Weekly Chemawa American., May 01, 1903, Page 2, Image 2

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THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN
tional association from a particular branch
(the department of Iudiau education) for
Indian workers. Year after year, at each
annual convention, the worker in and out
of the service, all over the country, meet
on a common platform for the discussion
of wayg and means for the betterment of
their work. She also instituted and en
couraged the holding of local institutions
for local needs (not always met by national
institutes) in each Indian district. It
was over such an institute, the Pacific
Coast institute of 1902, that I had the honor
to preside for the last week of August, 1902,
at Newport, Oregon.
''But above everything else, Miss Reel
is intensely practical down to the very
ends of her energetic finger tips, and some
how or other she infuses that practical way
of looking at things into her subordinate
fellow-workers and she inoculates them
surely with her irresistible enthusiasm. 8he
has planned, mapped out and constructed
courses of study in every branch of work
possible in Indian schools down to basket
weaving, rug making and chair canning.
This course of study is the very basis and
foundation now of Indian education. It is
now considered feasible and indeed obliga
tory to teach sewing just as carefully and
progressively, step by step, yes, even stitch
by stitch, as it is to teach geography or to
inculcate the accomplishment of playing
''Maiden's Prayer" even down tc crossing
the hands in playing. Sewing, cooking,
baking, housekeeping, laundry work, all of
the lowly but highly and altogether neces
sary domestic accomplishments are now
taught, in classroom and workshop, just as
the purely scholastic branches are taught.
And furthermore, the correlation between
the various phases of the work in class room
and workshop are kept constantly and com
pulsorily before both pupil and instruc or.
All over the country now the Indian
schools are working along one common
line with the same course of study mapped
out but soinfinitely elaborated as to provide
ample room for local development along
lines best adapted for local development.
The elaboration of this remarkable course
of study, which has received the approval
and commendation of educational leaders
all over the country, has been the patient,
plodding, careful, laborious work of years.
That it has not been without a reasonable
measure of fruition already is clearly to be
seen. At the Pacific Coast institute of lat
fcummer, among other distinguished guests,
we had as our guest the Hon. P L. Camp
bell, the president of the state university
of Oregon. In the course of an address tie
made the following statement:
" 'I wish to make a confession of thi
surprise, not to say astonishment, which I
experienced when I had the opportunity
last fall of visiting the Indian schools it
Yainax and Klamath. The combination
of industrial work with academic training,
a dream of mine for many years, here I
found more fully and satisfactorily carried
out than in any school I had ever visited.
The work of the boys in the shops and of
the girls in the housekeeping and dress
making rooms was real work, with clearly
valuable, immediate result. 1 am con
fident that our public schools will event
ually have to learn the important Won
of the combination of industrial training
with schoolroom instruction from th
Indian school service.
''Truly might our worthy superintend
ent, Miss Reel, exclaim with the Latin poet
of old :
"I have builded a monument more en
during than brass "
Carlisle Indian School.
During the Summer vacation laftyearC;'
students of the Carlisle Indian School ff
employed on farms. The school bag m
existed 25 years, and of its graduates sii:f
1889, 296 are now living. Most of theses
now farming; there is one in the armv, a:
other practicing law, and several are clerk
in banks and stores. Last year the enti-f
student body, numbering 1000, earuri
$31 619, and in the savings bank conduct
by the school the Indian boys have&lV"
and the girls $14,000, which is drawing .
per cent interest. Only three of the grad
ates have turned out a discredit toCaili?