THE
C F ÏM À W A
AM ERICAN
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with agency as well as schools under him. With these gentlemen the
Commissioner designated the following of the administrative force to
assist: H. B. Peairs, General Supervisor in charge of Indian schools,
and W. W. Coon, Assistant General Supervisor of Indian schools.
T his committee was convened in Washington City, under orders,
October 4, 1915, and remained in session between five and six weeks
completing a tentative course of study aiming to give to young Indians
the best vocational training afforded by the facilities and material at
hand. The work of the committee attracted attention and visitations
from some well-known educators, some of whom (among them Dr.
Snedden of Massachusetts) sent greetings and suggestions.
As the Indian schools of the country must train Indian youths of
both sexes to assume tl e duties, obligations and responsibilities of self-
support and citizenship, the tentative course endeavors to emphasize
vocational training. The course aims and hopes to give to Indian
young people a practical education and a productive training, in fact it
is the aim to teach practical and useful things while at the same time
imparting the fundamentals of a well-grounded education covering the
scope of the common schools of the various states (and articulating
therewith during its pre-vocational stages). The course contemplates
definite time assignments for class-room instruction; definite time
for shop or practical instruction; and definite time for illustrative or
productive work along the lines of instruction. We desire to teach,
with other things, habits of work and better habits of better work—
especially so because it is here that character is largely determined and
developed, through the relation of the individual to his dutv and his
daily task.
The school life under the proposed course of study is to be divided
into three divisions:
1. The beginning stage.
2. The finding stage.
3. The finishing stage.
The schools are grouped correspondingly into (1) the primary group,
(2) the pre-vocational group and (3) the vocational group. It is
planned that the first stage and group shall consist of the first three
grades; the second of the next three grades: and the fourth of the next
four grades—ten in all. During the first and second periods the train
ing in industrial and domestic activities centers about the home and farm
and the conditions essential to their proper maintenance and improve
ment. The pre-vocational period will provide, in addition to class-room
instruction, practical courses in farming, gardening, dairying, farm
carpentry, farm blacksmithing, farm engineering, farm masonry, farm
painting and also shoe and harness repairing. The girls will receive