Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-11-21
APACHES AT SCHOOL.
A Glimpse OF the Ramona Insti.
tuition for Indian Girls.

Under the shade of group Of sturdy old
cotton-woods, on the banks of the Rio de
Santa Fe, in the midst of a spacious plot OF
seven acres, stands a small cluster of adobe
houses and long, plain, ight-colored
wooden dormitory. An orchard OF pear,
peach, apricot, cherry, plum, ounce and
apple trees made bank Of fruit blossoms
behind this groupof Mexican and American
buildings, in brilliant contrast with the dark
green of the grove.
Here in the gay sunlight of a cloudless
New Mexican morning, says writer in
Wide Apale, are children running from one
building to another clad in work aprons,
carrying brooms, busters and baskets of
wood or coal, or freshly washed clothes to
the lines; or in neat school garments with
smoothed hair and clean faces approaching
the door of the school-room. Soon there are
gathered around a dark-eyed teacher, with
a gentle look and manner, twenty or thirty
little North American Indian girls. from five
TO thirteen, with black eyes, ruddy cheeks,
trim figures, and slender hands and feet.
An open CRATE fire is burning in the CEN
ter of the school-room; the walls are-plain
but frightened with reading and singing
charts, and the notices and pictures above
the long blackboards. A kindergarten Ia
BILE on one side with low chairs and numer-
Gus groups of material make cozy corner.
Half dozen Apache boys, waiting for their
own Government school to be erected near
by, form background to the picture.
This is the Ramona Industrial School for
Apache girls, the Indian department of the
University of New Mexico, whose large
brick building, Within Hall, stands in sight
on higher ground on the other side of the
river.
ThAen Ana "a rirlo Av-0,,
camps three hundred miles away to the
queer old town of Santa Fe. They have
been transformed in this school from dirty.
thin-faced, unkempt girls in moccasins,
buckskins, blankets and paint into eager
pupils who are dressed and can read, count,
write, draw, sing, sew and work like the
American white girls in our own homes
These children are all genuine Apaches,
yet show traits which surprise those who
have despised the Indian. They are not in
ferior in capabilities to the white children
They learn quickly, are apt in number-work
and initiative studies, like drawing, writing
and singing. They readily catch hold of
the form of words and at once associate
them with their objects or ideas. They
learn the letters without any particular eff
fort of teaching. They have to learn every
thing as we learn foreign language, as
English is to them a foreign language.
! They understand it more easily than they
speak it.
Their interest in domestic occupations is
marked They prefer their sewing classes
to play, and their trained eyes and muscles
make accurate stitches At the age of ten
or eleven they cut and make their under
garments, aprons and plain dresses, and do
every kind of sewing that is required in
the hens, gathers, sleeve-fitting, overcast
ing and button-holes. Those of twelve
make excellent bread, cook plain food, wash
dishes, do laundry work, make beds, set
and wait on tables, sweep, dust and arrange
rooms.
The work of the school is so divided that
it falls lightly on each one Of these little
girls, who are thus learning, in three
years course, to become capable mistresses
of homes. Those who take longer course,
of SIX or ten years, will be trained to be-
come skilled cooks and housekeepers, de-
signed to take places in American house
holds, whence they will carry established
habits into their own homes, perhaps with
husbands trained in the Government
schools.
These Apache girls appear to have strong
mimic powers and to be fond of using them
The evenings in the dormitory are devoted
to games of their own invention. Their
charades are vivid presentations. Their nat
uraliy keen observation seizes upon the pc
culiarities of persons and animals. They
.'play school, with accurate limitations of
their teachers, commencing and correcting
the pupils with good judgment,
They are implicit believers in what they
are taught of religion, or from the Bible,
and respect the commandments. The sec
ond Sunday after fourteen or fifteen
Apaches had arrived they were fitted out in
American garments and sent to church. As
they were leaving the house it was discov-
cred that a skirt of one of the little girls was
too long. The teacher took a needle and
thread and fastened it up securely. The
older girls were anxious that the first inn
pressions Of the new pupils, just from an
Apache camp, should be correct One of
them went at once to the matron and indig-
nantly asked: what for Miss DeSette sew
on Gods days What for you no tell her to
stopi"
These Apache children are easily led by
their unfeigned belief In Great Father to
our Christian faith and worship. Supersti-
ton in them gives place to child-iike devo-
ton in which every want, every friend,
every blessing finds place. At the hour
Of going to bed in the dormitory, when all
are ready for sleep, they begin to say, after
the "Our Father" their own prayers.
Sometimes in praying for their friends there
is a devout rivalry among them, as among
some older American Christians, to pray
for what others have not thought Of One
! of the little girls had been very particular
| in naming all her family relatives, besides
the teachers, and finally, as with a new
idea, closed her list of "father, mother,
sisters, uncle, aunts, nieces," with her
''brother-In-law." The next one, not to be
surpassed, included in her petitions all
these and then, with great emphasis, made
prayer for her "mother-in-law
Some white men and women say that such
| children should be exterminated, that they
are only fit to die. Is it quite true that the
children of these people, who thus condemn
them, show better right to livel