The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1904-11 - 1904-12

              the Word Carrier
of Santee Normal Training School.
vonuME  XXXIII.
HELPING   THE   RIGHT.   EXPOSING   THE   WRONG.
SPMBER «.
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1904.
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR.
Our   Platform.
For Indians we want American Education!
we want American Homes! We want American Rights! Tlie result of which is American Citizenship! And the Gospel is the power
of God for their Salvation!
The School and the Church.
For thirty years past the United States govern ment has planted schools as the farmer scatters grain. They have sprung up on the plains
and in the wilderness, from the Arctic snows to
the hot sands of Arizona, wherever, amid ignorance and barbarism,the Indian is penned on the
reservation there flourishes the Government
School. It is a great gRt to a wild people and in
the pride of achievement we are  tempted  to
say:—
'' What more is needed! By vote and book
we have civilized the Indian."
Is it true that the school alone can do this,—
that nothing more is needed?
There is a vast tract of plains lifted high in
air, cut deep with alkali-edged streams, fenced
in with the fantastic peaks of the Badlands
where we have thirty-two day schools. The
land is a mighty cattle range, semi arid, sun
burnt in summer, swept by the blizzard in winter, always majestic in its lonely vastness, its
cruel splendor. For miles the trail is unbroken
by human dwelling and then a smart red government school building and a handful of mud-
chiuked log cabins—and again mile on mile of
monotonous grass and never ending wind. This
is the land of the Sioux. These gray log shacks
shelter a people born and bred in war against the
United States and the red schoolhouses stand
for tlie most perfect system of government day
schools in our country. They were planted before
fighting stopped; they have stood alone in dangerous times; they have seen their patrons in
arms and yet they flourish and year by year increase.
In this wdderness we have stationed thirty-
two men who can pass a high school examination
and their wives who can cook and scrub and
sew—and have said to them, your duty is to
civilize the children of these camps.
In other words, the school stands in contest
with the home, not in sympathy with it. Moreover these teachers are not together, twenty
miles of bad road, dangerous fords, sun and
storms, separate the schools;—each teacher is
isolated from all companionship but that of his
camp and singlehanded he is to overcome the
influence of twenty or more savage homes.
More than that, nine chances out of ten the
teacher has no church to help him, but every
time his camp has its church, the Omaha lodge,
its minister, the medicine man, its social life,
the dance, aud gambling games each oposed to
him and aR united against his work. Moreover his work with the children is limited
to academic and industrial work. He may not
touch on religion. He cannot enforce our ideals
by the Book from which we received them,
while every savage ideal is upheld for the child
by story, song and example.
To them alone to face and conquer an antagonistic community is a task fit for the ablest
mind and most sincere devotion, but this lonely white man and his wife are in the work to
earn their daily bread, not to save a race, and
they are not often of the broadest culture, but
just honest folk who see in this service a chance
of livelihood.
Sometimes they are a young couple who
have here a stepping stone for the future,
sometimes they are much older and have failed
and drifted into the safe haven of civil service,
and quite often they are of mixed-blood families who for two or three generations have
lived as dependents on the Indians, first as
Rappers and traders, then as government officials and interpreters and now the new genera
tions are filling the new places  as teachers.
In spite of these disadvantages we find much
good work that is a credit to the profession, and
a devotion that is a credit to human nature.
This has led to the protest that missionaries
are not needed where a people have schools.
He reads history blindly who does not see
that gift of culture takes the place of God and
that no school equals the home or a teacher.
It was not the school that formed New England but the New England home that created
the school system and stamped her image on
the nation. So the savage home stamps her individuality on the community. Do we know
what such homes are?
Where a day school had been put up in a
mission district I heard an old man make a speech
to the blushing young man who had come to be
their teacher.   This young man had brought his
family with him and proved himseR a kindly,
helpful neighbor iu the village. The people proved their appreciation by having every child on
| hand on the first day of school without the aid
i of a single policeman and the old man made a
j speech which was in substance this:—
When he learned about God and the  white
man's way he saw that there were many things
that his children should learn, but he feared
greatly when they  were sent away from  him
that they would be  abused,   so he had long
wished that they might have a  teacher among
j them who had children of his own because if
he had a father's heart he would be good to the
I Indian children.    Now they knew he was good
! because no child had run away all the year be-
1 fore, so they brought them to him gladly, hop-
! ing that he would make men of them.
To have such a man on the side of the school
j was no slight thing, for he had always to all
; people proved himseR worthy of honor.
Wherever good, faithful and intelligent mis-
1 sionary work has been done  there the people
j welcome and support   the  school,   while  the
! teacher under the fellowship  ami lead  of his
i own race is himself stronger and the effective-
! ness of the work is doubled.
I     The homes are filled with a new hope  and
i life.    The Bible is eagerly read and discussed
] —the old Rfe is not forgotten, .but it is compared and tested, the attitude of mind  is pro-
I gressive.    Troubles  are  brought to  the mis-
j sionary and discussed in their own tongue with
! the people.    The children hear the Bible stories in their own language, they too go to the
missionary and have the moral training which
is not the work of the school.    In  fact cooperation takes the place of suspicion and antagonism.
AU this shows in the faces of the people.
Christian Indians are happy faced. They are
hopeful and merry-hearted where the pagan is
brooding and melancholy.
If this is true are you fair to the school, just
to the Indian chdd or merciful to a defeated
people if you do not support every school by a
mission?
Before you the question lies, What more is
needed than vote and book to civilize the Indian?—Annie Beecher Scoville, in Congregational
Work.
Who Will Educate Them?
With about a year more to run, the tribal
governments (of the Indian Territory) must
close and all tribal funds be distributed and all
tribal relations extinguished. Schools wdl then
be abolished and the buildings disposed of.
These agreements provide that all Indian land
shall be non-taxable. How, then, Superintendent Benedict seriously asks, are the 15,000
children of the Territory to be educated after
March, 1906? From whence will the $450,000
which is annually expended upon the education
of these Indian children be obtained after tribal funds are exhausted? What will then be-
I come of the 650 Indian orphans now being
clothed, fed,  educated and cared for in these
academies.
Will the general Government take up the
work of education, paying for same out of
moneys provided out of theUnited States Treasury? Will it allow the Five Civilized Tribes to
dissipate their present enormous wealth, which
is sufficient to create for them a great educational trust fund, and then ask the people of the
United States to assume the debt which these
Indians themselves owe to their innocent children? With the funds which will come to them
on the breaking up of the tribal governments
there will be nothing left for the maintenance
of schools for the younger generation of Indians. It will be a question then whether these
Indians will become the vagabonds of the
Territory, or the white people prove an exception to the older states and assume the burden
of educating its Indian children regardless of
the non-taxability of the Indian land. Congress
must face the issue, and decide upon the wisdom
of permitting the Indians to throw away funds
sufficient to maintain their schools through a
series of years. It will be a live issue in the Territory. The remedy can be applied now; delayed
it will impose untold and unnecessary burdens
either upon the General Government or upon
the white people inhabiting this section of the
country.
It does not require a very keen eye to discern
that in this country the notorious "grafter" is
constantly in search of the illiterate Indian. The
educated Indian, to use a local phrase, is not
considered "good pickin." Practical education
not only makes of the Indian a thinking, reasoning individual, but it also teaches him something of the responsibilities of life, something
of the value of property, and how it should be
cared for, something of the necessity of providing for the future, something of his duties and
relations to his family and his neighbors; while
the uneducated full-blood, not being able to understand the changed conditions and increased
responsibilities which will necessarily accompany the individual allotment of lands and distribution of tribal funds, will become the easy
prey of the ever-present grafter or schemer.
Much has been said and written about the deplorable condition of the whites of the Territory,
but if the four hundred and fifty tribal schools
are to be abolished and the Indians left powerless to provide educational facilities for their
children, as the whites now are, the situation
wdl become doubly deplorable from an educational standpoint.—Report of Commissioner of
Indian Affairs.
Honorable Mention.
Mrs. Ellen J. Black, for sixteen and a half
years in our mission service, the larger part
of the time as matron in charge of Davis Hall,
resigned her place November fifteen and left us
for Yankton, S. D. When she came to us in
March, 1888 she brought with her two of her
daughters, Allie and Bessie, her daughter Let-
tie, following the next summer. Miss Allie
Black was with her mother in the service of
the mission four years altogether, and the
other two daughters also in turn. They have
all been most helpfully identified with the
mission. Two of them are happily married.
We part with Mrs. Black with regret for the-
loss of her valuable assistance and motherly
over-sight in her department. But for her
sake we are glad that the broken strands of her
early IRe are now united in her marriage, to
' Mr. Isaac N. Messinger of Watsontown, Pa,
They were married at Yankton, S. D. December 6, by Rev. B. G. Matson, pastor of the
Congregational church, and immediately left
for their Pennsylvania home. We believe that
many happy years are in store for them.
Santee Normal Training School Press,
Santee, Nebraska.