SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

"G"

WASHINGTON, August 25, 1902.

Editor, "Red Man and Helper",

Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

A marked copy of your issue of July 24 came to hand duly, and received attention. While one of the marked edito- rials seemed to challenge the integrity of ethnologists, my first impulse was to accept the courtesy of the transmittal without remark; but seeing that the editorial in question has been quoted in other publications, I am moved to ask for spe- cific expressions.

The editorial referred to is the third in the first column of the second page of the issue mentioned, and consists of four paragraphs. The first paragraph, specifying the ob- jects of Indian education, meets my unqualified approval; with the third I do not concern myself save to remark that some of the strongest (to my mind) romantic articles during recent years find their motive in the relations between local tribes or families and their educated - and alienated - sons or daugh- ters; with the fourth paragraph I am no more deeply concerned; but the second paragraph I utterly repudiate and deny, on my own account, on behalf of the official Bureau with which I am

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connected, and in the interest of all the ethnologists of the
United States. And in connection with this denial, I invite
you to adduce a single specific case in which any American
ethnologist now assumes, or ever has assumed, the attitude
which you, by clear implication, ascribe to all of his pro-
fession.

Do not understand me as taking special exception to
the insinuation in the first sentence in the paragraph ("So
long as the Indian is different and peculiar, he is occupation
and income for the ethnologist"), for this proposition would
be equally applicable if the words "Indian educator" were sub-
stituted for "ethnologist" - indeed, the two professions,
which ought to be alike charitable and beneficent, stand on
exactly the same basis so far as this proposition is concerned.
The same may be said of the second sentence in the same para-
graph. The implication which I especially challenge is that
of the third sentence, viz: that the ethnologist opposes the
education and civilization of the Indian. Of course I can
not affirm that you may not have some real or assumed basis
for the declaration; but if you have, I earnestly and honestly
desire to have your specifications, with the view of guarding
against ambiguous expressions, possibly offensive to Indian
educators, either in this Bureau or in the American Anthropo-

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logical Association - which institutions may be considered to
comprise all American ethnologists.

Speaking more personally, I may seize this oppor-
tunity (as I have many others) for endorsing in strong terms
what may be called the modern method of Indian education,
i. e., the method adopted by Commissioner Jones and applied
by Miss Reel. The essence of this method is practical train-
ing along the lines required for fitting Indians to bear the
duties and responsibilities, and hence to enjoy the benefits,
of American citizenship. I have been much in contact with
Indians, both on their native range and on reservations, and
am in full sympathy with the present and prospective needs of
the individuals, of the families, and of the tribes. To all
I give the same injunction: Put off the old, take on the new.
By reason of the intimate acquaintance with the Indian mind
growing out of discussion of things which are sacred to the
Red Man, I may differ from some Indian educators as to the
rate at which the old should be put off and the new taken on;
but I differ from no honest, intelligent Indian educator whom
I have ever met as to the goal to be attained by the Red Man -
the goal of qualified citizenship in the United States. So
fully do I realize that when a warrior has once forged a plow-
share he will never again go on the war-path, and that when
he has once learned to turn a straight furrow his neighbors

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will be safe from marauding raids, that I could not resist the impulse, on reading Commissioner Jones' last report, to go and express to him in person my approval of his educational policy. And it was a great disappointment to me that circumstances prevented public endorsement of the same policy at the recent meeting of the National Educational Association at Minneapolis, where the Commissioner and Superintendent Reel made such a magnificent showing for that policy. Frankness compels me to add that in my judgment the strongest feature of the modern policy is the tendency to open the way for education and citizenship to all the Indians, in contradistinction to the old method of segregating and alienating a select few from among the children, who are too often thenceforward apart from their own race and not of the white, but homeless wanderers between the two races, despised of their own kindred and distrusted by citizen neighbors. Yet I realize fully that the evil (as I conceive it) of alienating Indian children from their parents and friends is diminishing with the general advancement of the Red race, and will in good time be no more injurious to family life than is the boarding-school custom still in some vogue among ourselves. So far as I am aware, my personal views with respect to Indian education are precisely in line with those of other ethnologists; I wish to record the aboriginal as it goes, and this can best be done in the very time of its

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going, while the old arts and beliefs and customs are still
in mind but after their esoteric hold is so far weakened that
they may be discussed freely; but it cannot be too strongly
affirmed that I, like other ethnologists, desire to educate
the Indian and raise him into Christian citizenship just as
rapidly as his mental powers permit.

While this is not necessarily for publication, I
should, despite the favorable impression produced by your
courtesy in sending me the marked paper, be inclined to ques-
tion the sincerity of the editorial expression unless my pro-
test be given the same publicity; and I am sending a duplicate
to "The Literary Digest", in which (Vol. xxv, August 16, p. 184)
your editorial is reprinted. My primary purpose is to seek
the grounds, if any there be, for the assumption on the part
of Indian educators that professional ethnologists are op-
posed to the education of the Red Man - an assumption which
crops out frequently but which is to me wholly incomprehensi-
ble.

Ethnologist in Charge
(President, American Anthropological Association)

DAVID R. FRANCIS, PRESIDENT
WM. H. THOMPSON, TREASURER

ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO THE CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT

WALTER B. STEVENS, SECRETARY
FRANKLIN FERRISS, GENERAL COUNSEL

UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION,
ST. LOUIS, 1904
COMMEMORATING THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

DIVISION OF EXHIBITS

FREDERICK J. V. SKIFF, DIRECTOR

S. M. McCOWAN, U. S. SUPERINTENDENT
GOVERNMENT INDIAN EXHIBIT

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
W J McGEE, CHIEF

F. W. LEHMANN, CHAIRMAN
COMMITTEE ON ANTHROPOLOGY
PIERRE CHOUTEAU, CHAIRMAN
COMMITTEE ON HISTORY

ST. LOUIS, U. S. A. May 16, 1904.

Sir:

On the second page of "The Red Man and Helper" for February 12, 1904, I find, printed in large type in an article over your name, a paragraph containing the following statement:

"We invite first a thorough inquiry into the influences of ethnologists, who in all they do persuade the Indian to remain in and exaggerate his old Indian life."

Although this statement may not be directed at me, the facts (1) that I was for several years associated with the late Major J. W. Powell as Ethnologist in Charge in the Bureau of American Ethnology, in which a large part of the ethnologic work of the country was conducted; (2) that I am President of the American Anthropological Association, which includes practically all American ethnologists in its membership; (3) that I am one of the three Commissioners on the part of the United States in the International Commission of Archeology and Ethnology; and (4) that I am Chief of the Department of Anthropology (including Ethnology) in the Universal Exposition at St. Louis, would seem to warrant me, more than any other person, in