IV.

RETROSPECTION.


Leaving my mother, I returned to the school in the East. As months
passed over me, I slowly comprehended that the large army of white
teachers in Indian schools had a larger missionary creed than I had
suspected.

It was one which included self-preservation quite as much as Indian
education. When I saw an opium-eater holding a position as teacher of
Indians, I did not understand what good was expected, until a Christian
in power replied that this pumpkin-colored creature had a feeble mother
to support. An inebriate paleface sat stupid in a doctor's chair, while
Indian patients carried their ailments to untimely graves, because his
fair wife was dependent upon him for her daily food.

I find it hard to count that white man a teacher who tortured an
ambitious Indian youth by frequently reminding the brave changeling that
he was nothing but a "government pauper."

Though I burned with indignation upon discovering on every side
instances no less shameful than those I have mentioned, there was no
present help. Even the few rare ones who have worked nobly for my race
were powerless to choose workmen like themselves. To be sure, a man was
sent from the Great Father to inspect Indian schools, but what he saw