number in total enrollment for the year, there must be in many cases sets of children who come to school in the fall and early spring and other sets who come in the summer time or in the winter. As is the case with the rural schools in the States, the number enrolled is the most important item of statistics, for it shows how many different individuals in the population are reached by school influence; nor is it possible to say that some of the older children who attend school in the severe weather of some of the winter months do not learn more in a few days than the young children during a much longer period of school attendance in the summer.

For advancement in higher studies such as are pursued in the grammar school grades of the elementary schools in the States or in our high schools, what is learned by a long session is out of all proportion to a short session. But in the case of the rudiments of reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography the ratio is reversed, and in one week's time the pupil learns more than half as much as he would learn in two weeks' time. Many of the natives are extremely bright, judged by the readiness of their memory for forms and sounds. They pick up words quite fast and learn the alphabetic symbols readily. They do not make so much progress in syntax or in the construction of the white man's sentence. They learn to count readily and to add small numbers, but they do not seize very well the operations of subtraction and multiplication. Multiplication is an abbreviated method of addition based upon a knowledge of units of different orders indicated by the position of the digit, namely, units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc., each place to the left or right being ten times more or ten times less than its neighbor in value. A bare statement of the operation of multiplication shows that it rests upon the use of reflection as much as memory. From this it may be readily understood why the multiplication of written arithmetic is quite difficult for the natives of any tribal civilization. But if subtraction and multiplication are difficult, division has a higher order of difficulty. For it proceeds by analysis, taking to pieces large numbers which are indicated by digits of different orders a process which requires one more stage of reflection than multiplication or subtraction of written numbers. It requires a reduction of the remainders left to the next lower order of digits and the addition of the same to the digits belonging to that place or order. It is of interest to notice, on page 2260, the report of Joseph Weinlick at the school at the Moravian mission near Bethel. same years of little result in the attempt to teach his pupils arithmetic he was able to make some progress in teaching addition, subtraction, and multiplication to these children, "but division is yet a mystery to them."

ED 1904 M- -IV

After

On page 2261 in the report of Mrs. Otha Thomas, the teacher at Kotzebue, a hint is given as to the method or device by which a little education at school becomes fruitful to an entire family or to many families through the teaching of bright pupils who instruct younger and older members of the family at home. "One of these particularly bright lads, who lived at a point about 225 miles distant from Kotzebue, took a number of old books from the school and taught his smaller friends their letters.

The reindeer history is epitomized on the three pages, 2266-2268. Nine comparative tables are given, showing the distribution of the deer at the 15 stations and the increase or progress from 1893 to 1905.

Table 1 shows the increase of fawns surviving, those of 1893 being 79, and each successive year showing an increase until the fawns of 1905 numbered almost 3,000.

Table 2 shows the annual importations of deer from Siberia, there being 9 annual importations in the fourteen years from 1892 to 1905, making in the aggregate 1,280 imported deer. From these 1,280 the entire 10,241 deer, reported in the herds on July 1, 1905, were descended.

Table 3 shows the annual mortality of the herd for fourteen years, and includes the numbers that died by disease, by old age, by accident, or males that were slaughtered for food, either by the natives or the missions, or sold to miners or other white immigrants for food. The slaughter or transfer of female deer is strictly prohibited in all the herds in Alaska.

Table 4 shows the sex of the old deer living on July 1, 1905, and the sex of the fawns born in the spring of 1905. There are 7 instances out of the 30 where the sex is not given-3 in the case of adults and 4 in the case of fawns. The report as to sex of fawns is not so important, because the average is 103 males to 100 females. The sex of the adults at Nulato by later returns is known to have been 47 males and 147 females, and that at Bettles 75 males to 225 females. This makes the stations reporting 14 out of the 15, giving 2,584 adult males and 4,504 females, a ratio of 36 per cent of males to 63 per cent of females, the same being a ratio of 4 to 7, or 100 males to 175 females. The previous year, July 1, 1904, the ratio was 38 per cent adult males to 62 per cent adult females, showing a slight increase in the proportion of females in the herds in 1905. The ratio of fawns born in 1904 was 105 males to 100 females, a slightly larger proportion than for 1905, possibly due to a greater severity of the season of 1904. This table, No. 4, settles for all practical purposes the question of the truth of rumors of loose management of the herds in Alaska with regard to the sale or slaughter of female deer in Alaska. A proportion of 4 males to 7 females ought to be considered satisfactory.

Table 5, page 2267, shows the various loans of deer to missions for the training of apprentices and to the 5 Laplanders for their annual services as teachers. There are 10 stations at missions to which loans have been made. The loan to Wales of 1894 was counted as a gift since 1899, when the deer taken by the Government for the relief of the whalers at Barrow were returned to their respective stations. Three other mission stations have returned the deer borrowed-Golofnin Bay and Tanana, 50 each, and Teller station, 100. Four stations, Nulato, Bethel, Carmel, and Kotzebue, with an aggregate of 371 deer loaned, make returns in the year 1906. Besides these the Lapp herders Sara, Spein, Nilima, Bahr will return their loans of 100 each in the summer of 1906, making with the 371 returned from the missions an aggregate of 771 deer from loans returned in 1906 to the Government. In this table, No. 5, there should be entered another station, Cape Nome, where in 1894 a herd of 100 was loaned to a native Eskimo, Antisarlook. After his death, which occurred in 1900, his herd passed by inheritance to his wife, Mary Antisarlook, who has placed her deer in the charge of the Government, paying to the Government 25 deer per annum for their keeping, by an arrangement effected by the Bureau for the purpose of saving from destruction the remnant of a fine herd left by Antisarlook at his death.

In Table 6 the number of apprentices at each station, together with their several holdings in reindeer earned by their apprenticeships of five years each, are given. Seventy-eight apprentices owned 3,817 deer.

In Table 8 the relative holdings of the Government, the mission stations, the Lapp herders who form a teaching force, and the apprentices who are natives, are given. The Government holding is 3,073, the stations hold 2,127, the Lapp herders 1,189, and the apprentices 3,817. Reduced to percentages the Government owns, either under direct control or under loan to others, 30 per cent of all the deer; the mission stations own 21 per cent, the Lapp herders 11 per cent, the apprentices 38 per cent. The missions and Lapp herders form the teaching force, and the greater part of the mission herds goes to rewarding successful apprentices. The missions and Lapps own 32 per cent of the deer, while the apprentices own 38 per cent. Thus outside of the Government ownership more than half of the deer are in the hands of the apprentices already and their quota increases from year to year.

It is in place here to mention the policy of management that has prevailed to date with the reindeer as an educational apparatus in Alaska.

There are three classes of reindeer stations in Alaska-first, mission stations; secondly, relief stations, and, thirdly, stations in which the reindeer and the schools are entirely under the Government.

1. The first and by far the largest number are included in the class of mission stations that have received loans of small herds of deer for three years or five years, as shown in Table 5 (p. 2267), said stations entering into agreement to furnish apprentices for instruction in the care of herds, and to reward the successful apprentices by the gift of a certain number of reindeer at the close of the apprenticeship of five years, and further agreeing to return the number of deer in good condition equal to the number loaned, and a like proportion of male and female deer, and with other agreements as to the prevention of the slaughter of female deer, etc.

Below I give a brief history of each of the mission stations, showing the beginnings and the present status as to number of deer and as to distribution (a) to apprentices, (b) to station, and (c) to Government, and the cost to the Government for supplies as well as the cost to the Government for superintending the herds. Next I bring together in three tables the most important of these items.

The first table below, total number of deer at the mission stations in 1905, shows how all the stations are observing the regulation which forbids the slaughter of female deer and permits to some extent the slaughter of male deer. It shows that the male to female deer are in the proportion of 2,178 to 3,711, and that the total number of deer at the mission stations is 8,585 (including loans from Government and the herds of Lapp herders), out of the total of 10,241 for all the herds reported on July 1 of the present fiscal year, 1905-6.

The second table shows the cost to the Government of the reindeer herds at the mission stations, showing an expense of only $358.38 for supplies (which was for services in removing herd), and for cash expenditure for superintending herd only $1,060.60, giving a total of less than $1,500 for the entire expense to the Government, paid from the appropriation of Congress for the support of the reindeer experiment, the same being an average of 16 cents per year for each reindeer.

The third table shows the distribution of reindeer at the mission stations in 1905-first, the number in charge of the mission stations; secondly, the number of Lapland herders who have received the loan of reindeer as wages for five years of instruction in herding; thirdly, showing the number of apprentices (including also apprentices who have become herders on their own account) and the number of deer belonging to said apprentices, and, lastly, the number of reindeer in the mission herds directly under control of the Government or due to the Government upon the expiration of the loans now pending. It will be seen that the number of deer belonging to the 65 apprentices is 3,236; the number belonging to the stations is somewhat less, namely, 2,698; the number belonging to the Lapland herders is 1,688, and the number owned by the Government at these mission

stations is 1,070 loaned and due some time in the future, and 928 under present direct control of the Government (held subject to its order), some of them kept in the mission herds awaiting transfer to new stations, making a total belonging to the Government in these mission herds of 1,998. This third table answers the question whether the mission stations or the apprentices have accumulated the largest number of deer.

The history of the mission stations shows that the missions in providing support for apprentices assume the chief expense in the reindeer instruction. Estimating the expense per apprentice at $500 per year, an expense which has to be assumed in some stations under the Government and which is liable to be incurred at any time if the superintendent of the herd is not a careful manager, preventing the sharing of rations on the part of the apprentice with his family, the 65 apprentices at the missions would cost an annual sum of $32,500. Estimating the expense at missions at onethird of this sum, by reason of the thrift which directs the Eskimo families to derive most of their support from what is called native food (whale, walrus, seals, wild birds, and game), the minimum amount contributed to the support of reindeer instruction by the mission stations is something over $10,000 per annum, or two-thirds as much as the Government appropriation of $15,000.

2. The second class of reindeer stations are relief stations. Of these there are two, Gambell and Barrow. Gambell Station, on St. Lawrence Island, is kept there because of the importance of the island, due to its position near Bering Strait and to the danger of shipwreck to the whaling vessels bound for the Arctic seas. For the original loan of 70 reindeer at St. Lawrence Island the present herd showed in 1904 a total of 212 deer, of which the Government owned 154 and 4 apprentices owned 58. The cost to the Government for supplies is very large, and also for the superintendence of the herd.

Point Barrow is the northernmost land of the continent of America and a strategic point for the whaling fleets of the United States. I have explained below the circumstances of the 125 deer left at the station, 100 of which were for the Presbyterian Mission. As I have stated, the Presbyterian board declined to take the loan, urging financial reasons for their inability to support the Eskimo apprentices, but directing their missionaries to do all in their power to make the reindeer herd a success. The 100 reindeer of 1898 have increased to 629 deer, nearly all in the hands of the 10 apprentices.