The Wrangell sentinel., 1931-03-27
Office Of Education
 Surrenders Work To Bureau Indian Affairs
WIDE RANGE OF ACTIVITIES OVER LARGE TERRITORY TO GO INTO NEW HANDS

Secretary Wilbur has issued an order transferring the administra- ton of the education and medical and sanitary relief of Eskimos, In- dians and Aleuts in Alaska from the 0ffice of Education to the Bu- reau of Indian Affairs.
 This step is in accordance with the present policy of the Depart ment of the interior with relation to the proper functioning of the ndian Service and the Office of Ed ucation. The intent of the law which created the 0ffice of Educa- tion was that it's primary purpose was research that it's business was to study educational problems. The purpose of the present change is to relieve it of functions chiefly ad- ministratiye and to place these fune- tions where they more properly be- long.
 From the time Alaska was pur- chased from Russia in 1867 to 1884 the United States government vir- tually ignored educational needs in the area, leaving them to mission ary schools. In 1884 Congress made it's first appropriation for edu- cation in Alaska and Henry M. Tel Ter, then Secretary of the Interior, assigned the work to the commits sioner of Education. The develop ment of schools that would accom- modate "a scattered population in this wide and inaccessible area proved to be an administrative task which led the office of Education into many strange complications.
 It is a huge task that is being transferred from one agency of the government to another The enor- nous distances to be covered, the remoteness of the stations, the low temperature, and the darkness that prevails through the long winters of the arctic are difficult to cope with. The Aleutian Peninsule and Islands, for example, stretch out to the vets from the mainland for 1000 miles, bare and sparsely popu- lated by a strange, mixed race. There is school here and there. North from this arm of America along the Boring Sea and the Arc 900 miles of treeIess coast which sleeps in the darkness beneath the snow through the greater part of the year and breaks into sudden verdure in the brief but long-dayed summer. This is the realm of the Eskimo.
 Aboriginal Indians
 Far into the interior where reach the Yukon, the Porcupine and the Koyukuk krivers, live the Athabas- cans, most isolated of all human be- ings on this continent is prob able that there are groups of Am ericans at these headwaters who have never been seen by white men and who do not know that a world beyond exists. Down that fringe of Alaska that reaches farthest to the south, where the climate is warmer. are to be found the Thlin- gets, the Haidas, and the Metlakat- lans. not unlike the Indians of the northwestern states. n villages that range in population from 30 to 4O0I these people live, each village large ly a unit unto itself
 Into these communities go Amer ican teachers. A man and his wife may be stationed at a point far out on the Aleutians A zeaIous youngl woman may go alone to a native village far inland, hundreds of miles from the nearest railroad, and there remain for years. showed in forI months at a time A venturesome youth may take a place in the Arc tic and find, in the holding of al human community out of a plastic race. a task so fascinating that hel fingers long in working out his ex- periments
 In the Alaskan native community the school is the center of all ac- tivity-social industrial, and civic The teacher is guide, leader and much nlQa fha community nav da