The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1908-01 - 1908-02

              The Word Carrier
OF
Santee Normal Training School,
VOLUME XXXVII.
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER 1.
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1908
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR.
Our  Platform.
For Indians we want American Education I We
want American Homes ! We want American Rights !
The result of which is American Citizenship! And
the Gospel is the power of their Salvation!
December sixteenth Dr. and Mrs. A. L. Riggs
started west to spend the winter months in a
warmer climate, and to have a needed rest and
change. Christmas day they were with their
daughter, Mrs F. A. Waples, in Cody, Wyo.;
New Year's day they were in Seattle, Wash.
with their son, Stephen. After visiting several
friends in northern California they have now
settled down at Claremont. Their letters telling of the warm, sunny 'days, tbe flowers, and
fruit, and beautiful, scenery make us all glad
that this opportunity for a long deferred vacation has at last come.
A Word of Greeting.
I feel that I must use the Word Carrier to
acknowledge the many messages of love sent
me, and especially the prayers offered for me,
during my long sickness. I did not know before I had so many friends. The big pile of
unanswered business letters on my desk shut me
off from attending to my friends. May the good
Lord reward them. And 1 feel more grateful
to Him for hearing the prayers of my friends,
and granting me a few more days for the work
on earth I so much love.
John P. Williamson.
Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
The report of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs for 1907 is very interesting reading.
Mr. Leupp is a man of ideas, and, what is more,
he has the courage of his convictions. He is
ready to accept any new plan or avail himself
of any help that may further his plans. He has
put into use thumb print signatures for the illiterate Indians. He is doing his part in co-ordinating his bureau with the other departments
of the government; getting the help of the experts of the Government Irrigation and Forestry service in the irrigation of Indian lands;
of the Architect of the Treasury in building; of
the Xavy Department in steam engineering, and
the Surgeon General's office in medical supplies.
These are examples of the co-ordination and
economy of the public service he believes in.
Commissioner Leupp is quite an iconoclast.
He has no regard for the idols of the Indian
Office. When the ration system was so utterly
discredited that some change had to be made
the scheme of "Irregular Labor" was devised,
by which the money that would have gone for
rations was paid out to the Indians for work
done. Some of the work was for roads and
public utilities, but most of it was their own
work for which they should not have been paid
at all. The labor has been perfunctory, and
the scheme has perverted the Indians' idea of
the relation of work and wages. Nevertheless
it has been one of the idols of the Indian Office.
But the Commissioner has not hesitated to
break it down and tumble it out.
The non-reservation boarding school is another idol of The Bureau. There are twenty-
five of them, and in their support the Government spends annually two millions of dollars. For this expenditure the Commissioner.
says there is no excuse". If the same money
were applied to tbe education of Indian pupils
in the Day Schools it would give five times as
many the advantages of schooling. Then too
'he plan on which these large boarding schools
are run is so foreign to the conditions under
which the after lives of the pupils must be spent
that it gives them a distorted view of the relations of things and is therefore a failure educationally.
These boarding schools "are an anomaly in
°ar American scheme of popular instruction.
They furnish gratuitously not only tuition—the
prime object of their existence—but food, clothing, and permanent shelter duriug the whole
period of a pupil's attendance. In plain English,
they are simply educational almshouses, with
the unfortunate feature, from the point of view
of our ostensible purpose of enltivatiug a spirit
of independence in the Indians, that tbe charitable phase is obtrusively pushed forward as
an attraction instead of wearing the stamp
which makes the almshouse wholesomely repugnant to Caucasian sentiment".
Therefore the Commissioner would giveaway
or otherwise dispose of all but two or three of
the non-reservation schools, as soon as possible.
The reservation boarding schools come under
the same general condemnation but thtre ismore
need for them at present, yet as fast as they can
be replaced with day schools the change should
be made.
Tbe Commissioner is intent on making every
thing contribute to the Indian's development in
individuality aud moral responsibility. To this
end he is putting the control of their land in
their own hands as fast as theyr are reported to
him as capable to attend to it. He is even read}'
to throw ou them the responsibility of tbe misuse of liberty when they know enough to know
what they are doing even though it is morally
certain that they will deliberately choose what
is worst.
We believe that Mr. Leupp has the confidence
of the Administration and of the Indian Committees of Congress in an unusual degree. It is
therefore to be hoped that he may be able to put
so many of his ideas into effect that the Indian
Bureau can never fall back exactly into the
same old rut.
Government Indian Schools.
During the school year of 1907 the United
States Government has supported-twenty-five
non-reservation schools at an expense of two million dollars. In them 9,485 pupils have been
enrolled with an average attendance of 8,495 at
a cost of about two hundred dollars a pupil.
Four of these are in South Dakota, three in
California, two in Arizona, two in Colorado,
two in New Mexico, two in Minnesota, two in
Wisconsin, and one each in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Nevada,
Montana, and Michigan.
These institutions the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs would like to see transferred in some
shape to the several states in which they are
located and thrown open to all races, with perhaps the proviso that Indians are to be admitted
free of tuition for ninety-nine years.
The Government sustains ninety-one boarding schools on the reservations. These have an
enrollment of 11,019 and an average attendance of 9,520. The Commissioner does not believe in them so much as in the Day Schools
but under present conditions there is nothing
to take their place.
There are one hundred and sixty-three Government Day Schools in operation, with an enrollment of 5,130 and an average attendance of
3,670. There has been an increase of nineteen
over the number of the preceeding year. The
Day Schools have favored the clustering of tbe
Indians in camps in their neighborhood. As
the people are more widely scattered upon their
allotments it will be something of a problem to
maintain attendance upon these schools. But
their economy and their direct influence upon
the whole community encourage their extension.
The government encourages the attendance
of Indian pupils in the public district school
and many do so. With twelve District Schools
the government has had contracts for the teaching of 128 pupils with an average attendance of
58. In the year 1896 the number ot District
Schools so contracted with was forty-five, from
which it fell to six. But now there is an increase again and under the Commissioner's pol
icy there' will probably be yet more. But in
many cases the government red tape involved
discourages the ordinary district school officers,
and they would rather admit the Indian pupils
free than bother with tbe regulations.
As stated in the beginning, the Government
expends about two million dollars on its non-
reservation Indian schools,and it expends nearly
two millions more upon all these other schools.
How the Raven Got the Sun, Moon and Stars.
Many moons ago our people lived in darkness all the time. Far away on an island beyond Sitka there lived a rich man who kept the
sun, the moon and the stars for bis own use.
He was selfish and would not share them with
tbe people who sat in darkness. The raven
grieved at this and so set to work to get these
things for the use of his people. Now the
raven is a wise old fellow, so he decided he
would be born into the rich man's family.
When the child was born he made one mistake;
he opeued his eyes too soon; he was in a hurry
to look about and see things. Now there was
a very old and very wise woman in that country
so she was called in to see wrhat kind of a baby
this was who could see and look about him so
soon. The old woman sat down and looked at
the child. Pretty soon he wanted to look about
him again, so he opened his eyes and the woman
cried, "He's a crow, he's a crow!" The baby
had crow's eyes. He grew very fast and in a
short time he was crying for the sun. He wanted it to play with. For a few days the grandfather would not let him have the sun, but the
boy kept crying so much that at last he said,
"Let him have it if it will keep him quiet." So
the sun was taken down and given to the boy.
He was watched closely for a few days, but as
he kept rolling the sun back and forth, and
seemed to enjoy it so much it came about that
he was not watched so closely. The boy tossed
the sun about in high glee till at last, when he
saw a good opportunity, he threw it with all his
strength through the smoke hole in the roof,
and it went sailing away through the sky to
give light to the world
The grandfather was angry, but as the mischief was done and he could not help himself he
soon got over it. It was not long before the boy
began to cry for the moon, but the grandfather
said, No, he could not have it. As the boy cried,
and cried, aud cried, and the mother grieved so
because her boy could not have tbe moon to play
with, the grandfather at last consented; but he
must be watched closely, so that he would not
do with the moon as he had done with the sun.
So the moon was given to the boy and he played with it early and late for many days. At last,
when the older people were not looking, he
threw the moon with all his strength up through
the hole in the roof, and it went away through
the sky to lighten tho dark night.
In a few days the boy again became unhappy
and restless, and began to cry for the stars; but
the grandfather had lost so much of his property
already that he refused most decidedly to let
the boy have any stars to play with. The boy
cried for many days, and the mother grew sick
and weary of life because her boy could not
have the things he wanted to make him happy.
At last the grandfather, despairing of ever having peace in the family again unless the boy got
what he cried for, took down a box of stars and
gave them to him. The boy was happy again,
and he played with the stars for days and weeks,
till at last, when the right time came and no
one was watching, he tossed the stars through
the hole in the roof, and they stuck all over
the sky. The grandfather was very angry when
he saw what the boy had done. "You have
thrown away all my property!" he cried as he
rushed at the boy. But he did not catch him,
for he suddenly took to himself wings and flew
through the hole in the roof, crying, "Caw,
Caw."—Home Mission Monthly.