The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1913-05 - 1913-06

              e Word Carrier
a
OF
Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME SLII
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER 3
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
MAY-JUNE, 1913
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our  Platform
For   Indians  we  want   American   Education!    We want
American Homes!    We want American Rights!    The result j
0f which  is American  Citizenship!     And the Gospel is the !
Power of God for their Salvation !
The Present and the Future Outlook
[Wc give  some extracts   from  Rev. A.   F. Johnson's manu- !
script as prepared for the Sioux Conference
at Flandreau last November.]
During the sessions of this Conference we j
have all been thrilled by the wonderful x-eports
that have come to us from all directions. Our I
honored Superintendents have set forth, in |
glowing terms, the marvelous natural resources I
of the many reservations here represented. !
During the opening hours of the Conference we |
industriously began to tabulate the wealth re- \
ported, but we were soon snowed under. Af- |
ter the calculations began to require nine and i
ten figures my elbow neighbor announced it ,
was all to be printed anyhow, amidst those
bursts of eloquence we were easily persuaded to i
yield to the inevitable, and relinquished the task j
to the expert stenographer.
Acres by the million. Cattle and horses by the i
thousands. And childx-en of school age in the j
same category. New houses by the hundreds,
and so forth, until the uninitiated exclaims, Oh!
How wonderful! ! The orators sit down amid
rounds of applause and the question natux-ally
arises what is the Future Outlook if such is
the present working basis?
But the problem presents itself in an entirely different aspect to a missionary. Statistics
are too misleading.
We have to apply to the subject some kind
of an uninvented psychological meter (prefix
unkmenj and calculate to what extent our young
people are growing better.
Are these statistics inseparably connected
with like increase of better character? Is there
an ever-iucreasiug development along the line
of ideal homes on a proportional ratio with the
number of all these fine new houses we hear
of arising all over our prairies? Are these improved allotments the outcome of natural increasing Indian thrift, arising from the determination to build up an ideal permanent home,
or is a part of it taken fromjjthe leasing clerk's
records? What is the advantage of a bumper
potato crop to the starving thousands if it is
nobody's business to advise about a frost-proof
cellar?
Sacrifices endured to insure kindness to the
wife or mother, the aged and infix-m, under certain conditions, may guarantee a much brighter Future Outlook than a larger annual baptism
register. Do the weaker members of the tribe,
the widows and orphans, rejoice because they
enjoy the fragrance of the Golden Rule?
Is there more self-control because the general welfare is on a par with personal intei-ests?
Of course positive mathematical answers, on a
basis such as we find in Dunn Waymann & Co.
are impossible, because character is too secret
and subtle a qxxantity to be tabulated for review
in such a conference. As one sees so many
churches and schools all over the prairies he
naturally or unconsciously tries to make some
provisional estimate in his own mind asking
himself what is the Future Outlook?
To many the real Indian problem looks like
(the old fashioned ' 'tug of war.'' Mighty forces
are surging and straining at eaoh end, and at
ithe performances allowed during the Fourth of
July and many of "the fairs" and such like
occasions we ask which side gains ground?
As missionaries our greatest Future Outlook
lies in the widening and deepening of that life
giving influence that arose in Bethlehem 1900
yeax-s ago. Our real Future Outlook depends
upon the quality of manhood we aim to develop by precept and example. It is the man that,
counts. May. we be allowed to congratulate the
honorable leaders of this conference in their
optimistic outlook by inviting the missionaries
to meet them on a common platform to compare notes?
I, for one, have very little relish for that Solution of the Indian Problem which undertakes
by a surveyor's compass to lay down the dividing line between the teacher and missionary.
True education develops standards of success
and a character, no matter whether the educator stands behind "a desk" or "a pulpit" while
he inculcates the truth.
In our schoolboy days we used to hear about
e-duco, a "leading out." With the highest possible estimate as to the capabilities of those we
are serving, and an optimistic Future Outlook,
let us ever consecrate our best energies in leading
them out of a dark past to an ideal citizenship.
The times are auspicious, and I fear many of us
do not realize how tremendous are our responsibilities. The placing of the Franchise in the
hand of one who is not in himself previously
taught to think for himself as an individual
man, is too much like a taking leap in the dark.
Considering the thousands of voters now coming on the lists in that vast countx-y lying between the Missouxu and the Black Hills as reported in this Conference, we ask have they
been led out ? To what extent are they qualified?    What can be the Future Outlook?
E-duco. Humanly speaking we are too anxious for good appearances. It flatters the se-
cx-et pride, to which we easily fall as willing victims, and while we enjoy the delicious
ecstasy our enemy has won the gold. Yes,
I say, too anxious for show.—We announce
a large list of baptisms and communicants,
and enjoy the applause. A class makes a
flue recitation and the supervisor can't keep
up, as he makes his notes in "the little book"
and we apply for a promotion. They call it
"decorative education"—not educators,but carpenters busy with sand-paper and varnish putting the finishing touches on something made
fi-om hard pine !—Merely bringing it out to the
surface. It appeals to the fancy as the bright
colors you see on the nude bodies in the great
dances. Undue haste to make a show report,
utterly regardless of great fundamentals in
training the child to think for himself. Under
such a scheme, the future is expressed with a
cipher, preceded by a minus sign.
E-duco. A leading and with a view to quick
cash returns. A man leases a farm. He cannot delay to figure the disastrous result to the
pasture bv over-stocking, nor scientific results
by a rotation of crops. To intex-pret the parable, the boy is a mere tool held on the grindstone until he is sharp. Eliminate everything
fx-om the curriculum that has uot definite px-om-
ise of quick returns in practical life. Cram
and stuff, but let me tell you that the Future
Outlook will be superficial.
E-duco. Leading fx-om the known until you
discover the unknown—the creation of a new
man, a development of tbe individual potentiality from which in a natural process of events
you evolve an independent citizen. He has begun to discover capabilities in himself and in his
manhood he ceases to be a ward. If he is in a
church he learns to take his bui-den and responsibility in that church. So as to his duty
to the State.
Ask the boy why? Then wait (time is no
consideration) until you have helped him to
answer and he has taken his first step out towards the truth, and the truth shall make him
free.
I plead for the Dakota that he has the capability. I plead that our missions and our
sehools by more modern methods help him to
self-help, and already we see the dawn of
day looming up with an optimistic Future
Outlook. A. F. Johnson,
Santee Normal Training School Press,
Santee, Neb.
Fifty Golden Years
Looking out on the north side of Union Park,
Chicago, is a house with a gray stone front.
Fifty years ago in this house there was the
pleasant stir and happy anxieties attendant on
a wedding.
At the home of her sister Mrs. Rufus Hatch,
Mary Buell Hatch was max-ried to Alfred Long-
ley Riggs. Professor S. C. Bartlett of Chicago Theological Seminax-y was the officiating
clergyman. All the professors of the Seminary
were present to do honor to the occasion, for
the bridegroom was a graduate of the previous
year, and the bride was the first oi-ganist of the
little chapel, connected with the Seminary,
which later gx-ew into Union Park Congregational Chux-ch.
Among the other guests were the bride's
mother and four sisters, and the bridegx-oom's
sister, Miss Anna Riggs (later Mx-s. Horace E.
Warner), who had come from Rockford Seminax-y,—the only one of the Riggs family who
could be present.
For their wedding journey, the young married people went xxp to the Riggs' family home
in St. Anthony, Minn, by train and Mississippi
river boat. The thx-ee days on the beautiful xxp-
per Mississippi river was an ideal trip. Then
came the joy of welcoming the new member into the family circle.
. Reinforced with a wife Mr. Riggs returned
to Lockport, 111. where he had been preaching
for a year. Four more years rounded out the
period of service in Lockport. The eldest son,
Frederick Bartlett was born there. Then three
years in Ceuter, Wisconsin (where the eldest
daughter, Cora Isabella was born), and Beloit,
Wisconsin and Woodstock, Illinois before beginning the forty-three years of continuous
service at Santee, Nebraska.
During these years the children Mabel, Olive
and Stephen were added to the family. Frederick and Olive are with the father and mother
in the Indian work, mainstays in carrying on
Santee Normal Training School. Of the others:
Cora is a doctor's wife, Dr. F. A. Waples, of
Cody,Wyoming, the first years of their wedded
life spent as missionaries at Kalgan, China;
Mabel, a musician and the wife of a musician,
F. L. Stead, at the head of the Peoria Musical
College, Peoria, Illinois; Stephen, a successful teacher of modex-n languages in Seattle,
Washington.
Looking out on the campus of the school is
the tree-embowered Mission House. Here on
June ninth a small cix-cle around the breakfast-
table read letters of good wishes, loving appreciation, and heax-ty congx-atulations. In the
evening a number of the Mission friends came
together socially. There were x-eminiscences,
pictux-es and songs. Ambrotypes of bride and
gx-oom were exceedingly interesting. The
songs by Mrs. Frederick B. Riggs aud Miss
Woodruff, Dean of Women iu Yankton College, with accompaniments by little Winona
Riggs, a granddaughter, were charmingly appropriate.
So closed the anniversary.    But the ideals
and influences of these years go on fox-ever.
 E. W. Harding.
Aztec Descendants
The feminine direct descendants of the famous Aztecs are tiny creatures, exquisitely
formed and refined in feature. They carx-y the
head with the upbearing grace of the full-
blooded Indian; their skins arc not red, but a
clear, smooth copper color that shines like gold
in the sun; their hair is coarse and black as
ebony, and they are decorated with bright feathers and gay ornaments. The women make
the most wonderful pottery that comes to us
fx-om Mexico, for they have kept the old Aztec
forms and decoration in their art, and they also
weave wonderful baskets and do exquisite embroidery.—Catholic Progress.