Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-09-28
EDUCATING THE INDIAN
The School for Boys and Girls
at Salem, Ore.
FITTED FOR MANY TRADES
Make Good Artisans, But Dislike to
Perform Mental Labor.
STATE TO VOTE ON PROHIBITION
Amendment Expected to Garry at
FITTED FOR MANY TRADES
TO VOTE ON PROHIBITION
Expected to Garry at
the Election Next Year-Many
Counties Are Already "Dry."
RY WILLIAM r. CURTIS

R1 WILLIAM II. u KITS.
Special Correspondence Of The Star and the
Chicago Record-Herad.
CHE,MAWA. Ore, September 10 1909.
The Salem Indian School is. at Shema wa.
five miles north of the city and reached
by an electric railway. There is also
a station on the Southern Pacific railroad.
The school was founded in 1880 at Forest
Grove near Portland. but was removed
here in 1855 because the people of Salem
made liberal inducements. including the
gift of a farm of III acres of land where
the institution now stands. The superin-
tendant sent David Brewer, a full blood
Puyallup, one of twenty-four boys who
were the first to enter the school at Forest
Grove. to clear up the new site. which
was then a primeval forest. They camp
ed out and worked for year and half
in the timber. In the meantime three
buildings were erected and the school was
in full blast with between 300 and 400
pupils.
After a few years experience the farm
grew too small for the demands upon II,
and the students-both boys and girls
went out to work for wages. They earned
enough In a year or two to buy eighty
additional acres adjoining the original
farm, which is all unders cultivation in
q
is now complete and has as fine plant
as any industrial school in the world. Ihe
shops where the different trades are
taught, the chemical laboratories. the
stables dairy and other agricultural and
granaries are models of their kind. both
in equipment and appearance and the
managers of other industrial schools
might learn valuable lessons from the
Indian boys and girls who are in training
here. In addition to 341 acres belonging
to the school, 125 acres have been denied.
and the crops always provide sufficient
food for the stock and the pupils and
leave surplus for sale.
The superintendent is Edward l.. Chal-
craft, and his assistant is w. B. Camp
bell. who was thirteen years at Carlisle
and has been longer in the Indian serv-
ice than any other man except Inspector
Mclaughlin.
Students Number Nearly 800.
There are 40 students enrolled; last
year there were 727. The average daily
attendance during the past year has been
61J. The students come from all the In
dian tribes. in the Pacific northwest. and
vary in age from ten to twenty-one years.
About one-third are girls 1t was origi-
nally intended to make this a school for
older students like Carlisle, but peculiar
circumstances have required the super
intendent to take in few little ones.
forced The boys are trained in farming.
dairying, orchard culture and the me-
| chanical trades. with steam and electrical
| engineering. They make excellent car
| penters. harnessmakers, WagOnmakerS.
| shoemakers and tailors and there Is a
| printing establishment on the grounds
from which several competent journey
! men have been turned out. The girls are
| taught everything that relates to house
keeping. dressmaking and nursing. Mr..
ha In "a Ira
good household servants. and that they
are incapacitated for such work because
of racial traits and dispositions. But he
differs radically from others | have
talked with him regarding the opportu-
mites for educated Indians and their
treatment by the whites.
employment can be found readily for
every Indian who is competent to do
good work. said Supt Chalcraft, and
he will be paid the same wages as whit.
| men for the same labor. The demand for
skilled and unskilled labor cannot be sat
isfied, and Indians in this part Of the
country are just as competent, just as
popular and just as trustworthy as the
whites. 1t is very rare that complaints
are made of the conduct the efficiency
of our Indian boys. We keep track of all
of them. We know where they are and
what they are doing and with remarkably
few exceptions they have proven faith
full and competent. Between three and
four hundred Indian artisans from this
institution are employed in this imme-
date section. Although we do our best
to encourage them to go back to their
allotments and cultivate the soil, they do
not take to farming. Those who own
land prefer to rent it and work at the
trades. We have more engineers among
our graduates. than in any other profess
sion. Next in number are carpenters,
and then talors. At Yakima one of our
Indian talors employs seven white jour-
neymen. We have several bakers, print
ers and harnessmakers making good liv-
ings in white towns and two or three
lawyers, but we do not brag about the
latter. One of our graduates is teller in
a bank at Yakima.
ut has been said that Carlisle furnishes
the teachers, Haskell the clerks and Che
mawa the mechanics of the Indian race
and we are proud of that record.
Some Are School Teachers.
"A good many of our Indian girls are
teaching school but most of them marry
and settle down as housewives. Only
about half of them go back to the reser-
walton, where they. too, often return to
the habits of the aborigine and live in