The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1906-07 - 1906-08

              The Word Carrier
op Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME XXXV.
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER 4.
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
JULY-AUGUST, 1906.
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR,
Our   Platform.
For Indians we want American Education! We
want American Homes! We want American Rights!
The result of which is American Citizenship! And
the Gospel is the power of God for their Salvation !
What wc Must Do for the Indian.
It was only about a quarter of a century ago
that we began to realize that our problem was
to civilize the Indians. We had hardly gotten
that problem fairly before us before God said to
us: "Here are the Porto Ricans; and the Ha-
waiians; and the Filipinos; take them also."
And our problem for our insular peoples is the
the same. It is curious how, when we are just
beginning to comprehend a typical problem,
that we have been puzzling over for a century,
God does not take it away from us, but gives
us another that is still harder. This is our
problem respecting them : it is not to develop
Porto Rico ; or Hawaii; or the Philippines; it is
not to get labor to make sugar or fell forests
or dig canals or furnish coffee or give us a
better livelihood at a cheaper price; it is to
make men out of those who are yet but stunted or
dwarfed or just beginning to be made. We
have not done this* with the Indians, and so
von will hear today, You will find stories of
Indians given their land, given their right to
buy and sell, given the beginnings of a marriage relation, given these things and yet going
into drunkenness and into gambling and into
poverty and wretchedness and there will be, perhaps,some who will say we have made a mistake,
we must go back. Did you ever happen to see
a chicken when it had just come out of the
shell? The egg was ruined, and the chicken
no good. Now, what would you do—put the
chieken back into the eggshell or develop it
into a pullet? And that is what we have to do
with (lie Indian races, and with the Filipinos,
and with the Porto Ricans, and with tbe Hawaiian. Our first duty to a dependent people is
just government. Tbe second is a universal
system of education. The third is moral and
religious culture. We mnst not only see that
their right to person, property, the family and
reputation are respected, we must not only see
that they are equipped with a public school
system that will store their minds with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of
nature and the laws of her operation, but we
must see that their passions are trained to come
to heel by a vigorous will and made the servant
of a tender conscience. Without undertaking
to say how this is to be done I venture to offer
four suggestions.
First. We must do for the Indians what we
are beginning to do for our public schools in
the States: insist upon something more than
merely academic qualifications in the teacher.
Religion is not a doctrine to be taught, but a
spirit to be imparted. To impart it the teacher must possess that spirit of faith and hope
and love which constitutes the essence of spiritual life.
We can do some thing to create a publie opinion which shall keep the Indian schools out of
political influence and which shall give to them
teachers imbued with the spirit of a General
Armstrong and a Booker Washington, and thus
make the government schools morally and inspi-
rationally, as well as intellectually, educative.
Second. We can do for the Indian what,
under the inspiration of Booker Washington,
we are beginning to do for the colored race,
and what under wise leadership, we are begining to do in the North for the children in our
towns and cities: we can make the schools instruments for industrial education. The first
duty of every man to the community is to sup-
Port himself. Therefore, the most fundamental function of education is to give him capacity
to support himself. The greatest need, both of
the negro and of the Indian, is industrial rather
tflan literary training   I believe that this is
also the greatest need in the towns and cities
of the North. This is necessary not only to
create power of self-support, but also to a complete manhood. The hand should be trained
to something else than to hold a book; the eye
to something else than to read a printed page.
Nor is it easy to suggest any better way of developing such fundamental moral qualities as
obedience, industry, temperance, and self control than through a wisely ordered industrial
education.
Third. We can look for some Indian who
will do for his race what Booker Washington
has done tor the colored race. Nothing would
do so much to promote both the civilization of
the Indiaus and the respect of the whites for
the Indians as an Indian Booker Washington
who should put the claims of the Indians before
the whites and the claims of higher civilization
before the Indians.
Fourth. We can lay before the Christian
churches their opportunity and summon them
to enter upon their duty. The mere preaching
of the Gospel on Sundays to Indian congregations does not fulfill that duty; the mere conduct of parochial schools does not fulfill it.
Tbe Indians need the institutional church, the
Christian school, the social settlement, the
boys' club, the girls' club, the mothers' club,
tbe Young Men's Christian Association, the
Young Woman's Christian Association, the
Societies of Christian Endeavor, a pure literature, and above all living men and women
carrying to them that life which always must
be personally carried, never can be impersonally sent.—Dr. Lyman Abbott.
A Visit to Myron Eclls.
Rev. Myron Eells is the son of Rev. C. Eells
who went as missionary to the Spokane Indians
in 1838. Mr. C. Eells became identified with
the work for the Skokomish Indians in 1872,
where he was followed by his son Myron Eells.
The readers of the Word Carrier have had from
time to time letters from Mr. Eells concerning
his work, so the account of a recent visit made
to him by Frederick B. Riggs will be of interest to all the Word. Carrier's circle.
"We returned from Skokomish yesterday.
That is a rich valley, narrow and deep with the
great forest rising up on all sides. We went
from Tacoma by steamer about forty miles across
the sound to Shelton, which is at the head of
one of the many long branches of Puget Sound.
Arrived at Shelton in the evening. A most
picturesque place! The next morning we
drove across a high table land twelve miles
through a pine forest, then past logging camps
down a terrific road into the deep Skokomish
Valley. We visited at two of the farms in
this Valley.
Six miles below the Skokomish River runs
into Hood's Canal which is a very long narrow
branch of Puget Sound. Right at the mouth
of the river is the small Skokomish Indian
Reservation. Agency all abandoned now, and
there, in one of the old government houses,
Dr. Eells lives. It is a very beautiful place.
There is a narrow road-way between their front
fence and the river bank. The tide often backs
the water up to the edge of the road. Right
across the river is the forest. Back of the houses
the valley is orchard to the pine covered foot
hills, beyond which rise the forest covered and
snow capped Olympic mountains. Dr. Eells
came up on horseback to preach at a little school
house half a mile above the place where we were
visiting. We also had Sunday School. Dr. Eells
went up the valley to his son's farm that afternoon and stopped to hold a song service at our
farm house in the evening. At ten o'clock that
night he rode home through the darkest forest
road I ever saw, where bears and cougars are
frequently crossed even now. Monday morning
we drove down the valley and had dinner at Dr.
Eells' home." ' F- B- R-
Orphan Home for Indians.
The full blood Indians in Indian Territory
are rapidly dying out. They have decreased
50 per cent in fifty years. The mixed bloods
are increasing. There has been established in
the Choctaw nation a Christian industrial home
for the orphan of Indian descent, open to all
tribes in tbe United States, but especially for
the full blood Choctaws and Chiekasaws.
It is founded on purely benevolent principles and is the only one of its kind in the
United States. Though Christain, it is non-
sectarian. It is emphatically industrial. The
boys and girls will be taught to work; they will
be given common school education. The hand,
the head, the heart will be trained symmetrically. It is intended for and seeks the poorest,
neediest, and most helpless of this passing race,
including the old, the feeble, the sick. It now
has eighty-five orphan children and two widows
in its sheltering fold. Many more seek admission, but can not be received for lack of room.
The home has become tbe guardian of a large
number of Choctaw and Chickasaw children.
It watches over their allotments, preserves them
from the clutches of the grafters, rents their allotments, uses the products of the farm to support the children and sick and old. Each child's
credits and debits are kept distinct, and any
surplus of money from actual cost of keeping
the child is at the end of each year placed to
its credit in some safe bank.
When the child becomes of age, well trained in
habits of industry, thrift, economy, and morality, and in the principles of Christianity, it is
put in possession of its well cultivated home
and its money in the bank. Thus the child is
saved ignorance and indolence and its property
is saved and turned over to it when it becomes
of age.
This home has the heartiest indorsement of
all the officials of the government in Indiau
territory, of the governors, and councils of the
nations, of the Indian people, and of everybody
else.
Its promoters are well known Christian men
and women,whose motives are purely humanitarian and who receive no financial benefit. It is incorporated and its board of trustees are self-perpetuating. The Choctaws and Chiekasaws have
donated five sections of land to this home and
the president and congress are now petitioned
to put this grant into effect. The title must
be in the home, and the land and other real estate must- not be subject to sale or mortgage
"as long as grass grows and water flows," or until it is not needed for the care and protection of
this dying race.
This home will be one spot that grafters cannot touch. No man with any heart for humanity will ever seek to touch it. It will be
one spot where poor and helpless Indians will
find a refuge and a home. It has land, needy
and worthy Indian orphans in abundance, and
at present a partial support for them, but it
lacks buildings badly.—Chicago Tribune.
There is no privilege which our Alaskan Indians more highly regard than that of prayer.
Mr. Jones, the pastor of the native church in
Juneau, says:
"My difficulty is not to get them to pray,
but to be able to close the meeting in a reasonable time."
Among the illustrations of the part they take
in the meetings are the following:
' 'In the early days of our country vessels came
to our shores. Then only the chiefs were invited to visit those on board. But Jesus invites
all sinners on board of the ship of salvation."
"A short time ago there was a smash-up on
the Yukon and White Pass Railroad. The engineer was blamed for the accident. Now if
we get aboard of the right gospel train with
Jesus Christ as the engineer our souls will never
be in anj smash-np."—The Assembly Herald.