Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/226

206 water. He had been nursed by his mother for three, four, or even more years, because of the lack of other infantile nutriment. As soon as he was free for the use of his limbs, for the training of his senses, and for the gaining and exercise of physical strength, his prospective range and method of life, with the conditions under which it was to be passed, decided what he was to learn and practise. Upon the females, as soon as they could take their earliest lessons in it, was impressed the consciousness of what their full share was to be in what we now call “women's right to labor.” Their lords and masters never questioned that right, or interfered with it, except to see that it was fully exercised in doing all the work, the easy and the hard alike; for the male Indian would not do a stroke of either. The Indian women were not prolific; their families were generally small. Their happy and indulgent hours were found in their groupings together on the grass or around the fire, with their work in their hands and their tongues busy and free. The boys could gambol, play ball or other games, and practise with their bows and fish-hooks. The girls were equally free until reaching their teens, and in some tribes never came under any discipline of withdrawal or restraint till they became wives. The earnest and laborious efforts which have been made most effectively, in quite recent years, for the school education of young Indians, have profited by a lesson of experience. Trials were made among them of schools after the usage of the whites, the children being gathered before their teachers at the school hours, and then left to return to their parents' lodges. No advance was made by this method, either in the intellectual training or the elevation of the pupils. Recourse is now had to boarding-schools, in which the children are withdrawn from all the influences of their wild life, and are taught decorum, cleanliness, and self-respect, with the alphabet and primer. This is one of the hopeful methods of dealing with our Indian problem.