The true Democrat. [volume] (Bayou Sara [La.]) 1892-1928, 1912-12-28
GREAT INDIAN SCHOLAR.

estlng biography of William Jones
Hampton's most distinguished Indiar
graduate, written by Henry Milne1
:, Rideout
These memoirs of William Jones
by one Of his fellow Students" says
William L. Brown, of Washington
are written con amore. They show
keen appreciation of the genius ant
personality Of the man and possess
an intrinsic interest that will appeal
1. to a much larger circle than the lin.
| tied group to whom the subject of
| the book was known. That he Was
| not more widely known to fame was
undoubtedly due to the accident of
his early death. For it is generally
conceded among scholars that he
gave promise of becoming one of
Americas leading anthropologists had
he but lived to reap the fruits of his
thorough training and natural apti-
tude for his chosen profession.
Born in 1871, member of the
Sack and Fox tribe, with a strain
from a clan of Indian rulers in his
blood-though more white than In
dian-and raised in a wigwam by his
grandmother, he was graduated from
Hampton in 1892 and went to An
dover where he fitted for Harvard.
Graduated from Harvard in 1900 and
gaining his Ph.D. at Columbia In
1894, he was sent in 1907, by the
Field Museum Of Chicago, to the
philippine Islands to study the wild
tribes of natives in the mountains
of Luzon. And he met his death in
March 1909 by treachery at the hands
OF the saVages among whom he had
lived for about a year.
His life, though short, followed
no ordinary course. Rarely indeed
is it given to any human being to
range through such varied and funda-
mentally different experiences. His
Doyhood, as our author remarks, re-
sembled the boyhood of HiaWatha
and Nokomis. His career took him,
as on an abrupt curve, through SOM
of the highest perplexities of our
civilization. And when he had be.
come the chief authority in Algon-
kin lore and was Indispensable, hui
manly speaking, to the work he had
chosen, it was his fate to be sent
off to the far corners ofthe tropics,
there to meet death suddenly at the
hands of savages.
His character was of the strong
and simple type of those who are
born under the open sky and live
always in close touch with nature.
He was naturally modest and unas-
with much Of the sober dig.
MY and reticence which characterize
the higher type of Indians, and his
face, refle ctive and melancholy in its
lower contour, revealed the clear, un-
troubled eyes, at times impenetrably
sad, held frequently twinkle of mer.
ny humOr that was irresistible.
Such was the man who is the sub
ject of this book. Of the work that
lie accomplished little is said, but
enough to show the seriousness with
which he took it and the value Of
the results. He invariably spent the
of his college years in the
ted. among the Indian tribes of our
West or the Ojibways of Can
ada, collecting and writing the tales
which make up the vast sum of their
native folklore, or gathering the ma
i've implements or weapons of their
more primitive native life; and his
birth and training made much of this
accessible to him which would have
'aen concealed forever from any In.
'estIgator of an alien race. Much
u his work may be seen in the MI.
cum o! Natural History in New York
nd in the Field Museum of Chicago
where he classified and arranged
lis material. He worked also upon
grammar of the Fox language and
4 a dictionary of tribes for the Blu
eau Of Ethnology.
But this book, which is made up
t personal "reminiscences and of ex-
'acts from letters and a journal, is
ne account, Gas the author declares)
OF tf the scientist and his achieve
lent', but of young man who, ev-
ryWhere he went-among curatoss q
museums, artists in their studios,
la;nsmen in their saddles, or In
lanS in WigWamS-endeared himself
many persons lastingly. The pc.
lSal OF its pages must inevitably
AXE those who thought they knew
IN know him better, and those who
d not know him wish II MIGHT haya