Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/259

 then agent counting the proceeds of the weekly sales made by his son-in-law—the Indian trader.

At the date of the reduction of the Apaches, the success of the Government schools was not clearly established, so that the subject of Indian instruction was not then discussed except theoretically. General Crook was always a firm believer in the education of the American Indian; not in the education of a handful of boys and girls sent to remote localities, and there inoculated with new ideas and deprived of the old ones upon which they would have to depend for getting a livelihood; but in the education of the younger generation as a generation. Had the people of the United States taken the young generation of Sioux and Cheyennes in 1866, and educated them in accordance with the terms of the treaty, there would not have been any trouble since. The children should not be torn away from the parents to whom they are a joy and a consolation, just as truly as they are to white parents; they should be educated within the limits of the reservation so that the old folks from time to time could get to see them and note their progress. As they advanced in years, the better qualified could be sent on to Carlisle and Hampton, and places of that grade. The training of the Indian boy or girl should be largely industrial, but as much as possible in the line of previous acquirement and future application. Thus, the Navajos, who have made such advances as weavers and knitters, might well be instructed in that line of progress, as might the Zunis, Moquis, and other Pueblos.

After the Indian had returned to his reservation, it was the duty of the Government to provide him with work in his trade, whatever it might be, to the exclusion of the agency hanger-on. Why should boys be trained as carpenters and painters, and then see such work done by white men at the agency, while they were forced to remain idle? This complaint was made by one of the boys at San Carlos. Why should Apache, Sioux, or Cheyenne children who have exerted themselves to learn our language, be left unemployed, while the work of interpretation is done, and never done any too well, at the agencies by white men? Does it not seem a matter of justice and common sense to fill all such positions, as fast as the same can be done without injustice to faithful incumbents under the present system, by young men trained in our ideas and affiliated to our ways? Let all watchmen