verified by every disinterested and intelligent man in that region. I have said, perhaps, more than I ought but the first thing that we ought to try to do is to give the Indian in the Indian Territory his land and establish a home for him. If he gets his money he will have abundance to make a house for his family to live in, and have suitable stock. He may then establish his home there. Then you may Christianize him, and if you have made a Christian of him you will bless him and perhaps be able to keep him a Christian.

Adjourned at 1.15 p. m.

SECOND SESSION.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, January 16.
Dr. W. N. Hail-

The conference was called to order at 2.45 p. m. by the chairman. mann, superintendent of Indian schools, was invited to speak.

ADDRESS OF DR. W. N. HAILMANN.

I find in my work, wherever I go, that progress in Indian educational work is due chiefly to friends of Indian education, and on that account I feel, when I address you, that I speak to those who, if my suggestions are of any worth, will help the realization of these suggestions.

One of the questions which has presented itself to me as of the utmost importance within the last few months is that of the relative value of reservation schools and nonreservation schools. There are powerful parties, in and out of Congress, who hold that the nonreservation school has scarcely legitimate work to do in Indian education; that the nearer we bring educational work itself to the reservation the more efficient will the work be; that it would be a wise thing to reduce the nonreservation schools gradually and to substitute for them schools on the reservations. The chief argument brought in favor of this proposal is that those who graduate from the nonreservation school, when they return to the reservation, are not prepared to enter into the tribal life upon the reservations; that, nevertheless, they soon lose whatever the nonreservation school has given them and become, to all intents and purposes, again savage Indians. On the other hand, they hold, boys and girls brought up in the reservations, upon their return home to their parents, from whom they have never been very widely separated, who have seen them again and again during the time that they have been at school, and are still identified with their tribes and agencies, with their home people, and their interests--when such boys and girls return to take up their residence on the reservations there is less danger of their losing what they may have acquired than in the former case.

This argument is very plausible. Yet when we look at it in the light of the general tendencies and policy of the Government with reference to the Indian problem, of so managing Indian education and the treatment of the Indians generally that as soon as possible the tribal relation shall be broken up; that as soon as possible reservation life shall cease, then it appears that it would be the opposite of prudence to do the thing that will maintain and strengthen reservation life, and that we ought to welcome all influences that will have a tendency to break up tribal reservations and reservation life. Consequently nonreservation schools, in taking Indians from reservations and bringing them within the influence of white civilization, letting them feel the influence of white civilization, leading many of them to yearn for this white civilization—that is, to get away from the reservations and become to all intents and purposes citizens of the United States like the rest of us— must in due time exert upon the Indians on the reservations a salutary pressure in the right direction.

At any rate this problem needs much unbiassed study, careful collection of facts, and deliberate sifting of these. At present many exaggerated statements are put out on the scantiest foundations of facts. This tendency should be consistently discountenanced by the true friends of Indians and of Indian education, and by all who are laboring to free our nation from this great curse of the Indian reservation. Every agency should be employed that will remove the Indian man from the tribes into homes, so that the power of the reservation, with its tutelary influence upon the Indian, separating him from the white, may be steadily lessened.

On the other hand, I ask you to give to the Indian Office every support that you can possibly give it, every help that it is in your power to give it, in its efforts to bring Indians in all the border States into the ordinary American public district schools. In this direction the office is engaged in a very interesting experiment. It is proposed in some of the States to colonize Indians in the existing white public schools. There is considerable prospect of success in this. It is proposed to make, in Minnesota, an educational boarding house-not a school-in the midst of the cul

tivated, prosperous, thrifty white community, and to send the Indians to board in this boarding house and to attend the public schools of this town. The citizens are perfectly willing; they propose to charge the Government no more than they would charge other nonresident pupils. The schools of the town are far advanced, they have an excellent manual training department, and much attention is paid to industrial training. It is hoped that by this experiment much good may come in time. With regard to the present movement for doing away with contract schools, may I be permitted to say a word. Of course I am in favor of having the contract system, which is a constant source of dissension, changed; but on the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the contract schools have done and are doing a great deal of good in educating the Indians. In very many respects they have advantages over the Government schools which it would be difficult to supply. And not the least weighty of these is the fact that the contract school is more at liberty to develop the religious instinct than is the Government school. I hold that the development of the religious instinct is fundamental in education, and it is probably one of the most difficult problems to meet and solve, how to supply the Indians in Indian schools with some measure of religious training or the development of the religious instinct without offense to the various denominations that are interested in this phase of the work. Yet the advantages to accrue to our work from the transfer of the contract schools to the Government are so great that I think it is proper to do this. However, I do not admire the method proposed by Congress of killing the contract schools by inchesreducing them 20 per cent a year. Before the fifth 20 per cent shall be removed the schools will die by inanition. It is a false way. As long as they are allowed to exist they should be strongly and warmly supported. If there is to be a 20 per cent reduction it must not be applied to the schools in such a way that certain contracts may be wholly abandoned, but that full support may continue to be given to those with which contracts are still continued.

President GATES. How is it being applied in the Department?

Mr. HAILMANN. It has not been applied yet, because it is not yet the law.

I think the precedent established by the school of the Unitarians, their transfer to the Government, offers a most excellent precedent. The plan is to place at the disposal of the Government the continuance of the school. The Government purchases, if it sees fit to do so, the equipment of the school, and engages to continue that school on the same plan and with the same pupils and teachers and the same employees so long as they are competent for the work. In this way there will be merely a transfer of the control of the school; the school would remain as it is; the Indians would not suffer; we should still have a school for the Indians there. In the other case, where we take out of these schools 20 per cent of the scholars, what shall be done with them? Either it becomes necessary to establish a new Government school to put with this school or to remove these children to some other agency, away from the surroundings in which they should have been brought up, so that there are evil consequences. A similar proposition to that of the Unitarians has been made by one of the schools in New Mexico, which I hope will be accepted. But to discontinue the contract school without at the same time, either by the transfer of the schools or the erection of new schools, providing educational facilities for the children would be, I think, pernicious.

I am more and more impressed, as I study my work, with the great difficulty that comes to the schools by a sort of reaction when the students, boys and girls, leave the schools and return into practical life under conditions that are poorly calculated to give them an opportunity for properly using their educational advancement. They are given an education in the schools, they go back among the Indians, and they have few facilities for making use of their educational development. Their friends do not see that there is much value to be attached to this school education, and they lose confidence in it. People around them do the same, and designing men use this as an argument against the extension of school facilities to the Indians.

It seems to me one of the chief works of the friends of the Indian and missionary societies would be to provide facilities for returned Indian youth to make use of what they have learned at the schools; facilities for work; for pursuits in which they can use the things they have learned at the school; facilities on the reservation or among the white people in their respective States. All this should be done; and it can be done much better by these societies than by the Government. It is a natural task for missionary societies, especially if the schools are to come wholly under Government control.

During my late visit to the Cherokee Reservation I was impressed with the desirability of such a movement. There are many who, if they could have small loans of money given to them to buy a plow or a couple of steers, could lift themselves into comparative affluence and pay back the money in a short time. Surely that would be a beneficent work for philanthropic men and women.

The desirability of bringing the white population and the white schools of Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Minnesota to take an active interest in putting Indians into

the public schools is manifest. I find in some schools that a great proportion of the children are practically white, not Indians. They are the children of white fathers, who in many instances are well to do and who could easily send them to public schools. They prefer to send them to Government schools, because then the children are supplied with clothing and food. In some cases really deserving Indians, with a higher grade of Indian blood in their veins, are kept out of such schools for lack of room in the dormitories. All such cases would be removed if the Indian school and public school could come more nearly together than they now do.

Since the time when I entered into my present office we have been engaged in establishing the office chiefly. We have not yet had an opportunity to do aggressive work in the way in which we ought to do it. I have been compelled by surrounding conditions to do largely defensive work on every hand. Fortunately at present, with the help of Providence and the Secretary of the Interior, the superintendent of Indian schools has his work made as easy as possible, so far as the Indian Office is concerned. But there are hindrances upon hindrances in other directions; he is hampered by things that it seems can not be removed except by Congress. Congress could do it, and Congress is the servant of the people, and you who represent the people should take the deepest interest in this matter and free the hands of the superintendent of Indian schools, so that he may be enabled to do aggressive work.

Here is an instance: the superintendent has had given to him for the fiscal year 1895 a thousand dollars to travel over this vast continent from time to time, inspecting schools. That appropriation was exhausted by the 1st of December, so that henceforth he is tied to his seat in Washington, unless Congress sees fit to add to the appropriation a sum which can enable him to inspect the schools. This parsimony is unworthy of our great nation. If a work is to be done at all it should be done well; and those who are charged with the responsibility of this work should not have their hands tied by such paltry considerations as the inability to travel from Washington to St. Paul.

Dr. RYDER. In the passing of these schools over to Government there is always the practical objection that many of them have been built with money pledged to carry on religious work. We have no right to surrender it. Then, again, I remember Dr. Hailmann suggesting that ultimately the schools should all be made over to State control. How will the Government pass them over?

Dr. HAILMANN. In the States where it is possible, as in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, it would probably be well for the Government to pass the care of the Indians over to the State, and have the education of the Indians cared for by the States. But while this is desirable, and while I should exert myself to the utmost to bring this more and more fully to the front, I may say that it is still so far from us that we can postpone the consideration of the method of transfer. Yet such transfer is desirable.

I hold that the most desirable thing would be for the Indian Rights Association, or other societies, to establish in the various States branches or committees who should exert themselves to convince the State authorities that the control of the Indians within the borders of their States is one of the responsibilities of the State, and to urge upon the legislatures of those States the necessity of demanding of the Government that all persons within their borders should be transferred to their control. Yet, while it seems to me just and equitable that State control of Indians should become established, I do not think this should be forced upon the States. Each State should first be brought to see that it is neglecting its duty in not caring for the Indians. It should be aroused to a realization of this, and stimulated to demand of the General Government full restitution of the right to manage its own affairs with reference to Indians as well as with reference to all other inhabitants of the State.

Capt. Wм. H. CLAPP. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I fear that my ideas may clash with the ideas of others who have spoken.

President GATES. There is nothing we welcome more than a variety of ideas. We like to hear both sides.

Captain CLAPP. I recognize the efforts of the Christian people of the country to elevate and Christianize the Indian races, and only fear that in some respects they have taken hold of the subject by the wrong end. It seems to me that while the old adage "Cleanliness is next to godliness" is true, I may be permitted to suggest it is next before it. It goes first. Right and proper living, with some observance of the decencies of life, must precede the knowledge of doctrinal points. Something has been said about the impiety of the pious; that has led me to think of the cruelty of those whose hearts are full of pity and kindness to humanity. That cruelty lies in returning children to the reservation after they have been educated away from it. I know and acknowledge the great work that my friend Captain Pratt, whom I have known for twenty years, is doing. He has gathered together probably thousands of children, and taken them more quickly into civilization than has been done in any

other school. But just there comes in the cruelty of this tender-hearted plan. It is true that the children can be better educated when taken away from the tribal reservation; but the home-coming is the hard part.

A bright young girl comes back, with her pitiful trunk full of clothing, perhaps with a jaunty hat and a smart dress on, and she finds the old shack on the reservation in the same bad condition that it was. There is nothing that she can do; in a little while her clothes become dilapidated, and she goes down and back and is soon a squaw among squaws. With all their enthusiasm and all their desire to do something, the return is discouraging to the boy or girl. Suppose the daughter of a Kansas farmer, living on the prairie, raised in the discomforts peculiar to a rough, wild life, should be taken to New York and taught all the elegancies of civilization, in a home where she had all the comforts which belong to the highest civilization, and should be kept there until she had become a young woman of 18, and then returned to the Kansas farm where she would have to go for the cows, to wait upon the farm hands, and to go through the daily drudgery of life there? What would the life in New York be to her but a bitter memory? How would she in any way be benefited by having that experience, or by being taught to enjoy things that she can never enjoy afterward? It seems to me these students, educated in the East, might be absorbed into our population; for we absorb everything, we are omnivorous. I think Captain Pratt is the originator of that idea.

My objection to nonreservation schools was, first, that so few students came back; and secondly, that others did come back. That is the way I feel about it. I think sometimes we overdo the mere book part of our education for these people. They should get the more practical things of life; they should know how to make their homes brighter and to surround them with more comforts. A great deal is said about industrial training, but what does it amount to? Too often it means that the Indian boy is taught to work a machine. In old times a boy learned his trade from the bottom up; now the machine does the largest part. If a boy has learned harness making, it does not mean that he can take a side of leather and make a harness of it; or if he has learned shoemaking, he has not learned to take the leather and cut and make a whole shoe. Then, even if they have learned trades, they come off empty handed. There is nothing to do, and there is nothing to do it with; and even if they could make articles, there is no one to buy them.

I believe that there are many objections to the reservation plan; it must be looked on as a temporary scheme. My idea is that these Indians should be gradually thrown more and more on their own resources. When you have taught these people to make their homes more comfortable, and to know more than they do now about sanitary measures, when we can take them away from some of their old habits, then will come the time when they can profitably hear of Christianity and all the various things connected with that. I have been intimately associated with Indians for twenty years, and I know them very well. I have been at the agency where I am now over a year and a half, and my ideas have only been confirmed by closer association with

them.

There is one other thing that I may refer to. It seems to me that the fathers of the church, in long-ago days when Christianity first took possession of the earth, were extremely wise in one thing they did. They took the old heathen festivals and gala occasions and gave them a new meaning—not destroying the enjoyment of the people, but putting a new meaning into their anniversaries, so that many festivals that are apparently Christian are really of heathen origin. In the same way, it seems to me that it is impossible to stop all kinds of dances among the Indians; it seems to me it is feasible to change the current and direction of these things. There is no one thing to which the Indian is more wedded than the desire to be continually dancing. I appeal to Captain Pratt if that is not so.

Captain PRATT. It is a part of their religion.

Captain CLAPP. We have a regulation issued by the Indian Office which prevents the most innocent form of dancing. I think it would be wise to consider whether such innocent recreation, properly countenanced and encouraged, might not be an excellent substitute for the old dancing. I do not suppose there is one here who will agree with me on that subject; but I want to say also that there is no one in this room who desires the welfare of the Indian more strongly than I, or who more wishes to benefit and help them on the way to civilization and Christianity.

The following resolution, offered by Dr. Lyman Abbott, was unanimously adopted: "Resolved, That the chairman of this conference, with four others to be appointed by him, be constituted a committee to wait upon the President, Secretary of the Interior, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the Indian Committee of the House, or either of them, in their discretion, and present to them the views of this conference, and especially to confer with them respecting plans for realizing the ideal presented by the Secretary of the Interior in his report-the development of a competent, permanent, nonpartisan Indian service."

President GATES. We can not let our friend leave without expressing our con

viction that there is but one serious trouble with our Army just now, and that is that it is breeding a race of orators. I want also to tell him that we start with cleanliness as next to godliness, and if our missionaries are failing to inculcate cleanliness, I hope they will see to it. But I think, if they were going to get a man onto a higher plane of living, if they were going to make that man honest, they would begin by getting the spirit of God into his heart.

Two suggestions have been made to us. I agree as to the need of law and education in the Indian Territory; but when it is suggested to us that we must take these Indians and keep them apart from the white man until they are fit to take up land, I am reminded of the question, "How are you going to teach your children to swim without any water?" They must begin with land in severalty; they must become accustomed to managing land by managing it.

Captain PRATT. I think if Captain Clapp and I were to talk things over we should find that we are not so very far apart.

The problem to me has been a problem of adjustment, not to longer continue the increasing of the complicated plan of trying to adjust our civilization to the Indians, but to begin at once and get them to adjust themselves to our civilization. I look upon the United States as a country to be entirely covered by our civilization with all uncivilized spots and people eliminated. The problem is to adjust every man in the United States to the civilization that we feel should be universal here. People of all sorts, civilized and uncivilized, have come across the ocean to our shores. They generally reach us with barely money enough to bring them, and are thus compelled to stay. Many of them, if they had money, would soon go back because of radical difference in conditions, but not having the means they are compelled to stay until used to it; and then it turns out that it is no hardship, for they agreeably wake up to a great deal more importance and prosperity than they ever would have had at home.

I have felt for a long time that the Indian was simply one of those people. By some means he should be brought into our civilization, held there, and made to become a part of it; and until he does get permanently into our civilization and becomes a very part of it he is a problem on our hands. All of our past tribal building illustrates this. We have the best product of our attempt at tribal building in the cases of the Cherokees and other of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, and Major Kidd has here told us the sad results of that venture. If we can adjust the Indians to our civilization as quickly as we do all others, and my experience is that we can, so much the better for them and the Government. If annually hundreds of thousands of other alien people can be made to adjust themselves to our civilization, why not follow the same lines and in the course of a very few years get our 250,000 Indians adjusted to it?

My friend, Captain Clapp, and I have had many similar experiences, but I have had some that he has not had, and I know from my experience that an American Indian can comfortably adjust himself to our American civilization in short order, if the full influences of that civilization are brought to bear upon him.

Twenty years ago I took some of the hardest Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe murderous savages to Florida, and in three years they learned to work and to use the English language and so adjusted themselves to the condition of things there that they desired and requested to be allowed to stay. I want to emphasize that they appealed to the authorities to be allowed to stay in Florida. They said, "If you will send us our women and children, we will stay here and take care of ourselves." Yet many of these were old men, and among the worst Indians we had three years before. Three years, only think of it! In that time they had accepted the dress of the whites, had become industrious in doing the things which the other people around them did, and did them well, and they had learned that it was better for them to stay there than to go back to the prison reservation and idleness. But they were denied the privilege and had to return to their reservations. To me that was a great lesson.

The Indian children, of course, adjust themselves to civilization more quickly than grown people, but grown Indians can and will fully yield to the forces that environ them. I believe that every dollar of Government money spent in building up the reservations, and thus holding the Indians together as tribes, is a dollar misspent. I believe the duty of the Government to itself and its wards requires that every dollar it spends for this people should be to pull them individually away from the tribal condition and into the United States, and not in trying to make things a little better on the reservation, which all our experience shows only compacts, builds up, and strengthens the tribe. Government money should only be spent in such a way as to make the Indians individual and citizen. I do not see why an Indian can not own land and be in Washington or elsewhere just as well as a member of Congress. If he is to have property rights, why should not an Indian be allowed to lease his land when he has not the adaptability to use it? Why compel all Indians to farm when some are not adapted to farming, but are well adapted to succeed in