Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1922-08-11

the day is devoted to theoretical class room work, and the other half to manual training for the boys and the domestic arts for the girls. Briefly, the government teaches the Indian boys useful trades by which to earn their living, and trains the girls to be real home makers. Not long ago, former President Elliott of Harvard said that the Indian schools had the best curricula of any in the United States.
 Hundreds of Indian boys and girls, after graduating from the govern ment schools, have taken their places in various walks of life alongside the whites. In it's work among the adult Indians, however, different problem is presented, fraught with difficulty, for We are dealing here, not with the blast icmind of childhood which can be shaped as the potter's clay, but 1 with grown men and women, whose habits and characteristics have become fixed by the wheel of time. The ,proble mwas to lift race from the darkness of barbarism and savagery into the light of civilization; and, among other things, to turn their tomahawks into plowshares.
 The principal difficulties were:: first, as have said, the inelasticity of the adult Indian mind, this is well ,exemplified in extracts from several letters written by old Indians that came to my desk in the regular course of the days work-"I am an Indian in white mans clothes, but it is only the outer garment; I do not under stand the white mans ways; I am still in the dark" "The Indian today is suffering in a new way of life; God made the Indian not to work sweat, but to have free life in North America" q am like blind man groping in the dark"
 The second difficulty lay in the fact that the Indian seemed particu- larly susceptible to the vices and diseases of civilization, such, for example, as whiskey and tuberculosis. The government is doing everything in its power to combat these evils. The introduction of intoxicating liquor into an Indian reservation, or its sale to the Indians, is a federal of- fense. By the use of up to date methods of treating tuberculosis, the death rate from this disease among the Indians has been reduced from 11.7 per thousand to "A per thousand in four years.
 The third difficulty was the white mans greed. Unprincipled whites in the vicinity of the reservations would take advantages of the Indians in various ways and defraud them of their property. Stern oppressive measures were necessary along this line, and many of the offenders have been sent to prison.
 The fourth difficulty, unfortunately, was presented by shrewd mixed bloods, who, by reason of their edu- cation, were in a position to take ad- vantage of the ignorant full-blood 1 Indians. There are a number of such mixed-bloods, who, in the guiSe of self-styled "saviors" of their race, managed to have themselves elected to high position in Indian organiza- tions, or, by glittering promises, ob- tained contributions for alleged "eX- penses" at Washington, which enables them to live in luxury without work ing. In 1914, one Indian of this class, testifying before Congressional in vestigating committee, gave the names of 100 Indians alleged to have died of starvation on one of the Mon tana reservations the previous win ter. Investigation developed that some of the Indians whose names he gave had been dead for years; that only 13 died during the entire year of 1913; and but seven in the winter of that year, and that most of them were still alive.
 Most of the reservations are well adapted to the livestock industry, and the government is doing everything it can to encourage the Indians along this line. It employs for this pur- pose 100 stockmen. Last year A. SAY Indians engaged in this industry, and they owned stock worth thirty million dollars.
 Many of the reservations, however, contain large areas of good farming land The government employs 25O practical farmers to instruct the In- dians in modern agriculture. Last year 48,962 Indians cultivated S9O,- 700 acres of land, and produced crops worth nearly twelve million dollars. Many of the older Indians support themselves by engaging in the orig inaI native industries, such as the