The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-08-04
INDIAN EDUCATION.
From the Kansas Educational Journal.

From the Kansas Educational Journal
We have all heard of pigs and bears
creatures that, by Some mysterious pro.
cess, seem actually to have learned the
forms and sounds of letters, and now to
combine them into words, spelling all
ordinary words by the use of alphabet
cards or blocks. Such animals learn to
wear limitations of the clothing, and
mimic many of the habits of men; and
certain of the birds are able to crudely
utter the words of speech.
1t is to be observed, however. that
these creatures have no power to perpet-
uate their learning among themselves
This artificial culture dies with the indi-
vidual upon whom it is conferred; and
his descendants, if, indeed, all reproduc-
tive power be not destroyed by the train
ing process, return to their original bar
barism.
Very much like this seems to be the
result of introducing civilizotian among
our Indian tribes. In the year 1860, the
kaw, or Kansas tribe, occupying reserve
In the northern part of Lyon county, mum
bered over one thousand men, women
and children. Some TOUR hundred good
stone houses were built for them by the
government. Costly school buildings
were erected, where the children were to
be boarded and educated free of charge
The land where they were located is equal
to any In Kansas, and every effort was
made to induce these wild people to
engage in agricultural pursuits. The
teachers were carefully selected, and did
all that could be done to interest and
amuse, as well as to instruct. The result
Of all this labor is sufficiently humiliat-
ing. The tribe has diminished in ten
years to four hundred and fifty persons.
The stone houses are no longer occupied,
except by such ponies as choose to seek
shelter in them. The people are living
in huts made of brush ana buffalo robes
The schools have for years been discon-
tinued, simply because it was found to
be impossible to retain the pupils in
them. Their wild nature was too power
full. A few have actually learned to read
and write, but they make no use Of their
knowledge All attempts at horticulture
have ceased There is not one COW or
sheep IN the cribe. A few ponies ana
weapons constitute the only wealth of the
people. They live upon Government RAJ
tons, pieced out by occasional trips to
the buffalo ranges, by beggary, and lit
tie wretched peddllng of wild goose
berries and grapes. they present most
melancholy spectacle Of degradation and
decadence, as, ragged, drunk and filthy
beyond descriptions, they traverse our
streets. Though exempt from the raw
ages of war, their nation has almost per-
ished in ten years. White mans food, :"
unspeakably bad cooking, consanguine
inter-marriages, and the various evils of
an alien civilization, have done the work.
The Osages, another branch of the same
great Sioux family, are travelling the same
road, dwindling, dying, disappearing
from the earth. They are repeating, on
larger scale the experience of their Kaw
kindred
The inference is obvious. So far as the
wild Indians of our plains are concerned,
civilization is mortlfying failure They
utilize none of its elements Of power !;
they only suffer from its evil aspects. 1t
is utterly foreign to their utmost life. As
q people, they cannot be educated Like
parrots and learned bears, few may gain
some small smattering of the knowledge
OF books, but they cannot reproduce or
perpetuate it; and under the blight of
this foreign civilization, they arc fast be-
coming extinct.