The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1890-03

              The Word Carrier.
VOl.l'MIO    XIX.
HELPING    THE    RIGHT,    EXPOSING    THE   WRONG.
X I'M HER  ;».
SANTEE AGENCY, NEBRASKA.
MARCH, 1800.
FIFTY CENTS PEE YEAR.
OUR PLATFORM.
For Indians we want American Education ! We icant American Homes!
We want American Rights! Tlie result of which is American Citizenship!
And tlie Gospel is the Power of God for
their Salvation.
For years the flippant wisdom of
the cursory student of the Indian
question has been embodied in the
saying, "The only good Indian is the
dead Indian." But now The Dakota
Catholic proposes tosubstitute for it:
"The really good Indian is the one
who has been educated and trained
under the influence and moral surroundings of the Catholic school."
The inevitably suggested thought is
that the one saying is about as true
as the other.
In these days all great enterprises have their special artist to give
picturesque record to their achievements. The official poet-artist of
the Indian Educational Bureau is
to be Miss Elaine Goodale. This is
a happy appointment all around.
Happy will be the Indian driver,
happy will be his wife the cook,
and happy will be the ponies who
draw the artist's jaunting car over
the reservation. They will be
plucked from the common places
of life and immortalized among the
stars.       	
While Frances C. Sparhawk's article, which we quote from The Christian Union, has much truth in it, yetit
goes beyond the truth in saying that
"every child is born into this world
without a past." The iniquities of
a hundred generations are its past.
Yet it is well said, that back of all
that "God is the first heredity."
We gain nothing by ignoring the
facts of the case; on the contrary
this always leads into serious mistakes. But on the other hand there
is no cause for discouragement.
The ultimate success is just as sure
as though there were not so many
difficulties in the way, and the
victory is greater.
Here is a point well taken by Rev.
Dr. Chaffee in the N. W. Congregationalist. If there was generally
a better understanding of the problem involved in Indian regeneration
there would be fewer mistakes and
fewer disappointments. Says Dr.
Chaffee:
In undertaking this work we should not
indulge in any rose-colored views. Whoever expects to see these Indians, even in
the course of two or three generations, develop into civilized communities, is to he
sorely disappointed. By the law of heredity we inherit not so much from our immediate ancestors, as we do from the
blood and habits that have become ingrained through long generations. You
may educate the Indian person, but the
Indian nature will be wild; and as the
children will inherit the nature, and not
the education, the process of uplifting
these remnants of the noble red men will
be slow. But none the less the process
should go on; we owe him the uplift.
"Franchise Day" is an effort to
commemorate a future possibility.
It is the anniversary of the day the
"Dawes Bill" became a law; by which
Indians are to have citizenship when
they become possessed of land in
severalty. This is in the far distant future for the most of them.
And   much   suffering   and   many
hard fights lie in the way to their
attainment and enjoyment of citizen rights. Two generations hence
the clay will, no doubt, be of historic importance. Now it is
only a potentiality. Washington's
Birthday is one of the memorable
clays of our country. But how
wouldit have seemed if the Governor of Massachusetts, for instance,
had proposed to celebrate it while
Washington was still hacking the
trees on his father's plantation?
There is a good deal of logic wrapped
up in the slang phrase "rather too
previous."
The death of Rev. Samuel D.
Hinman is announced in the papers. He was formerly an Episcopal
missionary at Santee Agency, Nebraska, whence he was discharged
by the Bishop. After this he served
on various political commissions;
and recently he started a mission
at Birch Cooley, Minn., where he
attempted to gather a large colony
of Indians. His death occurred at
his home at Birch Cooley. With
more than ordinary mental powers
and grand opportunities, he could
have done a noble work among the
Indians, had not his lack of conscience nullified it all and made
his a wasted life. His influence
among the Indians was only to dis
turb and demoralize them. He
leaves an Indian widow'.
Rev. James F. Cross, of our Rosebud Mission, contributes a valuable
study in this number, on Agency
Day Schools. Whatever may be
accomplished through boarding
schools the mass of the people must
be reached, if reached at all, by
education, through the day school.
How this is to be done, and the definite ends to be aimed at are practical problems for experience to work
out, and cannot be settled by theory.
We commend the practical points
presented by Mr. Cross to the consideration of Commissioner Morgan.
On one point only would we modify
Mr. Cross' statements. We do not
think the day schools will really interfere with the patronage of the
boarding school. Our mission day
schools have furnished some of the
best material for Santee Normal.
Temporarily the multiplication of
day schools may make attendance
on the boarding school less a necessity. But ultimately the day
schools will be the feeders of the
boarding schools. But the Government boarding schools will have to
change tlieir character to make it a
privilege to go to them.
In the death of General George
Crook the Indian has lost a wise
friend. He had the wisdom of
common sense, animated by the
spirit of humanity. He treated
the Indian as a man. He was
no sentimental idealist. He recognised the facts of human nature, and of the wild human nature of the Indian. He was swift
to strike and severe, until rightful
authority was submitted to; and
then he won his recent foe by his
brotherly consideration and helpfulness. He has been compared with
General Custer, but there is no comparison save by contrast. Cu8ter
was a vain, self-seeking man, who
used his opportunities to make himself a name,ruthlessly slaughtering
the defenceless if it-would only bring
him renown, deservedly perishing
in his last foolhardy dash to* win
all the laurels of the fight for him-
i self.    But there never was a more
j unassuming man  than General
Crook.    In the time of the Ponca
agitation we were connected as in-
; terpreter with  a   commission   on
which he was serving.    We well re-
; member how,when travelling on the
| trains at night, we would find General Crook curled up in one of the
short end seats ofthe car, dressed in
citizens clothes, his slouch hat over
his face, looking for all the world
like some rusty old granger.    It was
his simple, homely friendliness, devoid of official distance, that won
so many hearts and influenced so
many lives.
THE tTNRECKONED FACTOR.
Mr. Myron Dudley recently, in
The Christian Union, questioning
the capacity of the Indians for
General Morgan's plan of education,
commends the industrial system of
Carlisle and Hampton, and says
how excellent it is that these people
should be taught to hoe corn, make
bread, keep their houses clean;
should be trained in the virtues of
civilization, honesty, truthfulness,
the duty of living with one husband
or one wife, and the other duties
that belong to Christian living.
Yes. But this is not all of these
schools. In each one an idea rings
in every blow of the students' hammers, is sewed into the shoes, kneaded into the bread, sown with the
seed, reaped in its reapings, moves
with, environs the pupils, an irresistible educating force. It gives
the whole instruction direction and
vitality. No Indian can get hold
of the Carlisle idea and feel that
simple manual duties and moral
duties are all that life requires of
him. For here it is not the "American Indian," but the "Indian A-
merican." Carlisle, with inspiring
faith in their manliness and womanliness, says to its pupils: "Go forward. You are Americans; claim
your birthright; this is the only
way to get it out of Anglo-Saxons.
You will gain it by honesty, upright
dealing, Christian living, and by definite ohject. Strike out, work, and
remember that every one who shows
himself a man helps undo for his
race the rusty reservation bolts."
Hampton inculcates into its students living and working among
their people.
We may differ from this idea of
elevating a race through isolation,
as one not demanded upon American
soil, not in accord with our American way of treating aspirants for
citizenship, and as putting a grievous burden upon the shoulders of
these young people, and beyond the
strength of many of them. And yet,
the inspiration of noble devotion is
the strongest force in human nature,
and, whether applied to make young
Indians models ofthe possibilities of
tlieir race among white men as the
strongest appeal to justice and
consideration for all their people,
or to make them help forward so
far as they can the people about
them, it must develop character
along the highest lines.
So, if we consider the stimulus of
initiation into a great cause, of ap-
I peal to one's personality to aid in
working out good to one's self and
I to others, and the setting of a defi-
j nite and high purpose constantly
j before the mind, as appealing lo the
intellectual as well as to the moral
side of character, then these schools
I appeal to the intellectual power and
' purpose of their pupils, notless, but
; more, than the public schools of the
country.
It is universally admitted that
they do it with success.
Therefore, there must be something that Mr. Dudley does not
j reckon upon when he says that the
white child is threescore, if not fourscore, generations ahead of the Indian. For such appeal could not
be made successfully to any youth
so far behind our average white
youth.
The Indian race may have thousands of years of savagery behind it.
But this dear old earth is always
charming because it renews itself
three times in every century. And
every child is born into the world
without a past. And the Christian
religion and all our benevolent institutions are founded upon the belief
that God is the first heredity. In
this belief we snatch children from
ruin to safety, thinking of no other ancestry. It is only the Indian
child who must drag for hundreds
of years the ancestral chain of his
race.
The Indian child's utter ignorance
of everything that the children of
cultivated parents know is much
greater in degree, but the same in
kind, as the difference between white
children of ignorant parents and
those of refined and scholarly ones.
Every public school teacher is familiar with both types. But we never have differentiated them by generations.
Then nature has a happy way,
sometimes, of setting out these matters for our edification. Hans
Christian Andersen reminds us of
this in his story of a child's party,
where the little ones, walking about
in childish perception of prosperity,
were entertained by one of the company, who discoursed upon the
privileges of her own rank and of
theirs. She was the burgomaster's
daughter; her papa had said that
no one ever could be anybody whose
name ended with "sen" "or den."
All the children's hearts grew warm
with satisfaction that their names
did not end so. But one poor little boy, looking through the door
ajar at the gayly dressed and wellborn children, felt his heart sink
within him at this irrevocable fate
of the "sens" and "dens." For his
name ended with a "sen ;" it was~-
Thorwaldsen.
It is the children whose names
end with "ian"—worse than any
"sen"—and who are lookingthrough
the reservation door ajar, whom
General Morgan is planning for.
And his plans were not made without a study of what work for the
Indian under most favorable auspices had accomplished.
This is the way in whicli he means
that "what i s good enough for a white
man is good enough for the Indian."
—Frances C.Sparhawk,in The Christian Union.