Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-01-07
THE YOUNG INDIAN.
fPhilaIelphia Times. |


Chestnut street, there was large and
intelligent audience few days ago,
listening TO accounts Of the educa-
tional work for Indians, under the
auspices of the Government, at Carlisle
Barracks, Pa, and Hampton, Va. Ex-
Governor Pollock presided
Gen. S. C. Armstrong, Superintend-
ent of the Hampton Institute, speak
ing of the sixty-eight Indian children
there, said that it was only a little
over year since he received the first
Of them from Capt. r. I'll. Pratt, U. S.
A, who was then at Fort Marion, st.
Augustine, Fla, but who is now Su-
perintendent of the Indian school estab-
lished at Carlisle Barracks about a
month ago.
He found that these young Indians
had not been used to obeying, but they
were disposed to do right. They
showed skill in all mechanical work,
especially in leather manufactures
The object of the institute was to pre-
pare them to teach their own people to
work intelligently. They were fond of
drawing and sketching and of painting
on pottery, and the institute encour-
aged them in this by giving them a
little pocket-money for their work
They also liked to attend prayer-meet-
ings asking questions and expressing
their opinions there. Not being poly
theistic their minds were the more
easily moulded to truth. Being sent
there by the Government, no denomi-
national influence was imposed upon
them Five of them, who were Ro-
man Catholics, had been given per-
mission, at the request of Bishop
Keene, of Richmond, to attend mass
Nevertheless the institution was de-
cidedly Protestant, and if it was de-
sired to make Catholics of these youth
they would have to be taken away
from there. Gen. Armstrong believed
that there were in these Indian chill
dren elements of power and an intense
individuality to be found nowhere else
outside of the Caucasian race
Capt Pratt said that he had one
hundred and fifty-six Indian children
forty girls and one hundred and sixteen
boys-in the Carlisle school They
were brought there by him last month
from the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail
Agencies, away beyond the Black
Hills, in Dakota. At first the Red
Cloud people were not willing to part
with their children, but after Captain
Pratt's arguments to show that the
superior attainments of the pale face
were due to his education, they con-
sented. Two thousand Indians as
sembled to see them off, and they cele-
brated the occasion by making presents
to the old and poor of horses and
other gifts, in behalf of the parents of
the departing children. The Spotted
Tail people were more willing at the
outset than the others to let their chill
dren go East.
There was room for five hundred
children at Carlisle, Capt. Pratt said,
and it was good means of testing this
Indian educational question. He had
asked the Government for enough Of
children to fill the place. All that the
young Indians wanted was a chance
just what other children should have.
Instead of having "a fence built around"
the Indians, Capt. Pratt would like to
see them scattered over the country, as
the negro and other races were The
Indians are not lazy. Somebody had
to dig out of the ground what the
Indian ate and wore; if the Indian
would not do it somebody else must,
and if that somebody refused then
there would be trouble. What good
could be done, asked the speaker, in
the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail
Agencies, for instance, where there
were seven thousand or more persons
whom the Government expected to be
taught farming by only one man and
to be educated by only two school
ma'ams? Capt. Pratt thought that it
would be beneficial also to let the In
dams see the civilization of the large
cities, so as to get an idea of what
could be done through the medium of
education. When educated the Indians
should not be sent back, to be again
drawn under by the resistless current
of barbarism that could not be stemmed
by the policy so far adopted by the
Government
There was hum of interest through
out the audience when one of Capt
Pratt's Carlisle pupils, Etahdleun
Doanmoe (Hunting Boy, youth of
the Kiowa tribe, in Indian Territory,
was led to the platform by Ex-Governor
Pollock. Before coming to Carlisle he
was pupil of Gen. Armstrong;, at
Hampton, having been sent there by
Captain Pratt from Florida. He is
twenty-three years of age, with a
candid, pleasing expression on his
copper-colored face, and possessing all
the physical characteristics of the
typical Indian. OF neat personal ap-
pearance and a highly agreeable ad-
dress, he was attentively listened to as
he gave, in broken, cultural English,
a brief account of his life and adven-
lures He expressed his appreciation
of the advantages to be derived from
education, and assured his hearers that
he did not want to live again as his
poor people lived in the Indian Ter
ritory. He hoped to be a physician.
Ex-Mayor Fox described the i'm
pressions made upon him by what he
had heard, and spoke eloquently in
advocacy of this movement Similar
remarks were made by Ex-Governor
Pollock, after which a resolution,
offered by ex-Mayor Fox, thanking
Gen. Armstrong and Capt. Pratt and
urging Congressional appropriation
for the purpose of promoting intelli-
gent education of the Indian, under
the auspices of the Government, was
unanimously adopted.
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