The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-01-27
MANY new WAYS
TO AID ALASKANS
5000 Native People in Arctic
Zone Need Everything but
RefrigeratorS.
70 VILLAGES HAVE SCHOOLS
Teaching Hygiene in High Attitudes,
Cooperative Stores, and Raising
Reindeer-Each Teacher a
Social Worker.


Washington.-While educators hav,
spoken of what education ought to do
and have propounded theories the bur
den of which has been that education
and life should be synonymous, one
part of the United States has been ex
periencing such an ideal in actual
lpractice. In Alaska each schoolhOuse
| Is a social center for the accomplish
ment of practical ends. Many of the
buildings, in addition to the recitation
room, contain also kitchen, quarters
of the teacher, and a laundry and
baths for the use of the native COM
munity.
Every teacher is a social worker.
Every district superintendent in visit
ing his widely separated schools, must
travel vast distances by sled over the
frozen, trackless wilderness. Ere
quently he must risk his life on treach-
erous, tempestuous waters in a native
canoe or small power boat. He must
endure the violence of the northern
storms, the rigors of the arctic winter,
and the foulness of the native huts in
which he must often find shelter.
Directed by Bureau Of Education.
This work is carried On under the
| supervision of the bureau of education,
and the details of current operation
are reported upon by William Hamil-
ton. He tells that there are in Alaska
approximately $4,000 natives in vii
lagos ranging from 80 or 49, up to 300
or 400 persons, scattered along thou
ssands of miles of coast line and on the
great rivers. Some of the villages on
remote islands or beside the frozen
ocean are brought into touch with the
outside world only once or twice a
year, when visited by United States
coast guard steamer on it's annual
cruise or by the supply vessel sent
by the bureau of education.
Many of the settlements have no reg
ular mail service and can cOmmuni-
outside world only by occasionally
passing boats in summer and sleds in
winter. During eight months of the
year all the villages in Alaska, with
the exception of those on the southern
coast, are reached only by trails over
the snOw-covered land or frozen rivers.
In spite of the difficulties of the
problem United States public school
has been established in each of sew
enty villages. In many instances the
school is the only elevating power in
the community.
Tuberculosis, pneumonia, rheuma-
tism, and venereal diseases prevail to
an alarming extent in many of the
native villages, and in its endeavor to
safeguard the health of the natives Of
Alaska the bureau of education main
tains hospitals in five important cen
tiers. 1t employs physicians and nurs-
es, who devote themselves to medical
and sanitary work, and provides medi-
cal supplies and textbooks to the
teachers to enable them to treat minor
ailments and intelligently to supervise
hygienic measures. There are extern
sive regions in which the services of
a physician are not obtainable Ac-
cordingly, it often becomes the duty of
injured or to care for a patient |
through the course of serious illness.
Supervise Cooperative Store.
Another duty of the teacher is to SUI
pervise the cooperative store which is
owned and managed by the natives,
who deal in everything but refrigera-
tors. Strange to say, the government
of the white man has to protect the
native from the white man himself.
rN<, h.
sions of the INSCRIPTIONS trader, the
bureau of education has adopted the
policy of establishing reservations to
which large numbers of natives can be
attracted and where they can obtain
fish and game and conduct their own
Industrial and commercial enterprises.
The settlement at NoOrvik on the Ko-
1uk river, in arctic Alaska, is one Of
he most conspicuous successes of this :
policy.
With their advancement in civiliza-
ion the Eskimos living at Deering,
IN the bleak sea coast, craved a new
lome. Lack of timber compelled them
o live in the acknowledgement novels
# their ancestors, while the killing off
# game animals made it increasingly
Iifficult to obtain food. An uninhab-
ted tract on the bank of the Kobuk
liver, IS miles square, Astounding in
anne, fish and timber, was reserved
y executive order FOR these Eskimos,
nd thither they migrated in the sum-
Ter of 1915. On this tract in the arc
ic wilderness the c0lOnistS, under the
leadership of the teachers, within two
ears have built a village with well
,id-out streets, neat single family
ouses, gardens, mercantile company,
sawmill, an electric light plant, and
dreless telegraph station which keeps
hem in touch with the outside world.