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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
always marked, and the almost inaudible tone which they always use. They learn from this association with their teachers, to speak; their minds develop, their thoughts grow, and they learn to clothe them in language. Their affections are developed and they become fond of their teachers. The writer witnessed an unexpected meeting of a class of girls of about fourteen years of age, with a teacher who had been absent over a year. While their manifested pleasure lacked the forwardness of many school girls, their pleasure at meeting her was unquestioned, as they followed her about, seeming unwilling to leave her, their conduct, reminding one of the silent and faithful affection of an animal.
The western schools established and supported by the government are most of them in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. These are mixed schools, and in every sense industrial schools. Shops for the carrying on of every kind of manual labor are provided for the boys, and the large grant of land which lies about every school is farmed by them.
The arrangement which the government has recently made with the various tribes for the opening up of their lands for settlement, will go far toward the civilization of the young people. For twenty-five years the government will extend to them its support. At the end of that time it is expected that, from their intercourse with white people, and their school education, they will have become self-supporting. It is hoped that at the end of a girl’s school life she may go home to a house instead of a tent; to a permanent residence instead of a nomadic gypsy life; to a family clothed instead of blanketed; to a father and brothers who will serve her instead of exacting servitude. In the past, the years of study and training have been almost lost as the girl returns to the untidy tent upon the bleak and barren ground. What hope is there for her to maintain the tidy and systematic method which she has learned, when surrounded by the sights and sounds and blood-thirsty ways of an Otoe or a Ponca camp?
But surrounded by whites, and encouraged and taught by their teachers and native preachers, surely a bright future is before these poor Indian girls. Surely the dormant mind will awaken, and the sluggish energies quicken, when she sees around her the homes of intelligent white women. The education of the Indian girl means the uplifting of the tribes in every way, and yet it means also and soon, the losing of the races of red men from off the face of the earth.