MISSIONARY SCHOOL-WORK AMONG THE INDIANS.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions reports the following as their Indian schools: among the Dakotas, one training-school, with 10 pupils; one boarding-school for girls, with 6; three common schools, with 120; total of pupils, 136. Among the Choctaws, one boarding-school for girls, with 6 pupils.

Bishop Schweinitz, of the Moravian Church, reports two station-schools among the Indians, with one male and one female teacher and 73 pupils. The secretary of the Missionary Association of the Presbyterian Church South reports one school among the Cherokees, one among the Creeks, and one among the Choctaws, embracing between 50 and 60 boys; but whether this refers to the last-mentioned school, with which it is immediately connected, or to the two preceding also, is uncertain.

The American Missionary Association reports 28 teachers. The Protestant-Episcopal schools are not reported, nor are any by the Methodists or Baptists.

The following, from the missionary bishop of Niobrara, Rt. Rev. W. H. Hare, Protestant Episcopal, illustrates and enforces a very essential element in the successful education of Indians, and one which has heretofore been wanting. The bishop writes from Dakota, in reference to the school-work of his church, that "our missions are placed among a wild people, who, from the oldest down to the youngest, have never known any control, but have lived independent, idle lives, with no higher law than the whim of the moment. It is not easy to induce the children of such people to come to a day-school, and their parents would not think for a moment of compelling them. But they will come to a boarding-school, for there they find what they do not know in their own homes, regular meals, good clothing, and comfortable beds. These wild children become quite docile in the schools and their improvement is decided.”

The bishop has arranged, therefore, that a number of children shall be taken into the mission-family at each of the mission-stations, and a small boarding-school thus established wherever it is practicable. He has also begun a central boarding-school of higher grade, where he himself lives, to which the other schools shall be tributary, by sending to it their most promising boys for education as teachers and missionaries. About the middle of December five picked boys, all of the Yankton tribe, were admitted, their ages ranging from 12 to 21 years, the plan being to train a limited number, so that they might assist in training others who should come after. The plan worked admirably; before a month had passed five more boys were admitted, and the intention is soon to receive some of the Ponca and also of the Santee tribe. The boys are taught to serve themselves and to take care of the house. They are divided into three squads, to each of which is assigned for one week a particular department of the work, namely: the dormitory-, table-, and out-door-work. By 10 o'clock all manual work for the morning is over, and the boys go into school for two hours, when they have dinner and recess till 2 o'clock, then work again till 3, then school till 5. The bishop says the boys take to work better than he dared expect; sometimes, however, they do not feel like work, and when the outside-work-hour arrives they are as hard to catch as wild deer; and when caught they go to their work somewhat as a man goes to be hanged.

SCHOOL-STATISTICS OF THE PEACE-COMMISSION.

The Board of Indian Peace Commissioners has conducted inquiries by means of its own agents, and the following is a summary of the results:

It reports a total of 247 schools, 28 of which are boarding-schools; 273 teachers, 60 in boarding-schools: 7,032 pupils enrolled in day- and boarding-schools, of whom 6,200— 3,658 boys and 2,542 girls-were in day-schools and 1,032-560 boys and 472 girlswere in boarding-schools. The average attendance at the day-schools was 2,771 and at the boarding-schools 502. The cost of supporting the day-schools during the past year was $71,688.44, of which $21,270.58 was defrayed by Government; upon the boarding-schools was expended the sum of $55,180, $22,800 of which was furnished by Gov

ernment.

Summary of the Indian Bureau.

Number of Indians in the United States, exclusive of Alaska..

295, 084 $16,082, 155

Number of Indians brought under the influence of agencies.

Number of church buildings on reservations

Number of Indians who have learned to read and write during the year..

Number of church-members, (Indians)....

285

9, 026

357

167

$27, 173

$1,121

91

38,637

1,019

103

9, 66-4

There are some apparent discrepancies, both in the details first presented and in the statistics gathered, from the Peace Commission, but on the whole the figures of the Indian Bureau itself will be found most reliable. The larger portion of such conclusions must, in the main, be simply estimated from imperfect data; being, in many instances, only guesses at the truth. Concentration of the Indians is in all circumstances the first condition of knowledge and progress. Education must always be objective and industrial, to in any way accomplish desirable results

EDUCATIONAL WORK OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.

The secretaries of the principal Sunday-school-unions and missionary associations have kindly furnished the Bureau with details of the educational operations conducted by them. It was at first intended that these should be included in the report in full. The pressure of other matter compels a relinquishment of this intention and a presentation of only such statistics as may show to what proportions these forms of educational agency have reached. But it is hoped that the interesting exhibition made in the fuller details may yet find room for more adequate display in a "circular of information" from the Bureau. Meanwhile this briefer showing must suffice:

Returns from the denominations from which no reports have been received would probably increase the totals above given to at least 500,000 teachers and 4,000,000 scholars-numbers which amply indicate the importance of this agency in the education of our youth.

The American Sunday-School Union, belonging to no one denomination, but managed by representatives from several, reports 30,616 schools-embracing 191,946 teachers and 1,230,265 scholars-established by it during the past twenty years. Most of these are probably included in the above returns, as the policy of the union is not to retain the charge of the schools formed by its agents, but to turn them over to the first co-operating denomination that may follow in its footsteps and take possession of the ground.

STATISTICS OF MISSION-SCHOOLS.

These embrace only schools established by United States missionary associations in foreign countries or among Indians not admitted into citizenship with us, as all others are supposed to be included in the current statistics of the Bureau. The only exception to this is in the case of the Moravian Church, whose mission-schools are sustained by the whole body of its members, so that, save in the case of its Indian work, it cannot be told which are the product of foreign and which of domestic contributions.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, whose operations are in Mexico, Spain, Bulgaria, Turkey, India, China, and Africa, reports as follows: Number of training- and theological schools. Number of boarding-schools for girls

Number of common schools

Total......

Number of pupils in training-schools, theological and station-classes

Number of pupils in boarding-schools for girls

Number of pupils in other adult-classes.

Number of pupils in common schools

Total

12

21

496

529

==

360

627

531

17, 126

18,644

The Missionary Association of the Baptist Church North, with missions in Hindostau, Burmah, Assam, China, Africa, and Sweden, reports:

The Baptist Church South reports no foreign mission-schools, but gives 1,353 as the number of its teachers and pupils among the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees.

The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, working in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Africa, Hindostan, Siam, China, Persia, Syria, and among the Indians of our plains, reports 295 males and 393 females in its boarding-schools and 7,575 males, with 1,530 females, in its day-schools; total, 10,201. The number of schools and teachers is not given.

The Presbyterian Church South, with fields in Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and China, has 6 schools, with about 120 pupils.

The Reform Presbyterian has in Syria 18 teachers, with 70 boarding and 160 day pupils; total, 230.

The United Presbyterian Church has in Syria, Egypt, India, and China, 465 pupils in Sunday-schools, 2,495 in day-schools, 11 in boarding-schools, and 12 in theological; total, 2,983.

The Protestant-Episcopal Church, whose mission-stations are in Mexico, Greece, Palestine, Africa, China, and Japan, has in its different fields 4 boarding-schools for boys and youths and 1 for girls; 14 day-schools for boys, and 7 for girls. The teachers in these schools are about 68, the scholars about 1,437.

The Reformed Church in America (late the Dutch) has in India and China 48 dayschools, with 824 pupils; 2 higher seminaries, with 94 pupils, and a medical class of 5 students. In Japan it has 3 schools for boys and 2 for girls, the number of pupils in which averages 50 males and 60 females.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church reports that in India it has schools in 70 villages, attended by 25 itinerant and 17 stationary teachers, which have an average attendance of about 300 pupils, and who have given instruction during thirty years past to not less than 9,000 pupils. In Liberia, Africa, it has 1 school, with 2 teachers and 50 scholars. The American Missionary Association (Congregational) does not in its report suthciently separate its domestic and foreign work to enable one to judge how many of the 14.048 pupils enumerated are in its Indian and foreign schools.

The Moravian Church, in its missions in Greenland, Labrador, among our Indians, in the West Indies, in Hindostan, Australia, and South Africa, has 78 boys and 15 girls in training-schools for preparing teachers, with 206 station- and out-station-schools, containing 15,101 scholars, under 176 malé and 93 female teachers, with 673 assistant monitors.

The Woman's Union Missionary Society, laboring for the education and elevation of women in Oriental lands, has in Calcutta, India, 75 native teachers under 12 missionary principals, with 1,000 day-pupils and 30 female pupils in an orphanage. There is also a normal school for training teachers, and 30 schools (probably under the care of the native teachers) are held in the suburbs of the city. In Allahabad it has, under ? missionaries, 2 schools with 2 native teachers and 130 scholars. At Yokohama, Japan, it has, under 5 missionaries, 40 day-pupils-10 in boarding-school, 10 in a daily Bibleclass, and 30 in Sunday-school,

The whole number of pupils in mission-schools supported from the United States, distinctly returned, is nearly 40,000, exclusive of the 15,101 of the Moravian Church and the 14,048 of the Congregational.

EDUCATIONAL CONVENTIONS AND INSTITUTES.

THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION."

The thirteenth annual meeting of this body was held in Elmira the first week of Angust. The arrangements made for the accommodation of the association gave universal satisfaction and the spirit of the meeting was excellent. President Northrop and the other officers were strongly commended for the admirable manner in which they discharged their duties.

We give a brief report of the proceedings, condensed from a very full report in the Elmira Advertiser. The forenoons and evenings were occupied by the general association and the afternoons by the departments.

General association.—The association met in the Opera House, Tuesday, August 5, at 10 a. m., President Northrop, of Connecticut, in the chair. Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. George, of Elmira, and, after the appointment of assistant secretaries and treasurers and the usual committees, Mayor Caldwell, of Elmira, and George M. Diven, esq., president of the board of education, cordially welcomed the association in brief addresses, to which President Northrop appropriately responded.

The question "Ought the Chinese and Japanese indemnities to be refunded unconditionally or devoted to specific educational purposes?" was introduced by Hon. Edward Shippen, of Philadelphia, who has charge of the younger Japanese students in this country. He gave a brief history of the Japanese indemnity of $750,000 in gold, onehalf of which has already been paid to the United States and invested in bonds, now amounting, with the accumulated interest, to $800,000. The other half remains unpaid. The actual damage suffered by the United States in the difficulty did not exceed $19,500. He next sketched the rapid progress of Japan during the four years past, notwithstanding powerful internal opposition, and urged that, while she is struggling to meet the enormous expense of this progress, she should not be crippled by demands for the payment of the balance of the indemnity. He argued that Japan should not only be released unconditionally from its payment, but that the United States should refund the principal and interest of the indemnity now received over and above the actual damage sustained. He stated that there were reasons to believe that if this should be done without conditions Japan will devote all of it to the cause of public education. He paid a high tribute to the government of Japan.

He was followed by President Northrop, who commended the Japanese students in this country in high terms; Rev. Dr. McCosh, of Princeton; Prof. Atherton, of New Brunswick; Charles Hammond, of Massachusetts; Mr. Frank Hall and Prof. W. B. Wedgwood, of Washington. Dr. McCosh suggested that, if our Government refunds the indemnity, care should be taken that it do not fall into the hands of the reactionary party. Mr. Hall and Prof. Atherton stated that the reactionary party is the one now in power there, though forced by the pressure of circumstances into a progressive policy.

At the evening-session, Rev. Dr. McCosh, of New Jersey, read a very able and suggestive paper on "Upper schools," the grade of schools between the elementary schools and the colleges. He believed that the elementary schools of the United States rank as high as those of any country in the world, but that we are in danger of being surpassed by other nations, owing to our want of an organized and efficient system of schoolsupervision. He described the Irish system of school-inspection, the best known to him. He also expressed the opinion that American colleges impart as high and certainly as useful an education to the great body of students as European colleges, including the great European universities, "in all of which there are fully as many idle boys and fully as many graduate with a miserably imperfect knowledge as in the American colleges." The superiority of the higher colleges of Europe is found in the fact that they produce a select few, at the most not more than one tenth of the whole, who have attained a riper scholarship or have reached a higher culture, or who leave college with a more fixed determination to do original work. "The grand question for American colleges to consider at present is, How may we keep the excellenees we have and add to them this special culture of the highest European universities?" He did not think that this end, the training of a few higher minds, could be reached by elevating the standard of admission now adopted in our best colleges. The great majority of students do not now enter college too young. Healthy youths should be prepared for college by 16 or 17. He suggested that, perhaps, 10 per cent. of the students who show themselves fitted to be superior scholars should be encouraged by fellowships, earned by competition, to go on to higher, special studies. With such a system, he believed *This report of the meeting of the National Educational Association, held at Elmira, New York August, 1873, is taken from the National Teacher, Columbus, Ohio, edited by Mr. E. E. White.