St. Paul daily globe., 1894-06-24
INDIAN EDUCATION.

INDIAN EDUCATION.
In brief speech On the Indian appro-
| priation bill before congress Thomas B.
Reed. of Maine. made few days ago
some telling points on Indian education.
Heretofore the matter of educating the
indians has been pursued with too little
consideration for system. At nearly all
the agencies there are primary schools.
sometimes managed In the inter-
est of one or the other of the church
| organizations. aud sometimes conducted
outside Of any religious sect. Again,
| the brightest and most promising Indian
pupils of both sexes have been spirited
Isle. Pa. Hampton, Va. or elsewhere.
to have so-called ''higher education"
forced upon them, whether the pupils
manifested aptitude for such intellect
ual training or not.
Mr.. Reed took the broad ground that
education for the Indians. like educa-
tion for the whites. should be general
that race could not be elevated to a
high plane of Intelligence by lifting
certain members of such race above
their fellows. That to educate Indians
was different thing entirely from edu.
eating Caucasians, because the aborig-
ines started in the race for every species
of mental training minus those Inherit
ed tendencies and modes of thought
which make it easy for the white race
to absorb and assimilate learning. Dur
ing his remarks Mr.. Reed stated pro-
found truth when he said that the
smallest part of even the greatest schol.
ar's education was the portion learned
from books. Take, for instance, the
street gamin of average mental capac-
ity who has never entered the portals of
school house as pupil, and surround
him with the Influences of educated
men and women from his eighteenth to
his fortieth year. At middle life he
will probably have the manners of
man of culture and refinement, because
he has unconsciously absorbed and
assimilated the mental requirements of
his daily associates.
In its broadest sense education means
that species of mental and bodily train
ing which best fits the individual to
roundings. In the midst of So called
highly cultivated society, man or
Toman to be leader of thought must
know much of books. of art, of science.
LII rude mining camp of the far West
that man is the greatest who is by train
ing and instinct the readiest to detect
the value of silver lode. A farmer
must know the quality OF the soil he
tills: the mechanic understand the
cheapest and surest method Of doing
given piece of work; the physician must
comprehend at glance the natdre of
the disease lie is called upon to combat,
and be instantly prepared to prescribe
the remedy.
Education is multiform. To be an
educated gentleman in Paris, or London
or New York, man must be content to
pass as the merest iguoramus when he
finds himself alone, surrounded by the
Bedouins of the desert, or happens to
be the lonesome guest of the King of
Dahomey. Therefore he is best edu-
Gated who is best fitted by natural and
acquired endowments to care for him.
self at all times, where yer his fate may
place him. The Indian seems to have
gotten along very we'll in various parts
of America, from the Arctic circle to the
equator, prior to the arrival of the
white man four centuries ago. The
forest and stream furnished abundance
of food; the skins of wild animals were
at hand to clothe and shelter him. His
wants were simple, and their supply
always conveniently present. But the
white man came with his sacred book
and his firewater, and presto! all is
changed. The wants of the son of the
forest and prairie proceed to grow more
complex. He must have his gun and
his powder, his woven blanket and his
canvas tent, his knife of tempered
steel and his strong drink.
In the process of educating the linger-
ing remnant of the hundreds of tribes
of American aborigines. the Indian
needs first to unlearn more than half of
what he has been taught by his white
brother. And then his education must
largely consist of training his feeble
intellect how to exist at all in the fierce
more highly endowed by nature and
inheritance than himself. It will take,
probably. several generations to make
the average Indian of unlnixed blood
equal to the average of the stronger
rece. And the first lesson that should
be impressed upon him is that of self
reliance. AS 1.-The ward Of the nation"
so called, lie now depends too much
upon what the government gives to him
or rather bsstOTs uDoD him in ex.
change for lands. He must first become
agricultural and pastoral. and the train
ing he receives should be very largely
in this direction. On the farm and the
stock range the Indian may thrive until,
through intermarriage with the whites,
his peculiar savage characteristics are
modified. or entirely obliterated. In the
cities our high grade civilization woult
destroy him in one generation. Whils