The Indian To-day

CHAPTER V

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER VI

THE INDIAN AT HOME

Although among the graduates and ex-students of the Indian schools there are now some in almost every modern occupation, including commerce, the trades and professions, the great majority of these young people, as of their fellow tribesmen who lack an English education, are farmers, ranchers, and stockmen. Nearly all Indians own some land, either individually or in common; and while it may generally be leased by those who are either unable or for good reasons do not desire to work it themselves, this is done under such troublesome restrictions and conditions that it is, as a general rule, better for the owner to live on and utilize his allotment. Of course this is a rule that admits of many exceptions.

Since most Indian reservations are in the arid belt and the greater portion of the land is therefore unsuited to agriculture, at least without extensive irrigation, perhaps the larger number of the men are stock-raisers, an occupation well suited to the Plains Indians, who are great riders and very fond of their horses. They raise both horses and cattle, and many have become well-to-do from this source. From time to time their herds are improved by well-bred stallions and mares and blooded cattle, furnished by the Government under treaty stipulations. The total valuation of stock belonging to Indians, both individual and tribal, is now twenty-two million dollars in round numbers, according to the tables furnished by the Indian Bureau. This estimate includes sheep, goats, and poultry. The Navajoes, who number about 22,000 and are in a fairly primitive state, having few schools or missionaries among them, are thrifty and successful sheep-herders and entirely self-supporting. The value of crops raised by Indians during the last fiscal year is estimated at more than four millions.

In a word, the typical red man of to-day is a rancher on a large or small scale. He has displayed quite as much intelligence and aptitude for the work as could be expected. There have been serious handicaps, other than the tradition among us that the cultivation of the soil is a feminine rather than a manly occupation. I may mention the occupation of the best lands by white settlers, with or without our consent; the ration system; and the "spoils system" as applied to the appointment of our superintendents and instructors in farming.

Take the Sioux, for example – a strong and self-respecting people who had shown a willingness to fight for their rights when it became necessary. They were presently corralled upon reservations in a land of little rain, and given enough food to sustain life, under a solemn engagement to continue feeding "until they became self-supporting." There was scant opportunity and still less inducement to become so; accordingly only a few of the more ambitious or energetic worked at teaming or whatever they could get to do, improved their homes, acquired stock, and gradually fought their way upward. For many years this clause in the treaty was not applied to individuals; that is, it was interpreted to mean that all should receive rations until all became self-supporting. Twenty years ago, when I lived among them as agency doctor, Government and mission workers of Indian blood, well-to-do mixed bloods, and intermarried white men all drew their rations regularly, with very few exceptions.

About a dozen years ago tardy steps were taken to carry out the evident intention of the treaty, which had hitherto been defeated by keeping it to the letter. Rations were withdrawn from all who had other sufficient means of support. This seemed like imposing a penalty upon industry; but it was soon followed by requiring all able-bodied men to perform a certain amount of labor for the common benefit, such as road-making, bridge building, etc., in return for money or rations. This was a great advance even though accompanied by some evils, notably the neglect of allotments while their families camped with the gangs of laborers on different parts of the reservation. Later, the same credit was allowed for days' labor performed in improving their own homesteads and putting up hay for their cattle. More cows and better farming implements have been issued in recent years, and there is a wholesome effort to make the work of the so-called agency or "district farmers" less of a farce than it has often been in the past.