The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-20
soUrHEnSoAAlroENIA LETTER.
Former Resident of New Haven Writes Entertainingiy of Her Visit to an Indian

school.
 The following very interesting letter from Southern California was received from a lady who was until recently & resident of New Haven but Is now living on a. fruit ranch in California;
 To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 Your daily paper is a. welcome Visl- tor to one of New Haven's residents now sojourning in California, who was lately privileged to attend the closing exercises of a government Indlan school in Ferris, Cal They proved or such an interesting character, ana the school itself so attractive, it seems | worthy of description for the many l friends of the Indians in your Elm City; so I send this letter for your readers, The school was opened m February of '93 with two large, hano- some dormitories. In that belonging to the boys is to be found the super intendent's office, two school-rooms and sttting-room. In that or the girls are the teachers rooms, slttlng and sewing-rooms and bath-roorns'
 also the dining-room and kitchen for the whole school Other buildings con- sist of hospital, laundry. shoe shop, store-house, boys bath-house and large barn. The cost of all combined was almost thirty thousand dollars 1 The government appropriation for running expenses of last year was twenty-five thousand dollars, but that finished the school year with quite a sum left in their treasury. There are almost one hundred and fifty pupils, ranging from six to eighteen years of age. None are allowed to remain af- ter twenty-one. This number was about equally divided between boys and girls the past year. although usu- ally there are more of the former. The children are mostly from reserva- tions in Southern California. but there are few from the, northern part or the state. Instruction is not only gwen from textbooks but much at- tention is paid to manual training. 1 The work In all departments of the school Is done by the pupils under the charge Of different teachers. The boys as well as girls are taught to make bids and do all the dormitory work. A number of the girls show great ap- titude for cooking, and are delighted to | do special work in that line. The | boys have a baseball nine and are very good players. They are soon to have a football team Some of them are very good singers, too, as they proved in the singing by a double quartette of their college song "Bingo' | on the evening of their closing exercis- es. The salutatory was well given by 1 y,,o, ,l, |. lieve was possessed of any Indian blood. Quite number of the pupils are half-breeds and some only one eighth Indian. A number of the young ladies showed considerable proficiency in their piano playing, and flag and parasol drill given by the smaller girls was exceedingly well done. One pret- ty little miss sang of School day troubles so sweetly that she received an encore, to which she responded with a waltz song and dance combined, which was done with all the grace of a professional and brought down the house. The whole entertainment would have done credit to the same number of American children, and the teachers think their pupils fully as bright and well behaved as our own | boys and girls. Their Is corps of fourteen teachers mostly from the east. They carry their scholars only as far as the eighth grade, but their con- stant aim is to instruct them so that they may be self-supporting, and to in still into them the idea of being useful men and women, not content with merely existing, as many of their parents are living on the reservations. They have a Sabbath school on Sunday and study the international lessons, but the gov ernment allows no sectarian teaching. The scholars are largely Catholics. A number of girls who have left the school are now working In families and proving themselves to be valuable help. Some of those there now are very at tractive looking and pleasant compan- Ions for the teachers, who are working so faithfully for their good. An ex- hibit of school work showed very good writing, drawing and modelling in clay. The kindergarten display proved that the primary scholars are given the benefit of modern thought in teaching. and that little Indian boys and giris are very much like their American cousins. If any one of the readers of your paper should chance to be in 'Riy- erside or Redlands, it would pay them to visit Ferris, small town on q. branch of the Santa Fe road. not far from either place, and see for them selves the working of this very inter- esttng school, which our beneficent government is so generously support ing. IT M c