The herald., 1896-01-18
HE STOOD BY THE REDSKEN
Mr.. Charles F. Lummis Appears Before
the Friday Morning Club
Stands as tho Champion Of the American
Indian and Against the Compulsory
System of Education

Charles F. Lummis delivered scholarly
address yesterday at the Friday Morning
club which declared him a champion of the
American Indian. The subject of the dis
course was Some Aspects of Indian Educa-
ton. The entire attitude of the speaker
was a defense against those coerclve sys-
tens of education imposed by the govern
ment upon race who are today not low
grade savages, but advanced aborigines.
From study of the character and habits
of the Pueblo Indians, among whom Mr..
Lummis lived, he was enabled to do justice
to the traits of the so-called red man, his
patience and intelligence, concluding that
God did not exhaust himself when he made
us, but created the brown as honestly as
the white. The government that paid so
dearly for the emancipation of the negro,
totally disregarded the rights of the Indian,
Mr.. Lummis said. Salary, and not human
ity, was the object of the teachers placed
over the government schools, he said. Like
in those systems that coerce the attend
ance of children from three years up and
in a school life away from home for a
period of five or six years. This
method of education changed the
child of nature to product
of civilization, an alien from home. His
native language was forbidden, his hair,
which is his glory and part of his religion,
clothing and unutterable shoes and stock
ings were substituted for his own easy and
picturesque garments.
The convict system, Mr.. Lummis
thought, was further enforced by attacking
his identity. His name was obliterated
and new one substituted. When his edu-
cation was completed the scholar returned
TO his home with a smattering of trades,
a knowledge of shoemaking and repairer
of clocks and desire to improve the con-
dition of his less fortunate people by adding
tin roofs and sanitary plumbing to the
homes of his fathers. His accomplish
ments found no scope. He became moth
ing everywhere and an outcast from home.
II left alone he would have been useful in
his world. competent to be happy, harmless
and contented among his own people.
Mr.. Lummis said that patience should be
the first consideration in teaching the In
dian. 1t should be remembered that the
racial child cannot become an adult
in generation. Practical ability should
be the objective teaching. Above all, the
Indian should be honorably taught. The
example Of the teacher was as much an
education as the lesson. 1t should be re-
membared, said the speaker, that the In
dian was human being with property and
social rights, and that by a national law he
was a citizen and had lost his status with
the savage tribes.
At the close of the paper the question
was asked: "What can we do to advocate
the cause of the Iudians?"
TO this Mr.. Lummis replied: "Above all
things we must have patience. That pa
tience that will never give up agitating the
question, and a striving to get at those per-
sons who make the laws. Mission schools
have done some good work, but are in
etfectual to large extent on account of a
lack of money and energy. Humanity as
exercised in these schools has accom-
plished more than the compulsve systems
of government will ever effect"