The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1905-07 - 1905-08

              the Word Carrier
of Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME   XXXIV.
HEL1MXG    THE    RIGHT.   EXPOSING    THE    WRONG.
XL'MM Kit  4.
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
JULY-AUGUST, 1905.
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!
When one begins to philosophize about the
Indian he usually demonstrates his own ignorance Thus there is nothing more empty and
useless than the most of the convention talk
that is going on at this season of the year.
The Indian is indeed a difficult subject. All
the more so because at times the subject seems
so easv. Changes are taking place in outward
appearances that are startling. The Indian
seems to have shuffled off his old self and become a full fledged citizen of the world. He
has adopted the dress,the slang,and the vices of
civilization.    He is a new creature, a rare bird.
And now we begin to be disappointed in him.
Our plans for him do not fit. He does not respond to the opportunities we open to him.
He has not the vim nor the stability of tbe
civilized man. Because he has taken on our
ways after a fashion, we have figured out his
future as though he were one of us. We plan
his studies in the school room after the programs of our cities. We make laws for him as
tho he were the heir of centuries of constitutional liberty, and throw everything wide open
for him. All this after the morally debilitating nursery life of the Agency system finished
off with a term in Buffalo Bill's training school.
Tlie mistake is that we are getting ahead of
him. He is an Indian still in bis limitations of
thought, in his point of view, in his development of character. There is no ground of discouragement in this. Not if we come down to
good sense and the facts of the case. The few
who are the illustrious proofs of the possibdi-
ties of the Indian race are those who have advanced slowly and have really grown up thro
all the intermediate stages of thought and life
so that they have become real men and not
counterfeits of civilization.
Rev. James F. Cross our missionary at
Rosebud is taken suddenly out of his field and
sent by the American Missionary Association
to look after its Alaska Mission for a year.
Without doubt he will do good work there, but
the work he leaves without a head in Rosebud
reservation will inevitably go to pieces. He
sails from Seattle August 15. His family will
make their home at Yankton, S. D. during his
absence.
A Missionary Honored
Tlie conferring of the degree of Doctor of
Laws upon Rev. T. L. Riggs of Oahe by the
University of the State of South Dakota at
Vermillion, S. D. is thus mentioned by The
Pierre Capital-Journal.
Rev. Thomas Lawrence Riggs was then
presented by Dean Young, and his long and
active, self-sacrificing life for the upbuilding
of the Indian, his scholarship and his culture
were duly and formally recited, after which
Regent Spafford conferred the degree of
Doctor of Laws in the following language.
Thomas Lawrence Riggs—a true missionary,
who devoted his life unselfishly to a human
cause, a student of ethnology, and an example
to all of what may be accomplished under the
most adverse circumstances toward the attainment of true life, true scholarship and an
excellent culture. In order adequately to recognize this useful life, in the name of the
regents of education, upon the recommendation of aU the faculties of this university, I
confer the high distinction upon Thomas Lawrence Riggs of tbe honorary degree of Doctor
°i Laws with all the rights, benefits and privies pertaining thereto,
An Address to the Santee Alumni.
All those who have been students in Santee
Normal Training School,and all other friends of
the school, will be glad to know of the good
progress made at Santee this year.
There is a larger graduating class than ever,
before, and that class has had better opportunities for learning than any other class. And
there are more pupils in all the higher classes
than ever before. This is partly because of the
better school rooms that former Santee students have helped to build.
The time will soon come when all the government schools will be shut. If the Indian people
let the Christian schools die before that time
they wiU be left with no schools.
Now the Indian people are beginning to work
for their living, to take care of themselves as
citizens ought to. They ought also to begin to
feed their children's minds as well as their bodies. We believe that these meetings of former
students of Santee, with other friends, are beginnings of good things. Santee is trying to teach
Indian children just the things that they need
most to know. We are teaching them to cook
and sew; to plant and cultivate the ground; to
care for horses, cattle and pigs; to use tools and
to mend them; to make fences, repair houses,
and mend wagons; to do arithmetic about common things; to measure, to save, aud to make
much out of little. We are teaching Indian children about other peoples and other countries to
make them understand what they may best do in
their own country for their own people. We
are teaching them how God made the earth and
other worlds in tbe sky above, that they may
have something to think about wherever they
go. We teach Indian children chemistry, physics, geology, and astronomy. These are college studies, but we make them to fit our pupils,
every year teaching them a little more of each
subject,till in the high school classes they are
able to study them as other high schools do.
At Santee we make the studies fit the pupils.
Indian children learn more music at Santee
than in most other Indian schools. At Santee
we teach the Bible, the history of Bible peoples
the geography of Bible countries, aud the history of the Christian church. We teach who
wrote each book of the Bible and the chief lessons that it has. We interpret those lessons to
fit our time and our people. Santee is trying to
make useful men and women out of Indian children.         F. B. R.
Sunday School Study on the Reservations
The Sunday School is an institution difficult
to maintain on an Indian reservation. It is
always a hard matter to find a superintendent
and teachers. Usually the Indian pastor or
native missionary is both superintendent and
principal teacher. Too often the school becomes
another preaching service, as the Indians take
to preaching much easier than to teaching.
But a new emergency has come with the
introduction of the Irregular Labor program
in which in place of rations the Indians receive wages during the working season for
making roads, building dams, and doing other
public work. This takes them in gangs away
from their homes and of course disorganizes
all church work for more than half the year.
This is where the "Home Study" ■ scheme
comes in, and we are trying to supply our
Indians with the Sunday School Lesson leaflets in Dakota, not at their homes but wherever
they are in camp. It will be helpful if we can
enlarge the leaflet and introduce maps that
pertain to the lesson.	
The Faith Mission of Mr. Howard W. Antes,
near Aneth, Utah is soon to be closed and the
buildings sold to the Government for a school
site. Miss Sophie Hubert expects to remain
and do what she can for those Navajo Indians
along spiritual lines, or in any way that opens.
Are the Older Indians Hopeless
true   that   nothing   can  be   done  to
who   has  already  passed
Is   it
change  the   Indian
middle  life?
The experience of
Cheyenne  Indians
other missionaries among
especially the Mennouite
missionaries has been that much of their best
work has been among the older Indians, among
those who have been less corrupted by the
white man's ways. Missionaries among other
tribes, who have come in close contact with the
older Indians can probably testify the same.
So then, as far as religion is concerned, it is
very plain that much can be done, and has
been done, to change the older Indian.
But further, take farm work—the one thing
which many Indians can best do if they will.
It has been the observation of missionaries and
others among Cheyennes and Arapahoes in
Oklahoma that nearly all the actual farm work
clone by Indians has been done by Indians who
have not been in school. Names and places
could be given to show that the educated Indian
among these tribes has made no marked advance over others so far as actual farming is
concerned.
This idea that the old Indian is hopelessly
bad is founded on the mistaken view that the
old Indian resents every effort to educate his
children, to teach him farming, or any other
useful pursuit, Those who better understand
the Indian see that this is a mistake.
That certain efforts  of the   United   States
Government have  been   resented  is  evident.
Knowing, as the writer does,  how many  of
these Indians have been  treated, he can justly
say that the fault does  not lie wholly with the
Indian.    Knowing how little children have been
forced from their mother's  arms and placed in
Government boarding schools; knowing how in
many cases,   sick children, unfit   for  school,
have been forced into  Government schools in
spite of the protests of parents;   knowing how
these same  children  were  later  sent home to
' die, one can  scarcely blame  the  Indian for a
I little  resentment  of such treatment.    In the
j outdoor life of the camp there was a possibility
of recovery.    In the indoor life of the boarding
school it  was almost certain  death.    Among
' school-children  and young people the deaths
i from tuberculosis have been numerous.
A certain group of Cheyenne Indians have
asked the writer to establish a mission day
school for then* children. That school has
been in progress for one year. How is it appreciated? What has been the attendance?
j In spite of cold and severe winter weather, the
'■ attendance has been regular. The few absences
were chiefly on account of actual sickness.
An average daily attendance of ninety-five per
cent of those enrolled is better than in most
schools for white children, especially in the
country. The parents have fed and cared for
their own children. It is the school of their
choice. They believe in this school and appreciate -its advantages. Whirlwind Mission
school among Cheyenne Indians in Oklahoma
is a standing refutation of the idea that older
Indians resent proper efforts to educate their
children.
The proper way to civilize and christianize
an Indian tribe is neither through the young
people alone nor through the old people alone.
Older Indians can be influenced and changed.
The influence and approval of the older Indians
will have a marked effect upon the younger
Indians.—D. A. Sanford, in The Outlook.
Sixty Sioux from Pine Ridge reservation,
S. D., have joined the Buffalo Bill show which
is to tour Europe for six months. They will
probably perform feats for the edification of
foreigners which, R ever true of Indian life, are
happily vanished from the life of to-day.—Indian's Friend.