and the nation. A homogeneity results which will render war between different tribes of the United States improbable, if not impossible.

The greatest hindrance to the general schooling of the Indian children has been the lack of compulsory laws. All over this broad land public schools are preparing white boys and girls for the active duties of life; but notwithstanding our advancement and learning in this direction, it has been found necessary in some States to adopt the plan of compulsory school legislation. When, therefore, Indian children are eager for education, but on the other hand the grandfather, bound by superstition and the memories of the scalping-knife, or, more likely, the grandmother, ignorant and coarse, is unwilling to let the child go, there should be no mawkish sentimentality as to the sacredness of the home ties. Something must be sacrificed, and whether it shall be the well-being of the little child and the good of the whole country, or the ignorant prejudices of the aboriginal mind, is the question to be considered. The natural love of the Indian father or mother should, of course, be duly recognized, and no needless violence should be done to these bonds of humanity; but no parent, whether red or white, has the moral right to stand in the way of his child's advancement in life; and no nation has a right to permit a part of its embryo citizens to grow up in ignorance and possible or probable vice.

In regard to the free schooling of Indian mixed-blood children of predominating white extraction (and they are increasing as the white settlements draw nearer and nearer the dividing lines of the reservation) the Government for several years yet will have to assume the burden, until the prejudice against Indians of all grades is still further dispelled. There is in many quarters a deep-seated antipathy against such children even to the extent of demanding their exclusion from public schools, unjust as such prejudice may be; and until such feeling can be overcome (and it is rapidly diminishing) these children should be given the free schooling afforded the purer bloods. Another reason is, that parents of mixedblood children are very poor as a rule, few

having property to be taxed for school purposes.

The Indian schools are surely working a revolution in the character of the Indian. That there should be individual exceptions to this statement; that there should be a lapse on the part of those who have enjoyed the advantages of these schools; that there should be many instances in which pupils have gone away without bearing the impress of the schools, either for one reason or another; that there should be many who succumb to the tribal influences of reservation life to which they generally are obliged to return, is not to be wondered at.

It is idle to give statistics as to the ratio of white children who do not turn out well, although they have attended our public schools; but the comparison will be favorable indeed to the red man's child when statistics, carefully gathered, show that seventy-six per cent. of the students of Indian schools, whether graduated or not, are capable of dealing with the ordinary problems of life, and are so doing.

Within the past year careful inquiries have been made anent the returned pupils living on reservations or elsewhere, and estimates formed of the character and conduct of each with reference to the results of their educational course at school, together with the conditions under which they labored. The efficiency of the men and women thus located, was most gratifying to those who have the Indian's best interests at heart. Many are teachers, others are in various trades, others still are farmers and stockmen, and a few are lawyers and doctors. Of the pupils who had attended school, though only a small per cent. had graduated, three per cent. are reported excellent, or first class, seventy-three per cent. as good or medium; while only twenty-four per cent. deemed bad or worthless, having received none of the benefits of school life.

are

Thus far the majority of the educated Indians have had to go back to the reservations. They have taken the intermediate steps, have jumped, as it were, from savage state to a practical working knowledge of civilization. This is the curse,

this the oppression, that keeps the Indian still in transit, and it bears hard upon him. It is no part of this résumé of

Y

ES, sir; she's a beauty!-coat like

red satin; slender and sleek as a weasel.

Why don't I race her? Ah, lad, she made her last race when you were yet riding a rocking-horse.

You're right, sir; she's the same Red Bird that won the great matched race with Viking, twenty-odd years ago. She flashed before the racing fraternity like a rocket, and like a rocket she disappeared in darkness, at least for her, poor beast! Thanks for the cigar, sir.

Tell you about Bird? All right. But come up where we can smoke as I talk. I never smoke in the stalls, sir; don't allow my jocks to. The lad that can't keep a cigarette from between his teeth while he's working round the stables, won't do to take care of my horses. Now we're comfortable. You smoke a good brand, sir, just seems to make a man feel like talking over things he thought he'd forgotten.

When did I first know Red Bird? Why, I've known her since she was an undersized colt, and I, the smallest jockey past twenty-one years of age, was training her for Old Berry, the plucky old turfman who 'd made and lost half a dozen fortunes on the track, and was ready to risk another on a horse that really pleased him. But Red Bird was no favorite of his. He said she was too small; and I think that was the very reason I liked her better than any other horse on the string. I could feel my cheeks grow hot when men who called themselves judges of horseflesh, looked at her and shook their heads, or laughed and called her "The Toy Horse." I got the same kind of banter on my size every day of my life, and laughed and joked at it. But, sir, the reason little men are so often called cranky, is because their very souls. are worn out, knowing their hearts are big as the biggest, feeling their breasts heave with great thoughts, and then seeing some fellow with the heart of a rattlesnake and spirit of a mouse walk right over them and get all the favor just because he tips the scales at a hundred and eighty.

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

I did not always feel this so keenly till one day, when the old man's daughter Medea was down with him. He'd stopped to do some bragging with another stableowner, and told me to go on and give her a look at the horses, more than half of which she 'd named. I'd known her since she wore her dresses at her shoe-tops and said, "Oh golly, Lew!" when some illtempered mount stretched a halter to snap at her. And though she'd been away to school, and now held her dress from the ground in the daintiest little bunch in her white hand, she still called me "Lew," and had not forgotten that horses have their prejudices just as much as girls.

I never saw the sun shine as it did that day; and yet there was such a cool, delicious lightness in the air I could have run three times around the track and not have stopped for second wind. Though no one else seemed to notice it, Medea felt the perfection of the day, too; and I suppose that was why we laughed so when Nelly Gray tried to eat one of the little lady's long brown curls. And when she said Red Bird was just the right size to be handsome, I'd said, "I take that to myself," before I knew the words were coming. Then the man-eating black stallion showed his teeth at her, and I went into the stable and set him on his haunches. I felt that strong I could have broken his neck with my bare hands and laid him at her feet. But she was so frightened I had to hold her little trembling hands in mine, and press them against my heart again and again to show her it was beating, and I was not killed.

O the sunshine of that day, and that glorious morning breeze! And right in the glow of it all comes Dag Sergent, six feet clean, with shoulders a giant might envy, and with a smile lifting the corners of his dark mustache, as though he knew he had a cinch on the best of everything. "I want you to come up to my stable and see my world-beater, Viking, Miss Berry," he said, offering her his arm with a bow that made her young face turn pink; and as they walked away together, he called