THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

A good deal of ingenious ciphering has been done in endeavoring to
solve this problem, and, withal, there has been a good deal of honest
and efficient work. The Government has largely increased its
appropriations from year to year, the Dawes Bill and other valuable
legislation have been secured, so that steps looking towards the
citizenship of the Indian have been attained. Appropriations have been
granted to aid him in farming and other industrial pursuits, and it is
not unlikely that in a short time provision will be made for the
education in the common English branches of every Indian child.

But all this is not sufficient. The Indian may have lands and
citizenship and an English education, and yet, if he has no strong
impulse towards civilization, no motive in his heart impelling him to
be an industrious, self-supporting citizen--in short, if he has not a
new heart looking to a new life as a citizen and a man, he will become
a vagabond on the land granted him, and a skeptic in the school in
which he is taught. The next few years will constitute a crisis in the
rapidly changing condition of the Indian, and it is precisely at this
point where the vital element of the Christian life must be infused
into his character. To the Christian public, all other questions
subordinate themselves to this, and this needs, not speculation, but
hard work; legislation cannot do it, the church must; time will not do
it, Christian teaching and example alone can. The vernacular question,
so much agitated recently, is important only as it may hinder this
practical work.

The Indian problem is not perpetual. The Indian must soon be merged
into the American, and whether this shall be for good or for ill, the