who will send missionaries, or do anything else for you, if you will only do exactly as he says,-as witness the Chinese and all who cannot effectually resist, as the Afghans so nobly did twice within the last half century.

Beginning, less than fifty years ago, with the insulting pittance of twenty thousand pounds a year for national education,—and even this was stoutly resisted,-the increase of that sum up to the present four millions a year has been fought for inch by inch. There is today; except three or four government institutions, hardly a higher technical school in the kingdom. Scott Russell, in his high-souled work, Technical Education for the English People, launched his generous enthusiasm with the energy of despair against the stolid apathy of his countrymen (now fourteen years ago); urging (p. 436) that the Commons should "vote funds for cultivating the people of our own nation, which shall bear some fair proportion to the sums voted for killing the people of other nations;" and complaining (pp. 172 and 306) that while the annual interest on the cost of past wars is twenty-five million pounds, and the annual cost of preparation for future ones is another twenty-five millions, and of paupers and prisoners seven millions more,-one million for education is grudged; and piteously asking (p. 390) why class schools founded only on money distinctions should be followed up by different buildings, schools, or seats at college,-one for the son of the so-called great, and another for the poor scholar of capacity and promise; and lamenting (pp. 140-42) the languishing condition of the very few technical schools which were founded by persons of other than English antecedents, or by the rare few who were in advance of their countrymen; also (p. 25), that Germany has six technical universities, while England had none; and, once more (p. 306), that, so late as 1868, it could be said, that "the contrast between England and Switzerland. isthis that England spends more than five times as much on pauperism and crime as she does on education; and that Switzerland spends seven times as much on education as on pauperism and crime." We may add that, in Norway and Sweden, the almost universal land ownership, and the absence of the folly of caste, conspire powerfully with universal education, to make pauperism and crime comparatively unknown.

Still, in view of the well-known disposition of the English to "make haste slowly," and for fear of doing injustice, we may also add, that the growing enlightenment, under which the twenty thousand pounds of 1834 has grown to the probable five million pounds of to-day, for

1 Land of the Midnight Sun. Du Chaillu.

national education, may be trusted to work out the problem of En glish technical education, if not exactly by the Continental method. Indeed, returning for a moment to Scott Russell, he admits (p. 138) that every kind of knowledge is to be had in England somehow and somewhere; and that "the man who can help himself always gets help;" but still he complains that extreme notions on the subjects of perpetuated class distinctions and of personal freedom prevent a proper degree of comprehensive graded organization, so that opportunity shall be conveniently placed before everybody.

The thoughtful and generous progressives, McCarthy and Mackenzie, similarly deprecate selfish aristocratic conservatism, and the stupid pride which scorns everything which it calls "unEnglish," as if to be that were, of course, to be inferior, superfluous, or bad. Moreover, what of popular educational progress has been made in behalf of man as man, as my brother and God's child, has largely been secured by "un-English" men, Forster, the son of a Quaker philanthropist; Gladstone, who, as well as Scott Russell, is Scotch; Prince Albert, who was German, and others.

But, dropping this digression, which may, however, well help to perpetuate, in a wholesome degree, "the spirit of '76," we think we have now sufficiently supported our main points that the best polytechnic school should aim to provide but one comprehensive professional course; that it should free itself from preparatory and collegiate work, and only undertake professional work; that it is better to be independent of institutions of a different, though in no sense antagonistic type; that its graphical work, theoretical and practical, is one of its fundamental departments; and that this department affords abundant material, even when excluding its more elementary portions, for a full professorship.

1 History of our own imes.

2 The Nineteenth Century.

THE EDUCATION OF THE INDIAN.

BY CHARLES F. THWING.

That is a bright page in the usually black history of the relations of the white man to the red, which tells of the attempt of the early settlers of New England to establish an Indian college. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, who founded Harvard, made a systematic attempt to extend the benefits of a liberal education to the aborigines. Instruction in Latin, Greek, and English was provided. Several of them, it is probable, entered the college, but only one ever became a graduate. Some students, after making good progress, abandoned their studies for a more congenial life in the forest. Others, who persevered, fell victims to that disease to which the Indian, when introduced to civilization, seems to bepeculiarly subject, consumption. "Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, Indus," now stands alone on the pages of the Quinquennial to represent the native tribes.' That, also, is a bright page in the history of the Indian which, in the middle of the eighteenth century, describes the mission of Jonathan Edwards to the tribe dwelling at Stockbridge. Though the mission was not successful, the plans respecting it were wise. A house for a boarding-school was erected. Generous subscriptions. toward the support were made in England and in the colonies. In addition to the rudiments of learning, the boys were taught farming and mechanic arts, and the girls "all sorts of women's work." Mr. Hollis, a name most intimately associated with the early history of our oldest college, "ordered twenty-four Indian children to be educated on the same footing, wholly at his cost." 2

Despite, however, these instances, it is not till recent years that any comprehensive and systematic endeavor has been made to educate the Indian. The difficulties in the way of his education are the difficulties in the way of his civilization. These are many, diverse, and great. They arise, in general, from a state of savagery. I have heard a missionary to the Zulus speak of his delight when a native came to the station and asked for a shirt. The request showed that his mind was awake and progressing. But it indicates certainly a

Quincy's History of Harvard University, i. 191, 192. Mass. Hist. Coll., First Series i. 172.

2 Life of President Edwards, prefixed to his works, chapter v. sec. I.

much greater advance for "Bear Ghost" or "Talking Crow" to come to an American Indian agent and ask for a book. The Indian loves hunting, the school interferes with the chase. The Indian loves roving, the school demands confinement. The Indian loves idleness, the school requires work. The Indian loves exhibitions of physical force, the school emphasizes ideas. The Indian loves change, the school necessitates permanence. The Indian seeks immediate results, the aim of the school is distant. The school offers what the Indian in his native state neither desires nor has the ability to appre ciate in its full degree. But, besides these difficulties, inherent in the red man himself, other obstructions beset. It is not easy to secure suitable persons to establish and to teach schools for Indian youth. Life at an Indian agency, or among a tribe, isolated from society, dwelling on the prairie or in the forest, is anything but attractive. The compensation provided is frequently the merest pittance. The tenure of office, even if the teacher desires to continue to hold his position, is not permanent. His official superiors are not in many cases fitted to understand the worth or the importance of his work, and therefore either fail to coöperate, or place direct impediments in the way of its success.

Yet it is plain that the Indian, as now circumstanced in this land, desires to secure the education of his children. With one exception, the agents, in their reports for 1880 unite in the assertion that the establishment of schools is favored by the red man. The agent at Pine Ridge, Dakota, writes, "There is a strong desire on the part of the Indians to send their children to school."

Mr. P. B. Hunt, of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita agency, Indian Territory, affirms that "the parents have shown an interest in the school, and have manifested an anxiety to have their children brought up in the white man's ways." The agent of the Flatheads, of Montana, reports, in 1880, that "a few years ago it was a most difficult matter to induce an Indian to allow his boys to be confined to a school-room; but a wonderful change has taken place, and the number of applicants far exceeds the appropriation for

feeding, clothing, and taking care of them." a

The following letters, received by General Armstrong, of the school at Hampton, illustrate the interest taken by Indiah parents in the improvement of their children. The naturalness of their style is quite as charming as their contents are gratifying. An Indian father writes:

Report of the Commissioner on Indian Affairs, 1880; 40. Ibid., 75.

2 Ibid., 110.

"CROW CREEK AGENCY, January 14, 1879. "MY SON: I am going to write you a letter again. I want you to write letters to me often. I am glad that you are trying to learn. Don't run away from the school. It will be your own good if you learn. Do all the work they tell you to do, and learn to be a carpenter and a blacksmith. I would like to see how the Indian boys learn. The boys down there, their fathers would like to go down and see them. Then they would come back and tell the other Indians. Then they would like to send all their children. Learn to talk English; don't be ashamed to talk it."

Another father writes from Fort Pierre, Dakota :

"I want you to learn how to be a printer. I want you to learn to talk English. I would like to have you learn how to be a carpenter. I would like to go down there and see how you are getting along. If I was down there,—if I saw all the boys down there, then I would come back and tell the Indians, and they would all be glad. I hope some of the boys will learn to be a teacher, when they come back that they can teach the boys and girls. This is the only chance you have; get all the good vou can. This is all I have to say."

From an Indian mother:

"KESHENA, WIS.

"I am sorry you are not coming home next summer, dear child, but if you like to learn something it is a good place for you. be for your own benefit.

Your affectionate mother,

A father writes from the same place:

Learn all you can; it will

WANHANNO KIEIR,"

"Try to learn fast and study hard, so that you will be a smart man. Try to learn the trade of blacksmithing."

Schools for the Indian youth admit of various kinds of classification. In respect to their support and superintendency, they are either governmental, as organized and supported by the National Government, or missionary, as being under the direct charge of missionary societies. In respect to their method, they are either boarding-schools, in which the pupils are entirely separate from their home, or day-schools, in which the pupils study and write for a few hours each day, still remaining members of their households.

The Government has three classes of funds from which schools can be supported:

“(1). Appropriations made in fulfillment of treaty provisions which pledge either the payment annually of a specific amount for education or the support of specified schools.

“(2). Appropriations made solely for education, but made as a gratuity, and not under treaty.

1 Annual Report of Indian Commissioner, 1882; xxxix.