provides for the erection of a schoolhouse for every thirty children who
can be induced to attend, while section 20 of the act requires the
erection of not less than thirty schoolhouses, and more if found
necessary.

The commissioners were asked by the Indians whether the cost of the
English schools provided for in section 7 of the treaty and of the
schoolhouses provided for in the same section and in section 20 of the
act would be a charge against the proceeds of the lands they were now
asked to cede to the United States. This question was answered in the
negative, and I think the answer was correct. If the act, without
reference to section 7 of the treaty, is to be construed to express
the whole duty of the Government toward the Indians in the matter of
schools, the extension for twenty years of the provisions of that
section is without meaning.

The assurance given by the commissioners that the money appropriated by
section 27 of the act to pay certain bands for the ponies taken by the
military authorities in 1876 would not be a charge against the proceeds
of the ceded lands was obviously a correct interpretation of the law.

The Indians were further assured by the commissioners that the amount
appropriated for the expenses of the commission could not under the law
be made a charge upon the proceeds of their lands. This, I think, is a
correct exposition of the act.

It seems from the report of the commission that some of the Indians at
the Standing Rock Agency asked whether if they accepted the act they
could have the election to take their allotments under section 6 of the
treaty of 1868 and have the benefits of sections 8 and 10 of that