Carl Schurz

“ If the Indians are to live at all, they must learn to live like white men. They can no longer stand in the way of the development of the country, but they must be enabled to become part of that development, and thus to be benefited by it. ”

“ However conscientious the government may be in its intention and endeavor to protect the rights of the Indians at all points, it is evident that the Indians will soon, in every part of the country, be interspersed with an aggressive force, constantly growing in volume and power, which will threaten to overwhelm them like a rising flood. ”

“ In point of fact, the reports about the young men and women who, after having gone through their three years' term at Hampton or Carlisle, returned to their people in the western country, have been as different as reports would be about white boys and girls similarly situated. Some were bright, active and industrious, others dull and indolent. But a large majority of them have been doing well and showed a marked superiority in character, ambition and conduct over other young Indians who had not enjoyed the same kind of education. ”

“ The schools at Hampton and Carlisle are mentioned here in preference to the schools established at the different agencies, partly because the former are superior as to the force of teachers employed there, as well as to their equipment in other respects, and partly because they offer to their Indian pupils the peculiar advantage of withdrawing them entirely from the savage influences of the Indian camps and placing them under the immediate influence of civilized surroundings, where they can learn the “white man's way,” by seeing civilization at work. ”

“ The alternative of civilization or extermination is immediately before them — civilization enabling them to become in all important respects a part of the population among which they are to live; or extermination in a vain struggle to maintain the habits of savage life against the progress of superior forces, or rapid decay as miserable paupers and outcasts by the failure of self-sustaining ability. ”

“ The American Missionary Association could scarcely render a more valuable service to the Indian race or do more credit to its own good judgment and benevolent impulses than by making so valuable an addition to the educational forces among the red men. ”

“ This alternative presents itself not as a question looming up in the distant future, to be solved by coming generations, but as a question involving the existence of the young generation of Indians now living. ”

“ There is no doubt that their pressence among their people as teachers and examples and as a moving force generally will exercise a most healthy and elevating influence, provided the number of Indians so educated be large enough to make them among the rising generation the rule, instead of their remaining exceptional cases, as they now are. ”

“ But as this method of educating young Indians is expensive, and Congress rather parsimonious as to appropriations for such purposes, the number of Indians profiting from it is necessarily very small in proportion to the whole population, while it ought to be very large. ”

“ We must not expect that they will issue from these schools as model men and model women in every respect. We must not expect that on the average they will be better than the average of white boys and girls, raised under the same circumstances and with the same advantages or disadvantages, would be. ”