Indian school

“ This stunting of the race begins with the education of the child. The Schools differentiate between British and Indian teachers; the Colleges do the same. The students see first-class Indians superseded by young and third-rate foreigners; the Principal of a College should be a foreigner; foreign history is more important than Indian; to have written on English villages is a qualification for teaching economics in India; the whole atmosphere of the School and College emphasises the superiority of the foreigner, even when the professors abstain from open assertion thereof. ”

“ The course of an Indian boy's education is generally something like this: he learns to read and write in the local vernacular at his own home, because there are probably no educational facilities in the rural village in which his parents live. When about eleven or twelve he is sent to live at the house of a relation or friend in a neighbouring townlet which possesses a High School—that is, a school in which English is taught up to the standard of matriculation to the University. ”

“ So, too, a high school course is much the same even in India. The right-angled triangle still has an hypotenuse, and quadratics do not simplify with distance, while Tamil classics throw Vergil and Cicero into the shade. The fact that high school work is all carried on in English is the biggest stumbling block in the Indian schoolgirl's road to learning. What would the American girl think of going through a history recitation in Russian, writing chemistry equations in French, or demonstrating a geometry proposition in Spanish? Some day Indian education may be conducted in its own vernaculars ”

“ The progress which has attended recent efforts to extend Indian-school facilities and the anticipation of continued liberal appropriations to that end can not fail to afford the utmost satisfaction to those who believe that the education of Indian children is a prime factor in the accomplishment of Indian civilization. ”

“ The following extracts from said report have a direct bearing upon this subject, and merit special attention in this connection:
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“Experience shows that Indian children do not differ from white children of similar social status and surroundings, in aptitude or capacity for acquiring knowledge; and opposition or indifference to education on the part of parents decreases yearly; so the question of Indian education resolves itself mainly into a question of school facilities. ”

“ At a low estimate, the number of Indian children of school-going age, exclusive of those belonging to the five civilized tribes of the Indian Territory, may be placed at 33,000. Of these, not less than 8,000 could, within a short time, be gathered into boarding-schools, except for the fact that the teachers are yet to be employed, the school buildings are yet to be erected, and the funds for both, and for feeding and clothing the scholars, are yet to be appropriated. ”

“ That compulsory education of Indian pupils be enforced, with liberty of choice to the parents in the selection of the schools to which their children shall be sent. The Indians are generally averse, or indifferent, to the education of their children. The withholding of rations in case of failure or neglect is usually an all-sufficient motive for prompt compliance. Then, too, the parent, if a Christian and intelligent, should be allowed to select the school for his child, and not be compelled to send it to a Government school simply because that may happen to be nearest. ”

“ The school attendance of Indian children has been increased during that time over 13 per cent, the enrollment for 1892 being nearly 20,000. A uniform system of school text-books and of study has been adopted and the work in these national schools brought as near as may be to the basis of the free common schools of the States. These schools can be transferred and merged into the common-school systems of the States when the Indian has fully assumed his new relation to the organized civil community in which he resides and the new States are able to assume the burden. ”

“ But as to most Places, there is no such thing at present as introducing either English School-Masters [22] or Missionaries to continue with them; such are their Prejudices in general, and such the malevolent, and ungovernable Temper of some, that none but an Indian would dare venture his Life among them.
And besides all this, they are so extremely poor, and depend so much upon Hunting for a Livelihood, that they are in no Capacity to support their Children at School, if their Disposition for it were ever so good. ”

“ How near this comes to including the whole number of children of school age, in a total population of a quarter of a million of Indians, every inquirer can form a pretty close estimate for himself. No one will deny that, at this rate of progress, the facilities for the education of Indian children will soon reach, if they have not already reached, those enjoyed by their white neighbors in the remote regions of the West. The results thus far are of a most encouraging character. "But the work does not stop with the rising generation of the race; it embraces also the adult Indian. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the secondary school he passes for his University course, if he gets so far, in precisely the same circumstances into a college which is merely a higher form of school. Whilst attending college our student still continues to live amidst the same purely Indian surroundings, and his contact with the Western world is still limited to his text-books. ”

“ The free Negro schools in the South are vitalized by a number of strong central institutions under Northern men that train the picked growth of the race as teachers. This is, I think, the true relation of Eastern charity to the Indian. There should be an excellent boarding and industrial school at each important agency for this purpose. Getting fifteen dollars a month of government for food and clothing for each pupil need not in the least weaken the independence or morals of teachers. The friends of the Indian will do the rest. ”

“ Youth so educated return to their tribes as teachers, interpreters and examples in farming, etc.; and if properly sustained and guided thereafter, prove far more effective guides than whites of the same capacity.
Nothing is more essential than that Indian youth, while passing through school, should have thorough instruction in some practical branch of labor that will meet their needs for obtaining a livelihood after leaving school. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to a school for evangelists and teachers. Do you think, dear sir, that the persons of Indian descent could now be found, possessed of piety, talents, good character, and a disposition to take this course of life, in sufficient numbers to justify giving the school such a turn? Or, are there youths sufficiently promising, though not pious, with whose education you would think it advisable to proceed, hoping that, by the blessings of God, they would be converted and made heralds of mercy to their red brethren? ”

“ Twenty-four thousand Indian children remain without schools.
The religious motive enters deeply into the psychology of the Indian, and no greater stimulus toward better living can be given them than Christianity affords. Therefore the Mission School is especially adopted to bring the Indians into helpful and constructive relationships as individuals and citizens.
Of great significance in the uplift of the Indians is the recent opening of several schools for training young Christian Indians for leadership in Christian work among their own people. ”

“ The Children are suffered to neglect their Attendance on Instruction, and waste much [21] Time, by which means they don't learn so much in several Years as they might, and others do in one, who are taken out of the reach of their Parents, and out of the way of Indian Examples, and are kept to School under good Government and constant Instruction. ”

“ The work of the minister and his assistant teachers in the boys’ school, and the English women giving their lives to work among the girls, is another fine medium for developing patriotism in the Indians here and to the north. Indian children appear at these schools from “anywhere up Arctic way” and on their arrival are frequently suffering from troublesome diseases, of which they must be cured before anything can be done for them from the teaching point of view. ”

“ In the case of the larger of the Government Indian schools the Indian children are removed from their homes and placed in institutions where they live for a period of four years under military discipline. In these schools literary is subordinate to industrial training. ”

“ Consequently the Indian is no better off for his education. Under these circumstances, you cannot expect ambition, and without ambition nobody can rise. This explains why the Indian when civilised cannot make the same advance in civil life as the white boy. The latter after leaving school is on the first rung of the ladder ; but the Indian boy of the same education is not allowed to put his foot on the ladder at all. It is no wonder, therefore, that the educated Indians don t advance in the professions or arts. ”

“ Of the teachers employed, fifteen are Indians, as fully competent for this position as their white associates. An indication of what is to be accomplished in the future, in an educational point of view, is found in the successful effort, made in August last, to establish a teacher's institute on the Cattamangus Reservation for the education of teachers specially for Indian schools. ”

“ I visited a few of the Indian schools when I was in the Territory, and found the pupils quite learned. The teachers are not permitted to study the Indian languages, and their charges in consequence hear nothing but English, and so pick it up the more quickly. The young women who teach them seem to labor under certain disadvantages ”

“ The Indians show a laudable zeal in pursuit of education. The first step has been the establishment of schools on the reservations. This system is necessarily imperfect, and must remain so for a time. An Indian must not only learn how to read and write, but he must learn how to live. ”

“ All the reports of the teachers and visitors of these 216 schools coincide in one point, that the young Indian is most teachable, and that in respect of acquiring knowledge he is, if anything, the superior of the white, who seems to enjoy no hereditary excellence in his capacity for acquiring knowledge. ”

“ The schools are really boarding schools, where the children stay continuously for nine months, being completely clothed by the Indian service. Sometimes boys and girls will escape and run home to hide, but the disciplinarian and Indian policeman usually ferret them out and bring them back, or else seize the father and hold him in jail until the scholar is produced again. Indian children are taught more of the useful arts and household arts than are the white children, but also have access to a college education through their university or normal schools. ”

“ In the schools the education should be elementary and largely industrial. The need of higher education among the Indians is very, very limited. On the reservations care should be taken to try to suit the teaching to the needs of the particular Indian. ”

“ In the main, they and all their kind have one end—the thorough and careful training in books and work and home life of the Indian boy and girl—and their methods are much alike. Once a year the superintendents or teachers of these schools go out among the Indians and bring back as many boys and girls as they can persuade the fathers and mothers to send. At first these children came in dirt and filth, and with little or no ideas of any regular or useful life, but of late many of them have gained some beginnings of civilization in the day schools. ”

“ In no case should the Government establish schools to compete with private or church schools which are already doing a good work, so long as there are thousands of Indian children for whose education no provision is made. ”

“ The establishment of schools for the instruction of the young is gradually being extended among the Indian tribes under our control. The advantage to be derived from them will greatly depend upon their discipline and the course of instruction. ”

“ The instruction of the Indians in schools, among the Europeans settled at the great towns, was another method which was adopted with the same view, and with no better success. After receiving in part the education, and in whole the vices of civilized life, those pupils returned to their naked and hunting brethren, from corruption the most profligate, and from necessity the most idle, members of the Indian community. They found a society in the woods, to which they originally belonged by blood, but for the manners and pursuits of which they had been altogether incapacitated by education. ”