54

the deft hands of a corps of Indian girls, Then
we began the much more delightful tour of inspec-
tion.

The dining-room looked very bright and cheer-
ful as we passed in, with its neat table appoint-
ments, and tidy, white-aproned young girls as
waitresses. What a revelation to all womanly
instincts is this one room with its duties apper-
taining, to a mind running wild on the plains, and
knowing nothing of the sweet home-y-ness of
daily life.

As the children come from the plains into the

és

THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS.

the knowledge they long for can never be theirs,
The presence of their loved leader is with them,
sustaining and reassuring. How can they be
afraid ? ;

No child comes unwillingly to Carlisle. The
only difficulty to contend with in the whole matter
is the inadequate means to bring the large num-
ber, ready and waiting, into the civilization that
instruction by competent teachers alone can supply.
When the appropriation is what it should be, so
that an education lies within the reach of every
Indian’ child, our consciences will be somewhat

 

NAVAJOS IN NATIVE DRESS,

new atmosphere of school and family life, the
world seems suddenly to assume limitless possibil-
ities of terror. They huddle on the lawns in their
blankets, bone necklaces, skin moccasons and other
toggery of their native life, going to Mother Nature
for comfort in, and explanation of, this new extrem-
ity. A house to their eyes seems to beckon into
such a region of confinement, that for the first few
wild moments, life on the boundless plain, chasing
animals about as civilized as themselves, appears
the only delightful thing on earth.

The group here represented, is a quiet, self-con-
trolled one, evidently realizing that by each one
must be sturdy acceptance of offered good, else

¢

freer of burdens concerning them. For only by
an education i the best sense of the word, meaning
that introduction into knowledge of practical influ-
ence in home training, practical experience in all
manual trades, tilling of the land, etc, and practi- |
cal rooting and grounding in at least rudimentary
mental acquirements, till they are like edged tools,
simple it may be, but ready for action, can the
Indian be converted from his low savage condi-
tion, and we be released from the care of him.

To become self-supporting is the first advance

‘that nation or individual makes toward civilization.

Hence any working at the problem of the Indian
question of to-day, in any other way than the first