492 What Experience has Taught Us. [Nov. condition of Christian operations, is, whether there be any thing, in the condition and dispersion of the Indians, which requires a peculiar adaptation of the means of instruction, or whether the ordinary modes should be exclusively pursued. On this point we may be allowed to speak rather from the results of personal observation, than from preconceived theory. The time has gone by, with us, when we regarded the conversion of an adult Indian, as an anomaly in religion. The course of missionary exertions, on the frontiers, has brought numerous examples of such conversions before us. It has afforded the opportunity of observing, that the plain and striking doctrines of the Scriptures may be declared to them, in a language which they understand, with as promising prospects of their being understood and assented to, and adopted as the governing axioms of life, as to other classes of individuals, not farther advanced in the scale of intellectual improvement. Coming, as these doctrines do, to their minds with the charm of novelty, (a principle as deeply implanted in the Indian as the white man,) they are the more readily led to consider them. The principal impediment, aside from external bias, arises from the acquisition of the languages- an object demanding the earliest attention, in all attempts at instruction. It has been found that the most simple and direct mode of conveying instruction, moral and religious, has been attended with the best success. The mode of lecturing on the Scriptures to the Indians, should be of the plainest character, and as little as possible left to inference. What is not plainly told, will generally not be inferred at all. Books should be as simple, as elementary books can be made. Orthography should be simple and uniform. No rules are likely to facilitate early instruction, but those of the most obvious necessity. Much of the dicta, laid down in our elder school books, are rather suited to puzzle, than inform the beginner. Children are not capable of metaphysical analysis, and least of all, Indian children. Indeed, if the spirit of teaching be present, and there be perseverance, and discrimination in the order in which facts are presented to the youthful mind, it is of little moment, how much of the external circumstances and customary forms, be dispensed with. Personal exertion and ingenuity on the part of the instructor, must often compensate for disadvantages of time and place. A circle of Indian children, gathered under a grove, might be as certainly taught the alphabet and digits, as if they were covered with a costly canopy. Buildings become necessary only to avoid the common changes of the atmosphere, and to ensure the observance of order. But such buildings require nothing beyond the simplest arrangement of a school house. It has been found 1834.] Peculiarities of Indian Education. 493 that children and parents are better kept from the sources of jealousy and suspicion, if the scholars come from their parents' lodges in the morning, and return to them in the evening. In the system of instruction, the monitorial plan, as it is most economical of time, and makes a more direct appeal to the spirit of emulation, (which the natives, in an eminent degree, possess,) is preferable. There are also some features in the plan of Infant schools, highly calculated to interest Indian children. It is found that their attention is quickly attracted to forms representing astronomical and other bodies. And the apparatus may be dismissed, at the precise point, where the idea is retained in the memory. But every school, whatever aid it may derive from monitors, should be placed under the strict and constant care and personal supervision of a white teacher. Large expenditures in the shape of buildings and fixtures, diminish the means applicable to Christian instruction, and are precisely those features, which either excite jealousy on the part of the Indians, or animadversion on the part of the whites. And it is on this account, that boarding schools should be confined, as closely as possible, to the sites of academical instruction. To teach a scholar is one thing; to board, clothe, and lodge him, another. There is no comparison, in point of expense, between the first and second objects. There is no necessary connection between them. And we believe, that in schools, located in the territories of the tribes, the furnishing of both, in the form of free boarding schools, has been a positive injury, instead of a benefit to both parents and children. No system is so exclusively right, as that which begins right. It is a position which forms the very basis of civilization, that each member of society must support himself by his own industry. And it seems important to teach this truth early to the Indians. If they ever exist, as a happy and independent community, it must be through faithful individual exertions on their own part. And were the question between the adoption of manual labor and free schools, we should think there could be no hesitancy, in point of policy, as to the preference of the former. Schools, to be greatly beneficial to the tribes, must be local. A school situated without the boundaries of the tribe, is also measurably without the boundary of a moral influence upon it. Experience has fully demonstrated the futility of attempts to change the moral condition of tribes, by educating a select number of their youth, at remote points, while no simultaneous efforts were made with the body of the tribe itself. The learning of colleges has thus, in a measure, been thrown away upon individuals, who, on returning to their tribes, have found them, in no way prepared for appreciating their acquirements. Did they labor to convince 494 Errors in Instructing the Indians. [Nov. their erratic countrymen of the advantages of learning over ignorance, of farming over hunting, of letters over rude signs Neither could they themselves maintain the state of artificial ele- ence. "Teach one, in fifty, and the one shall stare, To mark how want of knowledge sinks the kind." The whole failure, in these cases, has resulted from the want of local schools, and other sources of instruction. And whatever degree of objection arises to them, from this cause, wholly ceases the moment the cause is removed. And this may be regarded as the plain reason, why some of the tribes who have enjoyed the double advantage of academical and primary local instruction, have made more rapid advances in civilization. Of the same era with the policy of educating, at remote points, the few, while the many remained in gross ignorance at home, is the opinion that the native languages should be neglected. The theory on this subject is, that it is easier to teach the Indians the English language, than to learn theirs. Connected with it, we have heard of projects for their melioration, in which it was maintained, "that the Indians must sink the distinction of languages." As if it were an easy thing to induce a whole nation to lay aside its mother tongue. A stronger reason for the disuse of the native languages, arises from their crude and imperfect state, and their consequent maladaptation to the purposes of moral instruction. An Indian who has been all his life in the habit of supplying the deficiencies of speech by gesticulation and circumlocution, may not be aware how far he comes short of the purposes of exactness and precision in the conveyance of thought. But when such a language comes to be written and cultivated, there will be found numerous deficiencies and redundancies. The pertinacious distinction of matter into animate and inanimate classes, while it destroys the distinction of gender, has imparted to the vocabulary a cumbrous load of inflections, which greatly extend its limits, while there is but little gained in obvious utility. This extension in space is still further increased by the most besetting evil of the languages- their tautological forms, by which not a particle of new meaning is conveyed. These defects will have been observed by those who 1834.] Preparation of Tracts for their Use. 495 have given any attention to Scripture translations, which, from the days of Zeisberger to those of Peter Jones, are rather numerous. The most obvious external trait of these, is, that the Scriptures require nearly double the space in the translations, which they occupy in either the Hebrew, Greek, or English languages. These defects weigh much against the substantial claims of the languages to cultivation. They do not, however, interpose a bar to it. On the contrary, it is a field in which the genius of missionary enterprize is invited to enter, and may be expected to triumph. All that relates to the conversion and improvement of the adult population, must be done in the native languages. And it is a question of practical importance, to what extent they may be employed in primary schools, and at what point they may be laid aside. On this subject, an experiment, on a large scale, is in progress, and we may confidently look to the active laborers in the missionary field for information. In advancing the subject of moral and religious instruction among the Indians, it is not improbable to my mind, that the peculiar branch of modern benevolence which is comprehended by the subject of Tracts, may open a means of extensive usefulness. An appropriate series of school and missionary Tracts, in the native languages, might prove valuable helps to teachers now in the field, both in their preparation and distribution. And one or two missionary papers on the frontiers, (say one in the north-west, and one in the south-west,) would quadruple the powers of every active laborer. In the preparation of such Tracts, it is obvious that a brief and simple system of alphabetical notation is required. And to be generally useful, it should provide for the whole circle of the languages. How far this object may be attained, without such a departure from the primary sounds of the English alphabet, and without, at the same time, adınitting any of its inexactitude and partiality of application, is, perhaps, a question of importance. For, it must be recollected, that the literature of the Indians, when they come to require it, is one which they will find recorded in the English language. And it will therefore be an advantage that the sounds of its alphabet be not such as shall grate on the Indian ear, in repulsive and foreign tones. Many subjects are connected with the education and conversion of the Indians. The organization of the element of a civil government among the tribes who have emigrated to the west banks of the Mississippi, is one of the number which claims missionary aid. But there is none, of more practical importance, than the subject of temperance. Without temperance, nothing can be 496 Maternal Influence. [Nov. accomplished. There can be no christianity-no well-attended schools-no well-cultivated farms-no comfortable buildingsno comely dress-no personal cleanliness—no adequate means of subsistence- no general health, or sound prosperity. Without temperance, the bible and the school book may be carried to the Indians, but they will be carried as sealed books. [For the Annals of Education.] INFLUENCE OF MOTHERS. A GREAT and important change in the public sentiment is silently advancing; and if the breaking up of old opinions, and the establishment of new, on several important points, cannot be effected without a temporary agitation of the elements, still I would say, let the change come. I allude to the mode of operation and kind of influence which ought to be exerted in the formation of human character. Let me not be misunderstood. I meddle not with the past, to complain of it. I speak only of the present and future. The notion very generally prevails, that the greatest concentration of talent, natural and acquired, is, and ought to be, demanded of the presidents and professors of colleges, of those who sit on benches, for thousands a year, and plead at the bar for sums still larger, and of those who deal with fevers and consumption, and fractures; and that as you descend (as it is called) from these higher to the more common walks of life, talent, both native and acquired, -wisdom and excellence, become less necessary. We were going to say, that our own belief is, that this order ought to be inverted. But we do not mean so. No devoted minister, no learned counsellor, no wise physician is a whit too wise or too good, at present. Let them stand where they are, as we have already hinted. But let parents and teachers be educated to fill a sphere of action, as much more elevated than that of president of a college, judge of a supreme court, or professor of medicine, as these are now deemed more elevated than the profession of parent or teacher. 66 Any body can teach or take care of very young children," said the public sentiment but a little while ago; "any body" can plead a law case where the amount of property at stake is small; any body" can prescribe for a cold, or other slight affection, especially in infants. But is it so? Does not the voice of human experience incul |