Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-03-17
Glk Eo,,foster 1ntflIige,.fer.
LArCAsrER, MARCH IL. Isss.
The Indian schools.

The report Of the Holman committee on
expenditures for the Indians, adverse to
the Industrial schools in the states and IA
voring the substitution Of industrial board
ine schools at the Indian agencies, must be
viewed with good deal of suspicion. Mr..
Holman has deservedly gained some repu-
tstion as an economist of the watchdog
Kind. whose services to the public are not
appreciated at their true value because of
their ,npopularity with those who would
b lavish with the public money. Mr.. Hol-
man, however, has not always shown him
eGlf to be broad-minded man in dealing
with comprehensive and far-reaching ques-
tions, and we doubt his judgment on the
Indian school question, partly because of
the conclusion his committee reaches and
partly because it came thereto without
proper investigation Of the subject.
The general judgment of those who have
seen the operations of the Indian schools
at Hampton, Carlisle and other places, is
favorable to them. The children are
brought to them by the consent of their
parents and tribes they are removed very
far from the influences of their native con-
dition and subjected to a course of training
and study that is calculated to change their
nature about as much as nature can be
changed by culture. AS a rule they show
an aptitude for study and for industry
that is wholly at variance with our COM
mon idea of the Indian.
They become domesticated, tanned as it
were, and radically improved. The boys
settle down to farming or the exercise Of
some hand;craft and the girls make fair
house servants their morals and manners
are as good as their habits of industry, and
altogether as good as those of the average
citizen of like advantages. We have
heard that those who go back to their
8 tribes do not spread among them the arts
Of peace nor become patterns of civiliza-
3 tion and are much more apt to relapse
into their original Indian condition than
to bring their associates up to a higher
level. Those who stay with us
are very likely to be amalgamated
into different race and the Indian blood
will be dispersed and finally all trace of it
will be lost. AS an effort toperpetuate the
race or to improve the general condition of
the Indian, we do not think the schools
win answer but that they operate to ele-
yate the individual, to heighten his moral
and intellectual condition and to civilize
him, beyond the power of all appliances
made when the child shall have grown to
manhood, is indisputable.
That the committee on Indian affairs
should have ventured upon report of this
kind, against the testimony of all OBJ.
servers, without visiting these schools
themselves and studying them from the
= hither view, is little singular. Almost
any kind of testimony can be picked up al
an Indian reservation that of the agents is
not much more reliable than the mar
squaws who loaf and loiter there. Tht
ayaricious agents naturally want to gel
their hooks and hands into the manage
ment; the lazy, worthless Indians want tG
hang around these institutions convenient
~ near their reservations; but the humane
men and women who have made Indiar
Affairs study and not speculation arr
the best witnesses, and these seem to hav,
had no hearing by the Holman committee