Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/12

10 agencies it has been very great and surprisingly rapid. Only in very rare cases was any unwillingness or resistance shown by the Indians. It is reasonable to expect that if the present system be pursued with patience, attention, and energy, results still more satisfactory and general will be attained.

The education of Indian youth has been the subject of special solicitude, and I am very glad to record the fact that our efforts in this respect have been encouraged in a multitude of instances by exhibitions of urgent anxiety, even among the so-called wild tribes, on the part of Indian parents to have their children instructed in the ways and arts of civilized life, and especially in the English language. It is the experience of the department that mere day-schools, however well conducted, do not withdraw the children sufficiently from the influences, habits, and traditions of their home-life, and produce for this reason but a comparatively limited effect. The establishment of boarding-schools on the reservations for elementary and industrial instruction has therefore been found necessary, and as far as the means appropriated for educational purposes permit, this system is being introduced. In these schools children of both sexes are instructed, not only in the rudiments of knowledge and the English language, but also in the various branches of domestic industry. The number of children attending school in the uncivilized tribes was 6,229 last year; this year it is 7,193. In the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory it was last year 5,993, and 6,250 this year. While thus progress is evident, yet my own personal observation has convinced me that many of the schools at the agencies are not as efficient in their working as they should be, and their improvement will be the subject of special care.

In my last annual report I mentioned the experiment made by this department during the preceding year in sending fifty Indian boys and girls selected from different tribes to the Hampton normal and agricultural institute in Virginia, to receive an elementary English education, and also practical instruction in farming and other useful work. Under the wise and energetic guidance of Mr. Armstrong, the principal of the Hampton school, this experiment has led to very gratifying results. The progress made by the pupils in the acquisition of knowledge and of the habits and occupations of civilized life was of course unequal, but in all cases satisfactory and in some remarkable. During the summer vacation many of the youths were sent singly to farmers in the Eastern States, and their conduct, so far as I have been informed, has in all cases been favorably reported upon. A personal inspection of the Hampton school satisfied me that the number of Indian pupils there could be advantageously increased, which increase has been provided for. The success thus gained seemed to justify the extension of the experiment, and the Secretary of War, with a willingness for which I desire to express my grateful acknowledgments, consented at my request