bottom to the top rung
of the ladder of civilization without having them touch those that lie
between. They are not yet far enough advanced in civilization and
culture to enable them to follow successfully the higher pursuits of
civilized social life, against which the present educational methods try
to put them. Thus when leaving school, they are unable to compete with
Whites of equal education, while they are unwilling and often
unqualified to take up farming or mechanics.”
Naturally they all will have to work for a living, and the proper and
only occupation that would make them self-supporting will be farming or
other manual labor. But having passed ten or more years at Carlisle,
Hampton, etc., and coming home to the reservation, serious work is no
longer to their liking. Playing and spending money for amusement is
about the only thing they know and care for. If they get a position in
the Indian Service, they get along as long as they are able to hold it.
But the day they are discharged for any reason, they join the army of
grumblers and idlers, and help to raise the howl—the Indians are
cheated, robbed and trodden under foot.
The fact is, as long as they go to school they are coddled and furnished
with everything, as only children of well-to-do parents are in a
position to enjoy. Then when they are finished, so that they have to
stand on their own feet and make their own living, they are not able to
do it. Whatever has been used for their education is worn, then thrown
away. It has been used to spoil and enervate them, has made honest work
hateful to them, has certainly not fitted them for the task of earning
an honest livelihood suited to their condition of life.
“It is my opinion that a thorough eighth-grade common school education
along with a good training in industrial and economic habits would bring
far more satisfactory results. It would be more suited to their present
stage in their advancement towards civilization, they would then more
easily take to farming and other general work, and train them to be
self-supporting. This would fill out the gap, which men have been trying
to bridge over by forcing an intellectual education upon semi-barbaric
Indian children. This is, however, not saying that a higher education
should be denied to those that show inclination, talent and character
for advancement.”
Correspondent, Keshena, Wisconsin
“The white people will not allow the Indian children to go to the
country schools. The Indians in some places have no schools for their
own children, and are left without any opportunity to give their
children the ordinary, elementary education of a grammar school. In two
places under our care here the circumstances are as stated above.
“What the Indians want is a public Government school. If you have any
influence and can rouse the Government to action in this matter, I wish
you would use your influence. You would be doing a good work.
“The Indian children do better when educated near home. The children
want to remain near home; and the parents also like to have them at
home.”
Correspondent, Ukiah, California
The next letter is from a full-blood Indian. Some of the sentences are a
trifle ambiguous. I know the man to be one who labors under
disadvantages. He is doing a good work among his more ignorant fellows.
“Any Superintendent will say that, let a discovery of oil be made upon
any child’s land and that boy or girl rises in distinction, develops
relatives, friends, and a fond guardian at an alarming rate. Then one of
the first moves, after this discovery, is to take the child from school.
They can’t bear that the searchlight of learning be turned into the
black corners of their schemes. The situation in Oklahoma is indeed
alarming! I believe there are more lawyers and land men in Eufaula than
in any other little town outside the State, in the United States, and we
know they have acquired and are acquiring, fortunes at the expense of
the benighted Indian and his allotments.
“In time the ‘benighted Indian’ will be spoken of in the past tense. The
rich Indian in this locality is truly an object of pity. The weight of
his fortune, the world of uncertainty, indecision and fear in which he
lives, is pitiable indeed. If the Indian is sagacious at all, it has to
be brought out by the slow process of education and this ‘drawing out’
process is worse than the ‘pouring in’. Eternal vigilance and a world of
patience, all tempered with common sense and good judgment, are the
tools with which to work against this grafting, and schools, schools.
These institutions should be continued indefinitely. As an illustration
to the fact that the Creek tribe is waking to the possibilities these
schools afford—our capacity is 125 and I venture to say we could have
enrolled 300. It was pitiful to turn them away, yet our files were
closed early in August!”
Correspondent, Eufaula, Oklahoma
“Those educated away from the reservation have too much done for them to
make life a pleasure—they learn and see the easy side of life and the
methods by which it can be obtained easily—but when they return home the
picture is not so alluring, and when they find that they must depend
upon themselves they also realize that they did not learn how to depend
upon themselves, and they as a rule give up and go back to the old
Indian life more or less, and in the majority of cases altogether.
“In my opinion Indian Agents should have full control of their Agencies
and Indians in order to push their people to the front. Indians like men
who can do things, but in so many cases the Agent must go to higher
authority and this delay has a bad effect in most cases. The Agent
should be strictly responsible to the Commissioner for his action—there
should be frequent and searching inspections of his work and if it is
found wanting, he should be removed.”
Correspondent, Anadarko, Oklahoma
[Illustration:
IMPROVED INDIAN HOME IN THE SOUTHWEST
]
One correspondent living in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, writes at length
concerning the immorality in Indian schools ten years ago. Happily, such
things are not possible at the present time. A number of correspondents
have referred to most distressing moral conditions (in past years) in
certain schools. It is incomprehensible that such conditions should have
been permitted to obtain. The effect on the children was exceedingly
bad, as it is impossible to keep such things a secret, especially in
communities where two or three hundred persons are assembled together.
There are statistics available on this unpleasant subject, although I
shall not refer to them. Suffice it to say that because immorality was
not prevented in past years, we cannot expect a high moral tone among
all Indians. Too many of them have profited to their own detriment, by
the bad example set them.
While these are varied and present a diversity of opinion as to detail,
they strike at the greater evil. Far too many of our Indians on
returning from such schools as Carlisle are inclined to look for
clerkships or occupations in towns, and are not willing to perform tasks
requiring hard labor. They moved along the paths of least resistance.
This does not apply to all, but quite a number of them, which gives rise
to the popular conception that educated Indians will not work. There is
also another problem to be considered. The Indian comes home and he
finds that he does not regard the community and people as he did
previous to his education. His case may be compared with the son of a
small farmer in one of the eastern states, who, given advantages of a
higher education, comes home without determining in his own mind what he
shall do and is dissatisfied with his surroundings. Formerly, the farm,
the home life and the neighborhood did not appear to him to bespeak a
small and narrow world. He feels himself out of his environment. He
becomes dissatisfied. Such young white men become failures in life. It
is similar with the Indians. He has seen all that is best in the East,
and his eyes are opened to the poverty and the dull monotony of
reservation, or Indian community life. Unless he is willing to put his
hand to the plow and work for his living, he is pretty apt to fall into
ways of idleness, to draw inheritance money, or annuity, or sell a piece
of land. One of the problems in Indian education is to overcome this. It
is, to a great extent, due to the Indian himself, as one of the most
competent workers in the United States Indian Service has pointed out.
Mrs. Elsie E. Newton in answering my circular at length says:—
“For success in their home environment, the Indian educated at or near
home is better qualified, if the training has been good in itself. If
highly trained away from home, it is more difficult, just as in the case
of Whites, to adapt themselves to home environment, the conservatism of
the old and a difficult economic state, or to struggle against such
conditions where he should.”
In addition to all that has been said on the preceding pages, it must be
remembered that there is yet another reason why some of the educated
Indians do not progress as satisfactorily as we would desire. And this
latter is, perhaps, the most significant of all. With such, it is, it
seems to me, after due deliberation, due to the impression that after
all, our civilization holds little for the Indian. He has lost faith in
us and in our institutions. This statement, let me repeat, applies only
to the educated Indians who have been trained, or have been told year
upon year what to do and how to do it, but still persist in the old
ways. This also has a direct bearing on the greater question, the lack
of progress in the entire Indian body; for education, property, health,
citizenship and all the rest are but a part of this great problem. I
shall further discuss it in a subsequent chapter.
In addition to the long bibliography on Indian education presented in
the Handbook of American Indians, there are quite a number of articles,
speeches and reports mentioned in the following brief bibliography which
students of educational problems among Indians will do well to consult.
These cover, in a general way, all phases of education, although in the
general references, in the chapters on agriculture, irrigation and
industries, there are many references which might apply to general
education. These cover, in a general way, all phases of education.
The Carlisle Graduate and the Returned Students.—_Siceni J. Nori._
Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1911. P.
17.
History and Purposes of the Carlisle Indian Industrial
School.—_Brig.-Gen. P. H. Pratt._ The Hamilton Library Association,
1908.
Carlisle Indian School. Hearings before the joint Commission of the
63rd Congress of the United States to Investigate Indian Affairs.
1914.
Education Among the Five Civilized Tribes.—_J. P. Brown._ Quarterly
Journal of the Society of American Indians. Oct.-Dec., 1913. P. 416.
Educating Indians for Citizenship.—_John Francis, Jr._, Chief of the
Education Division of the Indian Bureau, The Red Man. June, 1914. P.
430.
Education of Indians. Handbook of American Indians, p. 414. A
lengthy account of educational activities, and full bibliography of
publications dealing with Indian training.
Indian School, Chilocco, Oklahoma, Some History and Work of
the.—_Indian School Journal_, June, 1914. pp. 791 and 553.
Indian Day School. Purpose and Results. Table giving location,
capacity, enrolment, and average attendance of Government day
schools during fiscal year ended June 30, 1904.—Report of the
Department of the Interior, 1904 P. 41.
Indian Education, Interesting facts concerning.—_Indian School
Journal_, June, 1914. P. 518.
Indian Education, Present and Future.—_H. B. Peairs._ The Red Man.
Feb., 1914. P. 211.
Indian Education, Some Facts and Figures on.—_Laura C. Kellogg._
Quarterly Journal Society of American Indians. Jan.-April, 1913. P.
36.
A Reorganized School in the Five Tribes.—_Gabe E. Parker._
Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1910. P.
51.
The Reorganized Schools in the Five Tribes.—_J. B. Brown._
Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1910. P.
79.
Educational Conditions in the Five Civilized Tribes.—_John B.
Brown_, Supervisor, United States Indian Service. Thirty-first
Annual Report of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1913. P. 24.
Flandreau Indian School, A Little History of the.—_Indian School
Journal_, April, 1914. P. 356.
The Fort McDermitt Indian Day School—Illustrated.—_The Indian School
Journal_, March, 1914. P. 298.
Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas. Table showing location, date of
opening, capacity, attendance, etc., of non-reservation schools
during fiscal year ended June 30, 1904.—Report of the Department of
the Interior, 1904. P. 39.
Higher Education for the Indian.—_Joseph M. Burnett._ Quarterly
Journal of the Society of American Indians. July-September, 1913. P.
285.
Industrial Education for the Indian.—_Charles Doxon._ Twenty-fourth
Annual Report of the Lake Mohonk Conference. 1906. P. 37.
Educational Activities in the Indian Service.—_H. B. Peairs._
Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1911. P.
36.
Mt. Pleasant Indian School, A Short History of the.—_Indian School
Journal_, May. 1914. P. 445.
Moral Education, Vital Interest in.—_Milton Fairchild._ _The Indian
School Journal_, September, 1913. P. 7.
Moral Education in Indian Schools.—_Milton Fairchild._ The Red Man.
December, 1912. P. 157.
Educating the Morals, Colonel Roosevelt on.—_Indian School Journal_,
March, 1914. P. 310.
Indians in Public Schools.—_Peton Carter_, Indian Office. The Red
Man. June, 1914. P. 427.
Report of School Taxation in Indian Territory. House of
Representatives, Doc. No. 34. Fifty-eighth Congress 3d Session, Dec.
6, 1904.
A Segregated Indian University Unnecessary.—_M. Friedman, Litt. D._
The Red Man. January, 1914. P. 182.
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Footnote 41:
The Vanishing Race, page 93.