Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1890.djvu/89

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE'IN’I‘ERIOR. LXXXV not known in Alaska until three months after the liscal school year commences. A failure on the part of Congress any one year to make thcmecessary appropriation would close the schools, scatter Govern- ment property, and throw the teachers out of employment thousands of miles away from home and friends. The disadvantages of the pres- ent system need but to be stated to he seen. In the Western States and Territories the general land, laws of the country provide that sections 16 and 36 in each township be set apart for the use of the schools in said States and Territories. In some of the States this has been a mnnillcent endowment. But Alaska has no townships and no law by which they can be surveyed, and when, in the course of time, the general land laws are extended over it the nat~ ure ot' the country and the peculiar climate and the requirements of the population will prevent to any great extent the laying out of the lands in sections of a mile square. Thus while no school fund is prac- ticable fcr years to come from the lands, the General Government de- rives a regular revenue from the seal islands and other sources, a por- tion of which could be used in the place of the proceeds of the sale of school lands. OOKPULSOBY EDUCATION. IV. The operation of the obligatory attendance law, which was enacted by the Territorial board of education and approved by the Secretary of the Interior, in 1887, has been recently suspended by order of the United States Commissioner of Education. » In view of the importance of some suitable law for securingthe more regular attendance at school of the children of Alaska, the Territorial board of education, at its semi-annual meeting, June LL19, took the following action: Whereas it is the invariahle experience of all who have been engaged cr interested for years in the dithoult task of attempting to educate and civilize the natives and creoles of Alaska that the greatest obstacles to success are- First. The want of adequate means of securing the regular and general attend- ance of the children of these people at the various Government schools; and Second. The stolid indiierencs, superstition, and tear of change on the part of the greater number of the parents of such children; and Whereas experience has also demonstrated that wherever native policemen have been employed and paid heretofore a moderate compensation for gathering these chil< dren into the school-rooms, and thus compelling attendance, not only is the average attendance itself largely increased, but an interest in the progress of the pupils and the success of the schools themselves has been gradually and permanently created in those native and oracle parents; and Whereas the Government of the United States is annually appropriating large sums of money for the purpose of educating and civilizing these people und employ- ing competsnt and zealous teachers for that purpose, who are making great sacrifices by enduring severe privations, general discomfort, and personal isolation among an alien and hurbarous race of people: Therefore he it Besolved by the Territorial board of education, That the Hon. Lyman E. Knapp, the governor of the district of Alaska, is hereby requested and urged to embody in his forthcoming annual report to the Department of the Interior the suggestions we have made herein, with the recommendation that Congress take the subject of compulsory