The Chippeway herald. [volume], May 01, 1902, Image 4

About The Chippeway herald. [volume] (White Earth, Minn.) 1902-19??

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
THE CHIPPEWAY HERALD,
Printed monthly at the White Earth.
Hoarding Schoo? by Indian pupils.
Subscription
Address all cemmunscatJons to “THE
CHSPPEWAY HERALD,” or 0. ft. Lipps, Sujit.
White Earth Boarding Schoo!,
White Earth, Minnesota.
Entered at the Post Office at White
Earth, Minn., as Second class mail
matter.
THE NEW INDIAN POLICY
Under the headings, “WELL
MENT MISTAKES” and “THROW
ING the INDIAN on his OWN RE
SOURCES,” the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs in his annual report for
1901, outlines the educational policy
for the Indian. It will doubly repay
any one interested in the Indian ques
tion to read this report. That it truly
outlines the present methods and condi-
tions on Indian reservations, must at
once be conceded by all those workers
in the field who come in daily contact
with Indian life and conditions, and
the manner in which, on many reser
vations, they are fondled, caressed,
bribed and forced to do the Government
the favor of putting their children in
school.
The custom of transporting Indian
pupils to schools hundreds and even
thousands of miles from their homes
‘without regard to their worldly condi-
tion; without any previous training;
without any preparation whatever,”
to be educated and returned to the res-
ervation “to leaven the entire mass,
has long been a much mooted question
As the Commissioner says:
“It may be possible in time to purify
a fountain by cleansing its turbid
waters and then return them to their
original source, but experience is
against it. For centuries pure, fresh
water streams have poured floods into
the Great Salt Lake and its waters are
salt still. ”
So will the Indian continue
to be uncivilized as long as we depend
on hypodermic injections of home
opathic doses of civilization to lift up
the mass.
The only true development is from
within. The only perfect civilization
is that which comes from inward
growth. The only way to secure a
permanent civilization among the
Indians is to begin on the reservation.
Sow your seed where you expect them
to grow. Grow your civilization right
where you expect to maintain it. It is
useless to try to legislate the Indian
into civilized ways of living. Better
educate them into him by the “Learn-
ing by Doing” method. The whole
secret of civilization lies in the home
The civilization of all people lies in the
home. Then we should work at home,
25 Cents
liftupthe home,civilize the home and the
rest will take care of its self. This
is slow-work it is quite true, but civili
zation is a slow process.
We believe the Commissioner is quite
right when he says: “So long as the
Indians are wards of the General
Government and until they have been
absorbed by and become a part of the
community in which they live, Day
Schools should be established at con
venient places where they may learn
enough to transact the ordinary busi
ness of life. Beyond this in the way of
schools it is not necessary to go —be-
yond this it is a detriment to go. The
key of the whole situation is the home.
Improvement must begin there. The
first and most important object to be
attained is the elevation of the domes
tic life. Until that is accomplished it
is futile to talk of higher education.”
While the reservation boarding
schools and the non-reservation schools
each are valuable in the civilization of
the Indian, it is becoming more ap
parent year by year that it is a mis
take to ignore the day school. So long
as we have Indian communities we
should adapt our methods of civiliza
tion to suit the needs of these communi
ties. The day school is a necessity.
LET THEM BE FARMERS
The Indian never made a satisfac
tory slave. He loved freedom even more
than his life, and when deprived of his
freedom, life ceased to be attractive,
and he soon fell a victim to despon
dency and disease. Thousands were
sacrificed on the plantations in the
West Indies and thousands more in the
mines of Mexico in the attempt of the
Spainards to use them as slaves. The
Indian could not live in confinement.
Patrick Henry’s words, “Give me
liberty or give me death,” voiced the
instinct of the race.
In the selection of a vocation for the
chidren in the Indian schools, much
consideration must be given this racial
instinct. What life work may they
follow that will make them self-sup
porting, respectable citizens and at the
same time give the greatest amount of
freedom, is the question the instructor
in Indian schools must ask himself,and
the question immediately suggests this
answer. Let them be farmers. There
is no other occupation that combines to
the same extent the three necessary
elements, freedom, self-support, and
—o
respectability, as does that of farming
The mill and factory hand is at the
mercy of his employer; the mechanic
is/even more despotically ruled by his
union; while the doctor and preacher
and lawyer and teacher must be at the
beck and call of all others. But the
farmer with a comfortable home free
from mortgage is more independent
than a king in his palace. The trader
tips the hat to him for his trade, the
politician bends the knee to him for
his vote, and all are dependent for
their very lives on his products. He
is not being hustled and jostled through
life on a trolley car, or jerked twixt
heaven and earth on an electric eleva-
tor. He awakes in the morning to the
song of birds instead of the harsh cry
of newsboys. The bright light of day
is not obscured from his sight by dense
clouds of factory smoke, and he breathes
the pure air of morning unpolluted by
the odors of a leaky gas pipe or a
passing garbage wagon He plans his
work with deliberation in quiet, un
disturbed by the din of traffic over
brick pavements, or grinding machin
ery and shrieking whistles. He is
not a slave to the morning paper filled
with the gossip of the world, but occu
pies his mind with practical affairs the
w r orking out of which makes the lives
of all possible.
His girls may not be as familiar with
the use of the latest slang,or the most
recent things in hair pins,and his boys
may not be able to distinguish the
music of an electric banjo from that of
a mechanical piano, but they will have
lost nothing in purity and intellig-ence,
and will grow up to become an active
part of the moving power, the force, the
immense reserve of energy that has
placed this nation at the head of the
nations of the world. —Puget Sound
(Wash.) Indian Guide.
REMEMBER THAT THE
"14TH 3J CELEBRATION BE-
GINS THIS YEAR JUNE 13.
$5,000 will be expended on the im
provement of roads on the White Earth
reservation and general improvements
about the Agency during the coming
summer.
The Memorial Day EXERCISES begin
9 A. M. at the CATHOLIC CHURCH,
The procession starts 1:50 P. M.
from the Boarding School to St.
Columbia’s Cemetery,