The census endeavored to obtain information, not only into the number who can actually read and write, but who can read and write English, Hawaiian, and any other language. The result is set forth in the following statement, from which may be judged the relative illiteracy of the races:

The census observes there are very few countries where education is so universal, and in a few decades, if things go as they now do, there will be very few unable to to read and write English.

Comparing the figures of several years, we have the following result:

The marked gain for the last six years will be observed. The following form of statement shows the result of school attendance by groups of nationalities.

With the progress of intelligence before us, as seen in the above data of school work, it is of interest to observe the facts connected with the ownership of property or homes, as indicated by the following table:

Here is an increase of 1,632 owners of real estate. That the conditions in these recent years are favorable to the Hawaiians is indicated by the increase of 724 Hawaiian owners. From another table it appears that there are 5,966 homes owned by those who inhabit them. Here, too, the percentage by nationalities is important.

III. THE INDIAN PROBLEM FROM AN INDIAN'S STANDPOINT.

[The following is taken from an address delivered before the Fortnightly Club, of Chicago, by Dr. Carlos Montezuma, an Apache Indian from Arizona, and reputed to be a respected resident and successful practitioner in Chicago. His proposition for the solution of the Indian question, in view of his origin and present status, is entitled to consideration.]

The Indians of to-day are not the Indians of the past. They have been cut loose from the advantages of barbarism and thus far have not profited by civilization. This makes the Indians of the present more degraded than their forefathers ever

were.

Do you know that your whole effort has been and now is crowding them into depths of a state worse than barbarism?

If you go on and hold down the latent power of the young Indian in the poisonous tank of your present Indian system, the new picture will present a form that once glowed with health scarred by disease; the once open face and piercing eye will be filled with suspicion and fear; clear-cut feature is no longer there; the hands that pulled the bow are weakened by misuse and poisoned by vice. We Indians are struggling in the dark to find a way out.

I have faced your civilized and uncivilized Indian in his own home, have investigated the Indian school system on and off the reservations, and, above all, have I passed from the Apache grass hut through the different stages of development among enlightened people.

Now I say more and more every year, I know that you are shortsighted in dealing with the Indian. Your mistakes have made him what he is to-day.

My convictions come from intense interest, from personal observation. I have put all my thought into it. Most people have a wrong idea of the reservation; it is not an earthly paradise nor a land of milk and honey, where the pipe of peace is continually smoked. It is a demoralized prison, a barrier against enlightenment, a promoter of idleness, beggary, gambling, pauperism, ruin, and death. It is a battlefield on which ignorance and superstition are massed against a thin skirmish line sent out from civilization.

Five or ten Government employees at an agency or on a reservation can never elevate its thousands of Indians; on the contrary, you send teachers to elevate the Indians and in a few years these teachers become Indians in habits and thought. Would you isolate your children on a barren soil?

Would you surround them with ignorance and superstition? Would you put them among idlers, beggars, gamblers, paupers, and cowboys? Would you put around them the bowie knife, the revolver, and the bayonet? Would you deliberately place them away from any civilization whatever? If you did all this, would you expect them to be cultured, refined, intelligent, humane, and honest?

Would you expect to make them industrious and self-supporting citizens? No; you would place them in the midst of the most refined, cultured, and educated communities, among English-speaking people, where they could come face to face with all phases of civilized life, so that they might utilize and improve all their faculties. You would do this not merely for five years, but for all of their life time, and even then if they turned out well you would have a sense of relief. You are blinded and ignorant in the enjoyment of your civilized life.

In the midst of your refinement and education you are without a trace of an idea of the real facts about the Indian question. You need to have the real conditions forcibly brought to you before you can realize your duty.

Long-range education away from civilization is an utter failure.

Five years of schooling is not education for the Indian boy any more than for the white boy. It is a mere whitewash education. The boy and girl go home and back to barbarism.

To accomplish the elevation of the Indian, compulsory education will be necessary. This education should not be on reservations nor near them, but in your public schools. If the choice of my life had been left to my mother and father or myself, I would not be here. Ignorance and the very depths of barbarism would have been my fate.

You are sympathetic and philanthropic; but your sympathy and philanthropy when exerted to the secluding of the Indians on the reservations are misplaced. It is unjust, it is inhuman; it is criminal to stun the Indian from his birth to his death.

Would you give a child a few hundred dollars a year to do with as it pleases? The Indians in their present state have become children. The intention of the people and the Government toward the Indian is good, but you can not cancel your obligation by giving him large money annuities. You feed able-bodied men and women; you take away the need of personal effort; you hold them in idleness; you encourage barbarism. Against these methods and this treatment I protest. You may care for the weak and helpless, but do not make strong men idle. Good people wish the Indians were like themselves, but think it cruel to change their relations and habits at once.

There is a story that goes this way:

There was a saint who had a dog; the dog had too long a tail. He concluded to cut the poor unfortunate's tail off little by little so as not to hurt the dear dog too much. In much this way we are treating the Indians. Let us stop this destructive policy. Let us cut the Gordian knot by the quickest way possible. Delay is ruin to my race.

Does anyone say that this race is not endowed by nature with some great qualities which the Caucasian would do well to preserve? Yes, more, to imitate?

Do I hear anyone say that the Indian has no fine qualities worth preserving? Do I hear this from anyone? If I do, my words are not for him.

Why do you not wipe out these dark reservations? Let the Indian earn his living in God's appointed way, "by the sweat of his brow." This is the only way to liberty, manhood, and citizenship.

Some of these Indians, when brought into competition with white men, will die, you say. True; but that is what they are doing now. But, you say, they are wards of the nation, and we must deal honorably and justly with them. What you say is true, and you mean well, but to hear you speak of dealing honestly and justly with the Indian makes an Indian smile.

You ask what shall be done with the reservations which the nation holds in trust for the Indian? I answer, sell them to bona fide settlers. What shall be done with the money? Use it, and more if necessary, for the education of every

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Indian child or youth. Where and how would you educate them? Away with the reservation schools. Send all children to the most civilized communities, not in large masses, but scatter them in small classes over the United States, and place them in the public schools. Let them be brought up in and become citizens of the various States. But this would be cruel to take little children from their parents and natural protectors. True, I know about that, because it happened to me. But you ask, What right have we to take away a child from its Indian parents? I answer, It is done every day by the courts in the cases of white children whose parents are incapable of taking care of them. You can never civilize the Indian until you place him while yet young (and the younger the better) in direct relations with good civilization. When you do this with judgment, you will succeed and make him a useful citizen of the Republic.

You have compromised and compromised with the Indians, fed and clothed them as children, and have kept them pent up away from civilization. You know the results.

By leaving the education of the papooses to their ignorant and superstitious parents, you have encouraged the blind to lead the blind. The system is worse than a failure. And worst of all, you have done this carelessly and not without good motives.

As an Indian, I thank God for helping hands that led me, step by step, perhaps not far, but at least to where I am now. Had it not been for this, my fate would have been that of my people. The Indian children when transplanted must have friends who will give them advice, support, and encouragement. This will help them on over the difficulties. Small difficulties will seem to them like mountains. The reservation can never furnish the necessary conditions. The cure must come from association with enlightened Christian people.

"Out of geographical barbarism into geographical civilization and citizenship” is the true war cry for the Indian of to-day.

It is entirely practical to distribute all Indian children among your families. This has been done with great success.

Four hundred and some odd thousand emigrants land upon your shores annually; in a few years they and their descendants are absorbed and lost sight of. This is because their children have the benefits of the public schools.

I wish that I could collect all the Indian children, load them in ships at San Francisco, circle them around Cape Horn, pass them through Castle Garden, put them under the same individual care that the children of foreign emigrants have in your public schools, and when they are matured and moderately educated, let them do what other men and women do-take care of themselves.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CURRENT QUESTIONS.

Contents-Coeducation-Compulsory school laws-Temperance instruction-Women in school administration-Teachers' pensions-Foreigners in universities of central Europe-Conveyance of children to school-Higher commercial education-Graduate work at universities and colleges-Corporal punishment-Salaries of teachers-Text-books (selection and supply)-The local unit of school organization.

COEDUCATION.

Coeducation, or the education of boys and girls in the same classes, is the general practice in the elementary schools of the United States. Exceptions to this rule are found in a few cities-less, apparently, than 6 per cent of the total number. In the majority of these cities the separation of boys and girls has arisen from the position or original arrangement of buildings, and is likely to be discontinued under more favorable conditions. Of the fifty principal cities enumerated by the census of 1890, four-namely, Philadelphia, Pa.; Newark, N. J.; Providence, R. I., and Atlanta, Ga.-report separation of the sexes in the high schools only; two cities of this class-San Francisco, Cal., and Wilmington, Del.-reported, in 1892, separation in all grades above the primary. In six cities-New York and Brooklyn, Ñ. Y.; Boston, Mass.; Baltimore, Md.; Washington, D. C., and Louisville, Ky.-both separate and mixed classes are found in all grades. Five cities of the second class having a population of 8,000 or more report separation of the sexes in the high schools, and ten cities of the same group separate classes in other grades. Of cities whose population is less than 8,000, nine report separate classes for boys and girls in some grades.

Coeducation is the policy in about two-thirds of the total number of private schools reporting to this Bureau and in 65 per cent of the colleges and universities.

Foreign countries.-In England 65 per cent of the departments into which the elementary schools are divided have boys and girls in the same classes; in Scotland, $7 per cent. Statistics for Ireland show that 51 per cent of the national schools have a mixed attendance of boys and girls.

Separate education is the general policy in English schools of secondary grade, and where both sexes are admitted to the same school it is generally to separate departments. It is noticeable that the royal commission on secondary education advocate the extension of the coeducation policy.

In the British colonies, with very few exceptions, both mixed and separate schools are found. In Ontario all the schools are mixed. In Quebec the schools for English children are, as a rule, mixed, but in those for the French the sexes are separated. In the Australasian colonies the tendency to separate departments for boys and girls is noticeable in cities. In Cape Colony, while nearly all schools are mixed, separate schools for girls are encouraged.

In France custom and sentiment favor the separate education of boys and girls and the law requires every commune having above 500 inhabitants to establish a separate school for girls unless specially authorized to substitute therefor a mixed school. The attendance upon mixed schools slightly increased during the last decade, but not enough to indicate any decided change of sentiment in this respect. The mixed schools are seldom found in cities.