The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1842-03-10
INDIAN SCHOOL.

| Among the many very valuable documents
referred TO in the report of the Secretary Of War
and transmitted herewith to Congress, we have
been particularly struck with letter addressed
by Mr.. T. Hartley Crawford to Captain w.
Crawford, Superintendent of the Western Ter
rtory, in reference TO the establishment of an
Indian manual labor school at Fort Coffee.
| Whilst the present wretched condition of the
Indian race must be a source of the deepest re-
gret TO every philanthropst, the adoption of the
best mode for the amelIoralion of their melan-
choly destiny and their elevation in the scale of
humanity, becomes matter of primary inter
est II appears that the buildings fat the point
named have been abandoned for all military pur-
poses, and that the farm heretofore used for the
situated as to health, whilst, being on the Ar
kansas river il is accessible TO number Of In
dian tribes. Mr. Crawford proposes that the
buildings be converted into school house, in
which the elementary branches Of an English
! education shall be taught and that the farm
shall constitute school for manual labor and
instruction in the processes of agriculture for
ed in spinning, weaving, &C. The author
thinks, and thinks correctly too, that however
insignificant such an establishment may, at the
onset, appear, il may be made the source of
incaculable blessings 10 the Indian race; and
we add, indirectly 10 the white population in
that quarter The means by which the institu-
ton is to be supported are 10 be taken from the
| I. l.. ~. NJ
c. recommends the choice Of person of ire
proachable moral character and attanments at
least equal TO those Of principals of academies
in the popuous States, in order to carry out his
plan TO the fullest extent. In addition to the
teacher, in the literary department, it is propos-
ed 10 employ regular farmer 10 impart know
ledge to the youths on the farm, whilst matron
will be placed over the females and teach them
the arts belonging TO housewfery, There is
something in this philanthropic project which
appears TO us particularly admirable. Its first re-
commentator is, that il begins at the Begin
ming and takes hold on the Indian character
precisely at the point when proper and per
manent direction may be given to its energies.
Much has been SAID and written about the inn
provemept and civilization Of the Indians, but,
as i,appears TO us, all the projects proposed fall
short of their object because they have in view
the procuration Of change Of habits when they
are, in fact, so rooted and inveterate that no.
thing on earth can produce radical alteration.
Sometimes, it is true, young Indians have been
taken from their homes and placed at school
among the pale faces, and have been subsequent
ly sent to college, but so soon as they have at
tanned manhood they have relapsed into all the
wildness of the Aboriginal character. This is
not, however, the right plan. To transplant an
Indian, and place him among those whom he
regards as the prosecutors of his race, is to keep
alive his antlpathies to the white man and make
him draw comparisons between the freedom Of
his own sylvan home and the pent up abodes of
civilized man. He looks around him and be-
holds nothing but restraints, and then his memo
nv presents TO him the wigwam of his fathers
beside the gushing rlll and the dark ma9niicence
of the unbounded forest with the glories of the
chase, and he sighs for the scenes identified
with his infancy Nor is it strange that such
should be his feelings as despised and helpless
stranger in a distant land "God made the
country, and man made the town. and never yet
did the child of the forest whether white man
or Indian, exchange the proud, soul-ennobng
liberty Of the wilderness for the dwellings and
scenes inhabited by polished man, without feel
lngs amounting almost TO agony. The clvllIza-
ton Of the Indian must be the work of time
III must be taken in infancy, and receive the
| first lessons of knowledge among his own peo-
| pie, and amid the scenes with which their glo-
res are identified fhs must be surrounded by
associations with which he IS familiar, and be
taught the white mans language, where the
deep-toncd gutturals of his own still gladden.
his ear To learn must be to HIM, to a certain
extent, a matter Of choice, and his selt-esteen
must not be offended by the ''proud mans con
tumey, Or the rich mans PRIDE Brought gra
duly to compare the comforts of civilization
with the destituton of savage life, the certainty
OF plenty, with the precarous sustenance afford
ed by the chase he must, of his own accord
seek for the pleasures Of intellectual improve
ment to the exclusion of the crude and unsatis
factory imaginations of barbarism. Led on By
the hand Of judcious, pains taking instruction
he will, step by step, be made conscious of thu
charm thrown around existence by the boun
teous hand of science and of art, and be laugh
to compare the condition Of man, as a social be
, ing, with the helpnessness OF the same efeaur
IN the condition of nature. BY this means, a
years advance, and manhood approaches, h
will acquire habits and ways OF thinking, {
the silent nroads of which he has not bee
aware until they have acquired mastery owe
him which he no longer wishes to resist
: Whilst civilization opens to him an unbounde
4 field for - hprp fr,ithS pf rplIulO