and doing more or less missionary work among their own people.
William Jones has his degrees of A.M. and Ph.D., and is doing
valuable ethnological work for the Carnegie Institution, Columbia
University and the American Museum of Natural History in New
York. James Murie is assisting in similar work for the Field Museum
in Chicago. Hampton has but one Indian lawyer. There are about
50 students holding positions pretty steadily in government schools.
About 40 boys have employment at government agencies, 20 being
employed as clerks and interpreters, either at the agencies or at the
schools. Ten boys are working in machine shops at the north and
three are in the navy. A fair proportion are working on their farms;
some have accumulated quite a little stock, and five are prosperous
cattlemen, seven boys have stores of their own and make a good
living from them.” The Indian Department has now adopted the
policy of giving industrial training and household economy the chief
place in education, varying the instruction to suit the environment
in which the boy or girl is to grow up and live and not mixing the
needs of Alaska with those of California, or those of Dakota with those
of Florida.
In Canada the most notable institutions for the education of the Indians are the Mohawk Institute at Brantford, Ontario; the Mount Elgin Institute at Muncey, Ontario; the Brandon Industrial school at Brandon, Manitoba; the Qu’Appelle Industrial school at Lebret, Saskatchewan.
The Mohawk Institute is the oldest, having been founded in 1831 by the “New England Company,” which began its work among the Canadian Iroquois in 1822. It is undenominational, aided by a government grant, and had in 1907 an average attendance of 106 out of an enrolment of 111 of both sexes. The Mount Elgin Industrial Institute was founded by the Methodist Missionary Society in 1847, and had an attendance for 1907 of 104 of both sexes. The Brandon Industrial school, under Methodist auspices, had in 1907 an attendance of 104 of both sexes. The Qu’Appelle Industrial school, under Roman Catholic auspices, had an average attendance of 210 of both sexes. All these schools receive government aid. As in the United States, Indian teachers and assistants are often employed when fitted for such labours.
The first appropriation by the Congress of the United States for the general education of the Indians was made in 1819, when the sum of $10,000 was assigned for that and closely allied purposes, and by 1825 there were 38 schools among the Indians receiving government aid, but government schools proper date from 1873 (contract schools are four years older), the order of their institution being day schools, reservation boarding schools, then non-reservation boarding schools. In 1900 the contract schools were practically abandoned and the Indian appropriation devoted to government schools altogether. Latterly some departure from this policy has occurred, following a decision of the Supreme Court. In less than a century the expenditure for Indian education increased from an annual outlay of $10,000 to one of about $5,000,000, to which must be added the expenditures from private sources, which are considerable.
Exclusive of Alaska, there were in the United States in 1906, according to the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 324 Indian schools (government 261, mission 48, contract 15), with an enrolment of 30,929 and an average attendance of 25,492 pupils, costing the government annually $3,115,953. Of the government schools 25 were non-reservation and 90 reservation boarding schools, and 146 day schools; of the mission schools 45 boarding and 3 day; of the contract schools 8 boarding and 6 public. The schools of a denominational character belonged as follows: 29 to the Catholic Church, 5 to the Presbyterian, 4 to the Protestant Episcopal, 2 to the Congregational, 2 to the Lutheran, and 1 each to the Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed Presbyterian, Methodist, Christian Reformed and Baptist. Besides there were in all 446 public schools on or near reservations which Indians could attend.
In Canada, according to the report of the Department of Indian Affairs for 1907, there was a total of 303 Indian schools (day 226, boarding 55, industrial 22), of which 45 were undenominational, 91 Church of England, 106 Roman Catholic, 44 Methodist and 1 Salvation Army. The total enrolment of pupils was 9618, with an average attendance of 6138. In several cases Indians attend white schools, not being counted in these statistics. The total amount appropriated for Indian schools during the year 1906–1907 was $356,277.
The intelligence of the American Indians north of Mexico ranges from a minimum with the lowest of the Athabaskan tribes of extreme north-western Canada and the lowest of the Shoshonian tribes of the south-western United States to a maximum with the highest developed Indian talent and capacity. members of the Muskogian and Iroquoian stocks (both the Cherokee branch and the Iroquois proper). It must be remembered, however, that the possibilities of improvement by change of environment are very great, as is shown by the fact that the Hupa of California and the Navaho of Arizona and New Mexico (also the cruel and cunning Apaches) belong to the Athabaskan family, while the Shoshonian includes many of the “civilized nations” of ancient Mexico and, in particular, the famous Aztecs. One way of judging of the intellectual character of the various stocks of North American aborigines is from the “great men” they have produced during the historical periods of contact with the whites. Many of these stocks have, of course, not had occasion for the development of great men, their small numbers, their isolation, their lack of historical experience, their long residence in an unfavourable environment, their perpetual and unrestricted democracy, &c., are some of the sufficient explanations for this state of affairs, as they would be in any other part of the world. The Eskimoan, Athabaskan, Koluschan, Wakashan (and other tribes of the North Pacific coast), Salishan and Shoshonian (except in Mexico) stocks, together with the numerous small or unimportant stocks of the Oregon-California and Gulf-Atlantic regions, have not produced any great men, although members of many tribes have been individually of not a little service to the intruding race in pioneer times and since then, or have been highly esteemed by them on account of their abilities or character, &c. Here might be mentioned perhaps Sacajawea (see Out West, xxiii. 223), the Indian woman who acted as guide and helper of the Lewis and Clark expedition and saved the journals at the risk of her life (she has now a statue erected to her memory in Seattle); Louise Sighouin, the Sahaptian convert of whom the missionary de Smet thought so much; Catherine Tekatawitha, the “Iroquois saint,” &c.
The following list will serve to indicate some of the “great men” of the Indian race north of Mexico and the stocks to which they have belonged; in it are included also some products of the contact of the two cultures:—
1. Algonkian.—In politics and in oratory, as well as in combat, this stock has produced notable characters, the conflict with the whites and the Iroquois doubtless serving to stimulate native genius. Among Algonkian notables may be mentioned “King Philip” and Powhatan; Pontiac and Tecumseh; Black Hawk; Sampson Occum; George Copway; Francis Assickinack, &c.
2. Athabaskan.—The possibilities of this stock have been recently illustrated by the Apaches, who, on the one hand, have produced Geronimo, the chief who from 1877 to 1886 gave the United States authorities such trouble, and, on the other, Dr Carlos Montezuma, a full-blood Indian, who, after receiving a good education, served the government as physician at several Indian agencies, and in 1908 was practising his profession in Chicago and teaching in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Post-Graduate Medical School. From these southern Athabaskans much is to be expected under favouring conditions.
3. Iroquoian.—Here, as among the Algonkian tribes, circumstances favoured the development of men of great ability. Of these may be mentioned: Hiawatha, statesman and reformer (fl. c. 1450), the chief mover in the formation of the great “League of the Iroquois”; Captain Joseph Brant; “Red Jacket”; Oronhyatekha (d. 1906), the head of the Independent Order of Foresters, an important secret charitable society, a physician, and a man of remarkable power as an organizer.
4. Sahaptian.—A remarkable Indian character was Nez Percé Joseph, the leader of his people in the troubles of 1877. In 1905, at the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, a delegate representing both whites and Indians was Mark Arthur (b. 1873), a full-blood Nez Percé and since 1900 the successful pastor (fully ordained) of the church at Lapwai, Idaho, the oldest Presbyterian church west of the Rocky Mountains.
5. Siouan.—The most famous Indian of Siouan stock is “Sitting Bull” (d. 1890), medicine-man and chief. Miss Angel de Cora, a Winnebago, was in 1908 instructor in art at the Carlisle school.
Another, not always just or fair, method of gauging the intelligence of the North American Indians is by their ability to
