INDIAN COOKING CLASS, HAMPTON. need watching, but show a special taste and aptness for mechanics. At present most of the shoes worn by the Indian boys are made entirely by Indian hands. Trunks, chairs, and tables, tin pails, cups, and dust-pans, are turned out by the dozens, and most of the repairing needed on the place is done in the various shops. The carpenters, under direction of a builder, have put up a two-story carriagehouse twenty-four by fifty feet, weatherboarded and shingled. A Cheyenne (St. Augustine) and a Sioux are each proud of a fine blue farm cart made entirely by their own hands. All the shops report improvement. Their instructor in farming, a practical Northern farmer, says: "They don't like to turn out early in the morning, but otherwise do as well as any class of workmen, and seldom now have to be spoken to for any slackness. It is common to see five or six in a hoeing race, with the end of a beet or corn row for the goal." A natural, and therefore valuable, stimulus to their energies, and doing much to make men of them, has been the payment of wages. Part of the government ap propriation is given to them in this form instead of in clothing. They are expected to buy their own clothing out of it, except their school uniform. There is some waste, but more profit, in the lessons thus taught of the relation of labor to capital. The military organization of the school, thus far under the charge of Captain Henry Romeyn, Fifth Infantry, U.S.A., has been an important aid in their discipline, and general setting up of body and spirit. Sergeant Bear's Heart and Corporal Yellow Bird are as proud of their command, and as careful to maintain the honor of their stripes, as any West-Pointer; and the fleet-footed little "markers" would doubtless fight for their colors, if they would not die for them. Yellow Bird is janitor of the wigwam, and the present teacher in charge reports, "A cleaner school building I never saw." Saturday is general cleaning day. Only the outside of the platter was civilized at first, but the effect of clean halls was soon apparent. They wanted a clean house all through, and the boys went voluntarily down on their knees and scrubbed their own rooms. During the summer vacation, from the middle of June to the first of October, the boys who remain at the school alternate farm-work with camp life at "Shellbanks," sleeping in tents, living outdoors, cooking for themselves, fishing, hunting, and rowing. For two summers a selected number-this year seventeen boys and eight girls-have been scat tered among the farmers of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, working for their board, sharing the home life, and improving in health, English, and general tone. They have won a good report from the families which have taken them, even better this year than last, and have done much to increase public sympathy for their race. The co-education of the sexes is regarded at Hampton as essential to the development of both these races in which woman has been so long degraded. The Indian girls' improvement has been as marked as the boys'. Their early inuring to labor has its compensation in a better physical condition apparently, and their uplifting may prove the most important factor in the salvation of their race. Besides the class instruction which they share with the boys, the girls are trained in the various household industries-washing, ironing, cooking, the care of their rooms, and to cut and make and mend their own clothes and the boys'. They all have flower gardens, and take great delight in them, and in decorating their rooms. The cooking class, under a teacher who has had charge of the "North End Mission" cooking school in Boston, is a very favorite "branch." Its daily successes are placed triumphantly upon the table of the class they belong to, and no doubt find the regular road to the hearts of the brave. TWO INDIAN GIRLS AFTER A SUMMER VISIT TO BERKSHIRE. A love-letter picked up on the floor of a school with Hampton's views on coeducation need not inevitably shock even pedagogic sensibilities. Written in an unknown tongue, however, with only the names to betray it, a translation by the private interpreter seemed only a proper precaution. If I confide it to the gentle "MISS "NORMAL SCHOOL, February 3, 1879. --: I said I like you, and I want to give you a letter. Whenever I give you letter, I want you answer to me soon. That's all I want, and I will answer to you soon after. When you give me letter, it raises me up. It makes me heart-glad, sister-in-law. When I talk, I am not saying anything foolish. Always my heart very glad. I want you let me know your thought. I always like you and love you. I am honest about what I say, I always keep in mind. I want always we smile at each other when meet. We live happy always. I think that's best way, and you think it is and let me know. And I want to say one thing-don't say anything to Henry. I don't think that's right. And I say again, when I give a letter, keep nicely and not show to any one. If they know it, it not good way. They you. Your lover, 66 take us away, and that is the reason don't show | been prevented by some accident from acit. Hear me, this all I am going to say. I like companying the expedition. They found you, and I love you. I won't say any more. the little fellow in the workshop painting" My whole heart is shaking hands with you. I kiss pails, and pressed around him in an admiring group. Ara's dignity was fully equal to the occasion. He worked away with an air of superb indifference, vouchsafing the old chiefs no notice whatever, except to elbow them aside, when his pail was done, to set it up and get down another, only a side glance now and then through his long lashes, and the shadow of a demure smile around his firm-set lips, betraying that he was taking in everything, and enjoying his honors. At the last anniversary of Hampton, Secretary Schurz remarked in his speech: "One day, soon, a very interesting sight will be seen here and at Carlisle. It will be the first Indian School-visiting Board. Within a few days twenty-five or thirty Sioux chiefs, among them some warriors whose hands were lifted against the United States but a few days ago, Red Cloud and others, will go to Carlisle and come here to see their children in these schools." Last May, accordingly, this "Indian School-visiting Board" reached Hampton. The meeting between them and their young relatives would have convinced the most skeptical that the heart of man answers to heart as face to face in water, whatever the skin it beats under. All the chiefs were delighted spectators at the merry games of the evening "conversation hour." In an evil moment, however, the 15-14-13 puzzle was explained to Confucius by some of his young Gros Ventres, and he proved his common origin with white humanity by succumbing instantly to its spell. For the rest of the evening his gold-bound goggles bent over the maddening squares as if they were the problem of his race, set, according to its white brethren's favorite arrangement, with thirteen facts, fourteen experiments, and fifteen theories in hopeless reversion. A visit from Bright Eyes, the eloquent young advocate of the Poncas, was a very powerful stimulus to the girls, as showing them what one of their own race and sex might become. After she left, one of the older girls said to me, with a pretty, timid hesitancy, "Miss Bright Eyes-I wish I like that." Her own soft bright eyes shone with a soul in them as she added: "When I came to here, I feel bad all time; I want go home; I no want stay at Hamp As the Gros Ventre and Ree chiefs gathered the children of their own tribes around them for a special talk, Son of the Star beckoned one of the older girls to the front, and searching some mysterious depths of his blanket, drew forth a dirty little coil of string about two feet long, unwound it, straightened it carefully, and let it hang from one hand to the floor, with the other outlining some little form about it, bringing quick-flitting smiles to the face of the girl, while the whole ring looked on with evidently intelligent interest, though not a word was spoken. Handing the string over to the girl, he dived into his blanket once more, producing this time a little worn pair of baby shoes. Button. Now I want stay here. I not want at this his watcher broke down entirely in a flood of tender tears; for the whole silent pantomime had been a letter from home describing the growth and beauty of the little sister she had left winking in its cradle basket two years before. Son of the Star was a fine specimen of an old chief of powerful proportions. Poor Wolf, in full Indian costume, and glory of porcupine quills and eagle feathers, had put a finishing touch to his dignity by an incongruous and ludicrously solemn pair of huge gold-bowed spectacles, which made him look like a caricature of Confucius. The Gros Ventres were particularly anxious to see Ara-hotch-kish, the only son of their second chief, Hard Horn, who had go home. I want learn more, then go home, teacher my people." A few weeks after, on the visit of the chiefs from Dakota, this girl, at her own urgent request, stood up before the whole conclave and the school, and with flushed cheeks and downcast eyes told her people's rulers what the school was to her, and begged them to send all the children to learn the good road. Her speech, which, in order to reach all the chiefs, had to be translated by two interpreters, passing through English on the way, was listened to with respectful attention. The most important result of Bright Eyes's visit to the school was to rouse in her own heart the desire to make use of her hold upon public sympathy for the United States." It provided for the utilization for such school purposes of certain vacant military posts and barracks as long as not required for military occupation, and authorized the detail of army officers by the Secretary of War for service in such schools, without extra pay, under direction of the Secretary of the Interior. The House Committee on Indian Affairs, in favorably reporting upon this permanent benefit of her Indian sisters. | have educational treaty claims upon the With this desire she offered her services to speak at the East in behalf of a project of some Northern friends of the school to enlarge its work by erecting a building for Indian girls, to cost, complete and furnished, $15,000. A beautiful site adjoining the school premises, and now inclosed in them, was given as a generous send-off by a lady friend. It will give room for the training of at least fifty more Indian girls at Hampton, thus effecting the desired balance of the sexes. The Secretary of the Interior has signified his readiness to send them from the agencies with the same appropriation as for the boys, of $150 per year apiece. There is every assurance of their readiness now to come. It is for the friends of the Indians to decide whether Hampton's work for them shall be thus rounded and established, and the timid prayer be heard, "I wish I like that." Carlisle, Pennsylvania, like Hampton, Virginia, is classic ground in American history. Under the shade of its unbroken forests Benjamin Franklin met the red men in council. A British military post in the Revolution, and falling into the hands of the Continentals, the Hessian-built guard-house is still shown as once the place of André's confinement, before his greater disaster. LITTLE INDIAN GIRL IN HER ROOM. bill, urged that the government had made treaty stipulations specially providing for education with nomadic tribes, including about seventy-one thousand Indians, having over twelve thousand children of The last and greatest change of for- school age; that the treaties were made in tune, which has filled the empty armories 1868, and in ten years less than one thouwith ploughshares and pruning-hooks, sand children had received schooling. and the soldiers' quarters with a govern- It was further urged that "the effort in ment school for Indian children-as if the this direction recently undertaken and in spirit of the earliest and sacredest of In- successful progress at the Industrial and dian treaties still lingered in the groves of Normal Institute of Hampton, Virginia, Penn-was brought about through a bill furnishes a striking proof of the natural introduced in the winter of 1879 in the aptitude and capacity of the rudest savHouse of Representatives, entitled "A ages of the plains for mechanical, scienbill to increase educational privileges and tific, and industrial education, when reestablish additional industrial training moved from parental and tribal surroundschools for the benefit of youth belongings and influences"; and that "the very ing to such nomadic Indian tribes as considerable number of agents, teachers, HARNESS-MAKING APPRENTICES, CARLISLE. missionaries, and others engaged in educational work who have visited and witnessed the methods of Hampton, join in commending them as just what the Indian needs, while the intercourse between the youth at Hampton and their parents has produced extraordinary interest and demand for educational help from these tribes." The importance of this measure was so recognized that even in anticipation of subsequent favorable action upon it by Congress, with a wise cutting of red tape, the War Department turned over Carlisle Barracks to the Interior, and Captain Pratt was detailed to bring children from the Northern agencies before the frosts came, which would have delayed it another year. The transfer of the post was effected on the centennial anniversary of the battle of White Plains, eliciting from Secretary McCreary a felicitous remark upon the coincidence which on such memorial day gave up to Indian education a post for eighty years used as a training school for cavalry officers to make war chiefly upon Indians. Taking with him Hampton's godspeed, and two of his most advanced Dakota boys for interpreters and "specimens," the captain started for Dakota in September, 1879, returning in a few weeks with eightyfour. All but two of the St. Augustines from Hampton also accompanied their captain to Carlisle, to form a starting-point of English speech and civilization. One of these young men, a Kiowa, with a companion who had been under instruction at the North, went on alone to Indian Territory in advance of Captain Pratt, and by their own influence they gathered fortytwo children and youth from their own agency for Carlisle. These, with some more from other agencies in the Territory, were brought by the captain to the school, and it opened with one-hundred and forty-seven children on the 1st of November, 1879. The President's next Message and the report of the Secretary of the Interior again commended to public attention the importance of the work at Hampton, with the new efforts to which its "promising results" had led at Carlisle and at Forest Grove, Oregon, where arrangements were made for the similar training at a white boarding-school of a number of Indian boys and girls belonging to tribes on the Pacific coast, under charge of Captain Wilkinson, who is making it quite successful under many difficulties. Additions and changes from time to time have brought the number at Carlisle up to one hundred and ninety-six at the present time, fifty-seven of whom are girls. Besides the Sioux and St. Augustines, there are in lesser numbers other Cheyennes, Arrapahoes, and Kiowas; also Comanches, Wichitas, Seminoles, Pawnees, Keechis, Towaconies, Nez Percés, and Poncas, from Indian Territory; Menomonees from Wisconsin; Iowas, Sacs, and Foxes from Nebraska; Pueblos from New Mexico; Lipans from old Mexico; to which will probably be added fifty Utes from Colorado, the first of the tribe ever in a school. Many of the number are children of chiefs or head-men; among others, of White Eagle, head chief of the Poncas; Black Crow, American Horse, and White Thunder, noted chiefs of the Sioux. The famous old chief Spotted Tail had four boys there and a daughter, with two more distant relatives, but, on his visit to them, took umbrage at finding his half-breed son-in-law no longer needed as interpreter, and went off in a huff, with all his little Spotted Tails be |