The Chemawa American, May 01, 1915, Page 5, Image 5

THE
CHEM AW A
AM ERICAN
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this development, have reached that stage in their growth where the
future development demands still greater improvement. Hence Indian
education must become a subject of study and investigation, not only
by a few interested men and women, but also by our foremost educators
and publicists and by the vast majority of our teaching force. Our
teaching force must be made to feel the greatness of their subject; lead
to realize greater confidence in their ability to accomplish results, and
immensely inspired in the greatness of the undertaking.
T H E T E A C H IN G FO R C E
United States Commissioner of Education P. P. Claxton, has well
summarized the importance of the teacher in the following language, but
his language is none too strong for teachers—both academic and voca­
tional—in the Indian service:
"The most important factor in any school is the teacher. With able
men and women as teachers, well educated, well trained, and possessed
of professional knowledge and skill and of a right understanding of the
aims and purposes of the work of the school, almost any school may
succeed regardless of all other conditions. With incapabie men and
women of the weak and negative type as teachers, uneducated, untrain­
ed, with no professional knowledge, unskilled and having no adequate
conception of the life the pupils are to live and the work they are to do, or
of how the school should help toward either, no school, however housed,
or equipped with whatever apparatus, however organized, or whatever
its course of study on paper may lie, can hope to do more than a small
fraction of the good it should do. It may even do more harm than good.
True of all schools, this is especially true of schools in theopen country,
villages, and smalls towns.’’ This, as I see it, is the greatest question
now before the Indian School.
Hence in order to develop the system, a letter and more efficient service
is required—employees having higher qualifications and a greater will
ingness to develop the service. Many of the present force are not suf­
ficiently interested to develop new policies. The Indian service un­
questionably has many excellent employees; men and women of splen­
did dispositions, high motives and judgments, and they are doing a
splendid w ork-in fact, about all that is really being done. Some of
these people need and deserve much more remunerative places higher up
in the work—and will probably be promoted whenever their services
are found out, but the direct and indirect influence of the inefficient often
neutralize the good work of the better employees and oppose real pro­
gress. But unquestionably, in some instances, the present force should
be greatly stimulated or else a more effective teaching force secured.
Our teachers, especially in the vocational subjects, are very often defi-