The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1900-11

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The Word Carrier.
VOLUME   XXIX.
HELPING   THE   RIGHT,   EXPOSING   THE   YViiONG.
XU.HBKR  7.
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
NOVEMBER, 1900.
FIFTY 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!
SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
Where the glacier piled a terminal morain to make the prettiest
bend in the Missouri River, there is
Santee School, in the northeast corner of Nebraska, central and convenient to all the Indians of the
Northwest. This school was established by the American Board in
1870 and is now maintained by the
American Missionary Association of
the Congregational Church. Its
development and success are typical of the qualities that have given
missionary institutions a leading
part in the education of the West.
And the expanding influence of the
Santee School has kept pace with
its growth out of the log huts
of 1870 into the commodious buildings of the present.
The fundamental purpose of Santee is the preparation of Indian
young men and women for missionary and educational leadership
among their own people. Active
Christians and working churches
are the resultof Christian education.
Government schools do not and can
not provide adequate preparation
for the missionary teachers, preachers, and other Christian leaders that
are needed. Santee does net conflict with, compete with, or parallel
the work of the government schools
or any other schools. The preparation of teachers and Christian leaders for missionary work is not sectarian instruction. It is all-round
Christian training but not denominational. Santee Normal Training
School draws its pupils from all denominations and trains them for
helpers in evangelical work. They
are carefully chosen from the best
products of smaller mission schools
and from many who apply to come
from other schools.
Home life is recognized as a potent educational means, and Santee
dormitories are accordingly small
and numerous, each in charge of a
Christian lady who appreciates the
responsibilities of mothering her
flock. The school dormitories being small, are conducted as nearly
as possible in the way of a Christian
home, each house representing a
family dwelling. The family prayers, motherly care and counsel,
ceaseless individual attention in all
the trifles that make the mighty sum
of character—to these influences is
due a great part of the success of
the school.
In the academic work the pedagogical developments at Santee are
not only abreast of the times, but
often advance into originality.
The course of study is essentially
unique. The secondary value of
"form studies," such as language
and mathematics, is recognized;
and the "real studies" or "thought
studies," as history or the humanities, and the sciences, are made
the basis of all "form study" teaching. The order, relative value, and
most advantageous use of studies is
made a constant pedagogical and
psychological study at Santee.   And
results are rewarding these efforts.
Teachers that are best fitted for the
work are sought out, and, whether
special teachers or class teachers
or kindergartners, their success is
found in the scientific study of their
work and their hearty and harmonious faithfulness to the development
of the whole.
Industrial training occupies half
of every pupil's school day. Besides the domestic training that the
pupils incidentally receive in the
care of their rooms, houses, and
clothes—both boys and girls—the
school, cooking school, and farm
give them more systematic instruction planned to fit the possibilities of
their home conditions. Santee pupils are taught to make good bread,
and to prepare plain nourishing
food economically and from such
materials as they have at home or
should be able to have. The students are practiced in the essentials
of stock raising and general farming. And in the laboratory they
have experimental demonstration
of the more important theories of
agriculture.
With the mechanical arts the
object is not trade training, but
"manu-mental" instruction, development of the mind and character
through the hand and body. Blacksmithing, carpentering, printing are
used for their mental and ethical
value, a means to all around development. The foundation of trade
training is often incidentally laid
in the manual training.
In order to keep in touch with
former students and all others who
will study at home, a correspondence school has been started which
has an active membership of about
fifty. And, as a further application
of University Extension to Indian
education, a Santee teacher makes
educational lecture tours through
the Indian country, and institutes
are held annually.
The Santee School further enlarges its sphere of influence by a
special department for a class of
pupils who may be called adult primaries. Mission out-stations develop many young men and women
who become earnest Christian workers. They are ernegetic and need
only instruction to make them industrious citizens. Some of these
young people were in government
schools in their childhood, but were
not awakened to life. When at last
they have become .Christian's and
their characters are ready for development their schooling is found to
have mostly faded away. And now
they are past school age. Moreover their ignorance makes them a
misfit in any school that is organized in the routine ways. The primary schooling that they need is
entirely different from that adapted
to five and six-year-old pupils, insomuch as adult miuds are mature
regardless of schooling. Many of
the Santee adult primaries have
been good workers in their home
churches, Young Men's Christian
Associations, and Women's Missionary sewing societies. One of last
year's adult primary young men
was a deacon in his home church.
He has returned as a native missionary on the Cannon Ball River,
North Dakota, and is most earnest,
active, and successful.
Most of the adult primaries, when
they come, can read their own language more or less  haltingly and
many   can   read English, or   pronounce words out of books after the
manner which schools call reading.
At Santee the endeavor is to teach |
them to read, write, and speak sim- j
pie English.    They read the Bible j
thoroughly in their own language, ■
and are instructed in the elements
of biblical theology,  history, and j
geography.    They learn some general geography and  gain  a slight
acquaintance with general history
through lectures in the Indian language.    They are practiced in vocal
music, and those that show special
aptness are taught on the reed organ, enabling them to play church
hymns.
These students learn to work.
The school farm, cooking school,
domestic service, "manu-mental"
training in the shops develop many
of them more rapidly than younger
pupils because they have somewhat of purpose in their schooling.
After only two years of such school
life, and in some cases after only
one year, Indian young men and
young women return to their homes
better able to both work and pray.
They become industrious members
of the community and steadfast
Christians. With well chosen methods of teaching, adult primary departments are superior for immediate results.
During the thirty years of Santee's
history there have been great
changes in the condition of all the
Indians of the Northwest. Christianity has been the only power that
has transformed barbarism into the
beginnings of civilization. And the
first evangelization of the Sioux Indians, beginning in 1834, was by
those who were the founders of
Santee. Christian education was
in the plans of the missionaries
from the first. Those plans culminated in Santee. And this school
has been steadfastly the centre and
advance of Christian education for
the Indians of the Northwest. Today the leaders of evangelical and
educational work in both Presbyterian and Congregational Indian
Missions, and those who are foremost in every advance toward the
development of Christian civilization, are former pupils of Santee.—
F. B. Riggs, in Southern Workman.
PEDAGOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AT SANTEE.
We are making new departures in
in school work. In our Friday p.
m. teachers' pedagogical class, we
are thoroughly studying the startling experiments of Chicago University Elementary School, which is directed by Prof. Dewey. The "Elementary School Record" published
by the University Press is our main
text book in pedagogical psychology.
We are also studying Col. Parker's
work as represented in the "Chicago
Institute Course of Study", and the
educational progress in the Teachers College of Columbia University,
by means of the "Teachers College
Record."
It is sufficiently difficult to teach
Indian pupils even by the very best
methods. Moreover we believe that
it is not right for a missionary
school to be of any kind but the
very best, in order to accomplish
the most with the limited means at
command. A share ofthe world's
best teachers belong to missionary
schools. Better ha/ve less school
and more teacher ! We do not compete for quantity with the Government schools. We count strictly
on quality. Though we are materially poor at Santee we do not propose to be mental paupers. We
have always endeavored to keep
abreast of the very best and latest educational thought. And we
are laboring day and night to
make our scanty material accomplish the necessary ends. We are
making furniture out of scraps
and constructing apparatus out of
nothings. What must be bought-
en the teachers often obtain at
their own  expense.
We are trying to work out history
objectively and dramatically. The
localities of historic scenes are
molded in relief maps, some on a
large scale out of doors, others in the
sand table, and permanent reliefs
are also made. Early architecture
is represented by thepupils' carvings
and model making. Ancient pottery
is developed in clay. For a historical laboratory in clay modeling, we
have fitted a basement room with
benches, seats, molding tools, water,
sand, clay, and two potter's wheels.
One of the potter's wheels is made
from an old sewing machine. We
took off the upper works and placed
two pulleys so as to change the motion of the belt to horizontal when
it comes through the table. We detached the belt wheel from the upper works of the machine and placed
it horizontally on the machine table to be turned by the belt now arranged for horizontal motion above
the table- On this small belt-wheel
we fastened a wooden wheel to serve
as the clay molding wheel; and the
potter's machine was finished, a
highly organized machine. The
other potter's wheel is more simple
and primitive. The power wheel is
placed horizontally, to be turned by
hand, and belted to the clay wheel
which is pivoted next to it, both on
a two by six timber.
We have partly made and partly
bought more balances and other
apparatus for the laboratory. We
have piped the artesian water into
the laboratory, and that is a very
great help to the work there. We
have greatly improved one of our
photographic dark rooms and prepared special facilities for lantern
slide making.
The Chapel has been painted without and remodeled within. The
wings which are used as recitation
rooms are now seated with good
desks. The audience room is seated
in curves facing toward the south
east. The chairs are soon to be replaced by better seats. The platform is a little wider and longer.
Still there is as much seating capacity in the body of the house
as before. The heating is from
the north west and hence more effective. An inconspicuous galvanized iron chimney has been erected south of the bell tower. The
entrances to the audience room
are now on side and rear instead
of front. Altogether the new arrangements have made the Chapel very much more like what a
chapel should be. F. B. R.