National Republican., 1882-12-21
POOR LOS UNTUTORED MIND
The Enormous Cost Of Getting it "Tutored Un-
der the Present Plan.
Building Brown Stone Palaces for the
Gophers and Owls.
Need Of Practical Craftsmanship in the Treatment Of
the Indian Question.
Cry for Help Comes Un from the Be-
nighted Regions II Tn south.

nighted Regions II Tn South,
Public attention has once more been called
rather pointedly to the Indian question by
the discussion upon the Indian appropriation
bill In the senate. The criticisms INDUCED in
by Senators Plumb and Logan when the edu-
cational items were under consideration were
blunt and TO the point. They thought tho
government was wasting money in the main
tenance of an extravagant and useless In
dian. school system and they did not
hesitate to say so. They want the
Indian children to be educated, and are
willing to vote for the appropriation of money
to that end, but they cannot understand the
necessity of the erection of brown-stone
school houses in the wilderness and the fit
ting up of the palaces with gorgeous furni-
ture and trappings when more good can be
lone with less display and at smaller cost.
The bill in question went through swim
mingly until it was proposed to appropriate
S235 per capita for the maintenance of pu-
pills in the Carlisle (Pa) industrial school,
where the superintendent only asked for 5000.
This provoked opposition, and during the dis
cussion which ensued many things were
touched upon which afford food for thought,
THE AMOUNTS REPORTED
to the senate in the bill aggregate S. $685. 1851,
or $112,245 less than the appropriations for
the current fiscal year ending June 80, 1883.
For industrial and day schools, MIR. Dawes,
father of the bill, explained:
The estimates for the year 1884 $685., ,565 80
The amount appropriated in the house
There IS added by the senate com: ''i'''' W
mittee..... ....-.................. I9,3O0 90
Total for educational purposes as re- .,oooo m
INF tod Fnr1
Amount reported over the appropria-
tion for 1884,. ..-..---.--............s l7S 900 90
81 want to say" observed
SENATOR PLUMB,
"that am satisfied we are making a mistake
in the education we are giving to the Indians,
a mistake which not only depletes the treas
ury to the extent of nearly million dollars
per annum, but mistake which besides is do
ing incalculable damage to the Indian him
self. I have here in my hand list of the In-
dians who are in government employ at the
various agencies of the United States which
it shows that the government has been en-
ploying, so far as it could, Indians in the per-
formance Of the duties of blacksmiths, farm
ers, carpenters, laborers, and so on about the
agencies respectively. Now, undertake to
say that after that list shall have been added
to 25 per cent, we will say there cannot be
legitimately employed upon the reserva-
tions any more Indians, whether they
arc 6uuCdleu VI nUU. ltU We dTB tuu-
eating Indians, giving them not merely
a common-school education, but something, if
anything can be- better, and sending them
back to the agencies with nothing for them to
do. They cannot be blacksmiths unless the
government employs them, because there is
no other employment about the agencies ex-,
cept what the government gives they cannot
be carpenters nor harness-makers, nor teach
ers, unless the government employs them, be-
cause there is no other employment there to
be had. They 60 back, then, to associate with
the great body of the Indians from whom they
came, to lose that level which they may have
attained or obtained while they were at school,
and to be practically of no use except as it may
be to a certain extent as hostages for the keep
ing of peace. They do not go back to become
Belf-sustaining and self-supporting they go
back rather to remain the wards of the United
States as they always have been. l will VEN
ture now to say that the influence of the
schools in regard to the general average
among the Indians of the United
States, SO far as it relates to
the question of their being able to
support themselves, so far as it makes them
able to osupport themselves, will not be mate
rally augmented by the expenditures of all
the money and ten times the money that we
appropriate in this bill Some other plan or
some modification of the existing plan must
be adopted, and it is no use to keep up Hamp-
ton and Carlisle for the purpose of educating
people for whom there is no work where they
are sent back to their tribes. The govern
ment feed the Indians upon the reservations
and pays them for whatever work they do be-
sides, and there is paid to the scholars of the
Carlisle school wages for the labor they have
done, thus cultivating in them the idea that
the fact that they are supported, fed,
clothed, and educated by the government car
ries with it no obligation upon their part In
other words, we have to-day constituency of
250,000 people whom we feed and clothe and
care for in the most complete manner, so that
no physical want is left unsupplied; and yet
if one of them is wanted to do anything he
must be paid for it. This is pauperism with
q premium, and a pauperism with premium
which, in my Judgment, will have to be
stopped"
SENATOR LOGAN,
in the course of his talk on the same subject,
said many things of which no extended notice
was taken in the published report of the pro-
ceedings He told of visits he had made to
ten a dozen different tribes during the
past summer, and gave descriptions of what
he saw there, and said: At one place where
the Indians had been sustaining themselves
for two hundred years peaceably and quietly,
who have never had an outbreak since history
has known them, / found a school house with
school books and school furniture all piled up
In one corner of the room. School had been
taught there, they told me, and so the white
days through that Indian town TO find
an Indian who who could speak the
English language, but / did not find
man, woman, or child who could speak three
words. The government had been paying for
the education of those people for four
years. l did not find any scholars at
the school, and / did not find
the teacher there. He had been
gone for eight months. found a church bell
sitting in the middle of the house, in the
middle of the floor of the school, that cost
$780, and there was no church. | suppose the
idea was to buy bell first and then build
church to it, on the principle of the man who
found hoop and concluded it was good
thing to keep because he could use 1t toward
making barrel. ] saw another tribe of In
dians who are $4,000 strong. Not one of those
Indians ever lived inside of house, unless he
uss captured and taken inside of fort, They
live in brush, what they call hogans on the
ground they sleep on skins live on melonsand
corn, and raise sheep, and they are rich tribe
of Indians. At that Indian reservation there
was a school house, built suppose, with gov
ernment money, out of hewn stone, as large
as any of the first class school houses in the
city of Washington. In that school house
they had recitation rooms, they had the finest
school furniture, all kinds of books, and large
maps hung upon the wall. They had dor
mitory for the sleeping of Indians that would
accommodate 200, and yet there was not
scholar at that school, but the books were
piled up all around in the corners Of that
school house. / saw that.
Tho last tribe visited / went to the Indian