The following table gives a summary of schools and attendance extending through a period of a quarter of a century:

Number of Indian schools and average attendance from 1877 to 1900.1

1 Some of the figures in this table as printed prior to 1896 were taken from reports of the Superintendent of Indian Schools. As revised, they are all taken from the reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Prior to 1882 the figures include the New York schools.

2 Indian children attending public schools are included in the average attendance, but the schools are not included in the number of schools.

In our last report we expressed the opinion of our board that "separate boarding-school facilities for Indian children had very nearly reached the proper limit," except among the Navaho. Our observation of the work for another year confirms us in this opinion. Our conviction is clear that as rapidly as possible the Indian children should be put into schools with white children and should thus be fitted for that full American citizenship which lies directly before them all, under the operation of the general allotment law. We deprecate the effort, so manifestly prompted in many cases only by selfish local interest on the part of white people, to secure additional Indian schools where they are not needed. We believe that nothing more should be done to perpetuate that separation between Indians and whites which it is now the aim of the Government as rapidly as possible to do away with. We do not think that industrial training should displace that instruction in the rudiments of knowledge which is required for intelligent citizenship; but we commend all efforts made through school life to emphasize for the Indians the value of self-supporting labor and of practical acquaintance with such industrial pursuits as an Indian may hope to follow, not necessarily upon his own reservation, but among the whites and wherever he may live.

We beg to renew under this head the recommendations made in our last annual report.

Steps should at once be taken to establish a system of local semi

industrial schools for the Navaho Indians. This is by far the largest body of Indians who are still left without anything approaching adequate provisions for the schooling of their children. Their nomadic life as herders of sheep and cattle renders difficult the problem of introducing among them right standards as to marriage, family life, and the education of their children. But this should be undertaken by the Government at once.

We suggest the feasibility of a system of local schools, largely industrial, where manufactures, with wool spinning as their basis, should be taught. Possibly Fort Defiance might become a center for the more advanced school work, and a system of industrial and elementary schools might be built up as feeders to this school. The plan, if undertaken, should be under the direction of some competent superintendent who knows these Indians, their needs, and their peculiarities. He should be a man of exceptional qualifications and strong character, who by persistent and kindly effort in work of this kind could win the confidence and support of the Navaho. Such a man could bring the children of this tribe under the influence of education. It will take several years to develop these schools, and the man for the work should be given a good salary (larger than the number of pupils at first might seem to warrant), and should be insured permanent tenure and effective support by the Department for several years before large results could be seen.

We trust that some plan for educating the Navaho may be entered upon this year. For this tribe of 20,000 people the Government provides schooling for an average attendance of only about 200 children. Much more should be attempted at once.

THE DAWES COMMISSION.

The problems which were involved in the work assigned to this Commission have proved to be more complicated and difficult of solution than was at first supposed. Nevertheless, the work already accomplished seems to us to vindicate the wisdom of the policy of breaking up the tribal government in the Indian Territory; securing a share for all Indians in that land which was reserved for the benefit of all, but had passed into the hands of a few rich members of the tribe; providing for a just administration of law throughout Indian Territory; recognizing the needs and the rights of more than a quarter of a million of whites who were dwelling upon the land of the Five Nations without school privileges and without defined rights, and, in general, of putting an end to that solecism in our American system, the maintenance upon the soil of the United States of petty nationalities and governments not subject to the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

IRRIGATION AND WATER SUPPLY-THE PIMAS.

In our last annual report we emphasized as strongly as possible the terrible need of the Pima and Papago Indians of Arizona, who are famine-struck by reason of the diversion from the Gila River of that water supply to which these Indians, as the first irrigators to use it, were legally entitled. They had made use of this water supply for irrigation purposes for several generations. White settlers on the

river above them have recently diverted the water which legally belongs to these Indians, and which later settlers would never have been allowed to take away from earlier irrigators without protest and legal protection if these earlier irrigators had been whites and not Indians. We regret that the proposed appropriation to begin work upon the San Carlos Dam was not made at the last session of Congress. We are gratified at the earnest recommendation for the speedy construction of this dam which is made by the Secretary of the Interior in his last annual report, and we trust that the needs of these industrious and peaceful Indians, always friendly to the United States and now suffering from the total destruction of their crops for several successive years by the diversion of this water to which they are entitled, will not be overlooked in the plans for irrigation which are now before Congress.

IRRIGATION OF RESERVATIONS NEEDS SCIENTIFIC DIRECTION.

We renew our suggestions as to the danger from irrigating systems hastily constructed and not well planned which have in many cases resulted in destroying what were at first the best parts of the agricultural land thus irrigated.

After Indians have been settled in severalty upon bottom lands irrigated by hastily constructed canals, when the remainder of the reservation has been thrown open and the better judgment of men who are scientifically trained in the principles of irrigation has led to the taking out of a larger canal, heading above that which first supplied the Indians, and covering the benches or terraces where the best lands lie, the seepage water from these higher lands works down toward the river bottom, and "ultimately the seepage subirrigates and finally destroys the lower farms by making them marshy or bringing up the alkali."

In the course of a few years it is seen that the Indians not only have retained the poorest land of their former reservation, but are in a position to be deprived of their entire water supply. Proper scientific supervision of the work of irrigation on our Indian reservations would have planned the high-level canal in the first place and thus would have secured the best land to the Indians. Upon this subject we ask attention to the Appendix (p. 36) of our last annual report, for the year 1900.

TOO MUCH LEASING OF INDIAN LANDS.

At a meeting of this board on January 23, 1902, in view of repeated complaints and objections to the system of Indian leasing recently pursued, and profoundly impressed as a board by the serious and threatening evils of this system as now loosely managed, the board adopted the following resolutions:

Resolved, That it is the opinion of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners that in any leases of Indian grazing lands all the leased land should be fenced off from the Indian lands at the expense of the lessees; and the fences so to be built at the expense of the lessees should be so built as to secure to the Indians, fenced in for their own use, the hay lands (meadows) now used or desired by the Indians for curing hay, and the sheltered and bottom lands now used or desired by the Indians for their own use in cattle raising.

Further, That a Government official should be required to inspect and see that this is done before the cattle of the lessees are turned upon the land.

And it is further their opinion that the leases should not exceed three years, in order that the Indians may as early as possible graze their own lands.

And further, That with all the tribes whose reservation is so situated as to make cattle raising their main dependence, all the proceeds of such leases should be used to purchase improved cattle to be issued to these Indians for breeding purposes.

It was further—

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the Secretary of the Interior and to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the respectful request that they be carefully considered before action is taken upon the leases now pending in North and South Dakota.

It was also

Resolved, That we view with serious apprehension the increasing tendency to dispose by lease of large tracts of Indian lands for a term of years. If the area of an Indian reservation is to be reduced by tracts as large as some of the States of the Union, we believe that it would be far better to provide for such reductions by special or general legislation than to make them by the present method of unregulated and varying official action.

For years this board, in its annual reports, has urged considerations against the leasing of Indian land. It is with great regret that the board sees the leasing of vast tracts, in some cases larger than entire Eastern States, made upon very short notice and without what seem to us proper safeguards for the welfare of the Indians. It seems very clear to us as a board that leasing of immense tracts (upon which Indians are now raising cattle) to white men for terms of five years or more is likely to break up among several of our Indian tribes the most promising attempts which have so far been made at self-support by cattle raising and grazing. The recent trouble with proposed leases at Standing Rock is a case in point.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF OUR LAST TWO REPORTS.

It is with great gratification that we notice, in reviewing the last two years, that of the nine especial points summed up in brief paragraphs at the close of our thirty-first annual report as seeming to us of the most importance for the welfare of the Indians, five seem to have been fully accomplished. Upon a sixth, "caution in leasing Indian lands," passages in the last report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs are quite as emphatic as we could hope to make them. On two of the other three points, "cattle breeding and grazing for Indians," and the "breaking up of tribal funds into separate holdings," we think that progress may be safely reported. And as to the remaining one, compulsory law for school attendance for Indian children," we renew our earnest recommendation that such a law be enacted. The appointment of an attorney for the Pueblo Indians, since made, covers the tenth of our recommendations.

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PURCHASE AND SHIPPING OF SUPPLIES.

The increase in promptness in purchasing and shipping supplies for the last two years has been noticeable. Members of the board were in attendance to assist at the opening of bids at Chicago, in April, 1901, and at New York in May, 1901; and one or more of the commissioners were in daily attendance, as a rule, to assist in inspecting samples and awarding contracts during the six or seven weeks required in this business. The report of the purchasing committee of our board is 22083-02- -2

herewith submitted as Appendix A. A report from the chairman of this board upon certain deliveries of clothing for the Indians at the New York warehouse, which were decidedly below samples and bids, is also submitted with this report as Appendix B.▾

FOUR INDIAN WAREHOUSES ARE NOT NEEDED.

We are of opinion that the maintenance of four separate warehouses at Omaha, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York for the purchase and shipping of Indian supplies involves entirely needless expense. We respectfully renew our suggestion made in preceding reports that the business of the opening of bids, the examination of samples, and the awarding of contracts could be done at Washington with great advantage to the service and a marked reduction in expenditures.

THE OPEN SORE OF THE SERVICE--UNFIT AGENTS APPOINTED OR HELD IN POSITION BY POLITICAL INFLUENCE.

We are compelled to express once more our conviction as a Board that the greatest practical need of the Indian Service in the matter of administration is the wise choice of suitable men as Indian agents, the quick redress of manifest abuses, the prompt removal of agents who are evidently unfit for their work, and permanent tenure for such agents as show themselves competent and effective in the position. Statistics which we have presented in earlier reports, calling attention to the fact that both Democratic and Republican Administrations, notwithstanding professions of civil-service reform, have as a rule made substantially a "clean sweep," changing within each four years' administration all but two or three of the sixty or more Indian agents in the service at the beginning of the Administration, prove that, notwithstanding professions of devotion to civil-service reform, wherever civil-service regulations have not been made to apply by law, partisan considerations have seemed to rule in the appointing and the removal of Indian agents.

We are entirely confident that if in the choice of agents regard were had to the character of the men appointed, their experience with Indians, and their fitness for the service, there would be no assignable reason for the frequent and injurious changes which hold back the civilization of the Indians and give license and strength to all the worst evils of reservation life. Again and again we have seen particular tribes or bands of Indians led forward rapidly and successfully toward civilization by wise and upright agents, and we have had the pain of seeing such agents displaced time after time for purely partisan reasons, and of seeing the same bands and tribes of Indians lapse into immoral practices and back toward savagery under inexperienced agents who were unfit for the work and who undid all that their better predecessors had accomplished. For the good of the Indians and for the sake of economy and effectiveness in doing the work of the Government, we strongly urge the application, to the appointment and the tenure of office of Indian agents, of those sound principles of civilservice reform to which both the political parties stand committed. Gladly recognizing progress and improvement in many other respects