REPORT OF BOARD OF PUBLIC CHARITIES, 1885

COUNTY VISITORS

Visited December 8, 9, 1885, at which later date there were in the institution 50 white and 92 Indian boys under a corps of five officers, four school teachers, six trade teachers and about twenty-two employees and servants.

The Indians are chiefly from the Cheyenne River Agency, and from Minnesota, Red Lake and various Western tribes, with at least one Mohawk from New York. Their ages range from six to twenty-one years. Among these, six are over twenty-one.

Since our last report the institution has undergone important changes and improvements. Repairs, renovations, and additions have been made to the buildings; the dormitories are better furnished and less crowded; work-shops have been built and furnished with tools and machinery for teaching trades, and a reading room has been opened for the pupils.

Of the Indian lads 50 spend half the day in the schools and half in the shops, the program of fore-noon and afternoon being the same. Under this arrangement twelve are employed in the shoe-shop, (six at each session), fourteen in the tailor shop, six at carpentering, six at broom-making, four at carpet-weaving, four in the bakery and four in the engineers room. Four others are on farms near Wayne Station making a total of fifty-four who are receiving manual training.

The management evidently desires to meet the government requirements in giving manual training to all the Indian boys, but thirty-eight of them are not now in the way of receiving it. There is notable proficiency in some departments, as we were informed that for five months boys of twelve who are in the shoe shop, have furnished shoes for all the pupils of the institution, and that a large part of the clothing is now made in the tailor shop.

The white boys are without manual instruction, by the schools in which all are taught English branches, give gratifying evidence of improvement in instruction and proper discipline.

Though details of the house-keeping department are still open to criticism, so much has already been done that no doubt a satisfactory standard will soon be reached.

Document History

• Transcribed by HS 2025-07-27