Weekly Chemawa American., October 25, 1907, Image 1

iUeekly gbetnawa Jflmericati
;.'0L. 10. OCTOBER 25 1907. NO. 17
The Qualifications of
a TeacHer of Indians
.How shall we overcome the difficulties
in the way of our understanding the In
dian? First, we mustgo to him as
brothers, he in thought and act his equals,
neither assuming nor manifesting any
superiority whatever. We must not let
it appear for a moment that we would
instruct, but that we would be helpful
friends to him, that we come from liking
and would be one with him. This I
found to be absolutely essential, whether
you would study the Indian scientifical
ly or from humanitarian motives. Teach
ers who go among the Indians donot gen
erally go in that spirit. They go too
much imbued with their mission as teach
ers; for this idea of teaching too often
gives rise to a feeling oi superiority, and
when that is so their work is at an end
practically before it has a beginning. It
seems to me of primary importance that
in endeavoring to teach or help the In
dian we should at first lose sight at the
teaching part and stave to overcome his
averseness to being taught. We should
select and send forth among the Indians
only teachers of, high ability and talent;
teachers of true and strong feeling for
humanity, and possessed of large under
standing of human nature; teachers who
would go to these people sympathetically
much as parents do to their little child
ren, and full of the tact born of such
sympathy. Only teachers of this kind
can learn to fully comprehend the in
most nature of the Indian; can by study
of his past learn how he came to be what
he is, and thus learn how to make. him
other than what he is, how to win him to
wish for. education in the practical
affairs of life, and then to wish for edu
cation in the higher planes of life.
Southern Worhman
Chief Porter Dead.
General Pleasant Portor, whom Presi
dent Roosevelt once characterized as the
greatest Indian living, and , famous , as
one of the foremost men in the history
of the Five Civilized Tribes, died at the
Cobb hotel in Vinita, I. T., on Tuesday
morning Sept. 3. He was stricken by
paralysis on the train and taken off at
Vinita.
General Porter has for the past eight
years been chief of the Creek Nation,
and was a unique and forceful character.
He was president of the Indian Terri
tory Central Railroad, being the only
Indian holding the head-ship of a rail
way. He was sixty-seven years old, and
his death resulted from a stroke of par
alysis. He leaves an estate said to be worth
$100,000, and is survived by one son
and two daughters. He was an honored
member of both the Masons and the
Elks. The Arrow.