Alaskan children in schools and families in the States.

The Sitka Industrial School. - This largest of all the industrial schools in Alaska was established in 1880 by the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, The buildings are admirably located on an elevation about 200 feet from highwater mark about midway between the town of Sitka and Indian River. An abundant supply of pure water is brought in pipes a distance of three-fourths of a mile. The water is forced to a height of 80 feet into a large tank by means of a force pump, and from this source all the buildings, including the hospital, are supplied. In connection with the school are eight "model cottages" where the married couples from the school begin housekeeping in "Boston style," as the natives express it. Funds for the erection of some of the cottages were loaned (without interest) by the Indian Rights Association; others were erected with money furnished by benevolent individuals in sympathy with this rational method of dealing with the Indian problem. The young people who occupy these cottages have a life lease of the ground, and are expected to pay for the cottages in installments. The average cost of a cottage is $350. We expect these model homes to be centers of purity, from which will radiate influences that will be far reaching and lasting in their results. Here family life is established and family ties are held sacred; hereindustry, frugality, perseverance, and thrift are developed; here old heathen customs have no place-no Indian doctors, no witchcraft, no plural wives, no drinking, no gambling, no reckless living. In these homes the young husbands have a chance to develop into manly, self-respecting men and the young wives into tidy, industrious women.

Hospital.-In 1889 it became evident that a place was needed for the care of the sick, and Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, of New York, very liberally donated the money for the erection of a hospital for the girls. Later a boys' hospital was erected near by. In 1892 it became evident that it was unwise to attempt to carry on two separate establishments, and the boys' hospital was somewhat enlarged and the upper foor devoted to a ward for girls. This combined hospital was opened for patien's November 22, 1894. Previous to 1894 the building had been opened only to patients from the school, but now the wards were opened to natives from any part of

ED 97-102

Alaska. The following is a summary of the work during 1897: Number of patients treated, 206; aggregate number of days in hospital, 2,594; average number of days, each patient, 12.5; number of prescriptions to in-patients, 2,634; percentage of deaths, 3; unimproved, 2; improved, 12; cured, 83. Causes of death: Tuberculosis, 3; capillary bronchitis, 3. Number of out-patients treated in doctor's office, 1,119; number of operations performed, in-patient, 38; total number of prescriptions made since June, 1894, 10,581.

Language. The children speedily acquire an English-speaking vocabulary when strictly prohibited from using their native dialects. For five years English has been the exclusive language of the school. Experience has removed all doubt as to its expediency. The use of their vernaculars (Thlinget, Tsimpshean, Hydia) seriously retards their progress and does them no essential benefit. No schoolbooks have ever been printed in any of their native dialects. Each distinct people hasa dialect of its own, local in character, and in course of time the vernacular dialects of the tribes of southeastern Alaska will become obsolete and English will everywhere prevail. As a matter of preservation the Society of Alaskan Natural History and Ethnology has lately commenced to reduce the Thlinget language to writing, which we hope to accomplish through the instrumentality of Mrs. Paul and Miss Willard.

Culinary department. - This department is a place of great interest to the pupils, both boys and girls, small and large. All want to come into the kitchen to work and to learn to cook. The boys wish to know how to cook good meals and bake good bread, pies, and cakes. They often ask if they can come into the kitchen to work, and this stirs up a spirit of emulation among the girls so that they beg to work in the kitchen; consequently, there is no lack of those who desire to work in these departments.

In the bakery the work is too heavy for the girls, and is done entirely by the boys. During the past year they have averaged 140 pounds of flour baked daily, turning out from 90 to 100 loaves of delicious bread a day. When the girls serve in the kitchen, they bake the pies and cakes and the boys in their turn do the same, which is during the winter season, that being the hard period of work. Much attention has been given to the quality of food, and in the past few years it has been greatly improved. One great victory won in the battle of work in these departments is cleanliness. In this direction there has been a vast improvement made. It is a pleasure now to be with them and hear them say: "Oh, this must be very clean; I want it to be clean and nice." Viewing these departments, they have made rapid progress in the last year.

The kitchen is supplied with both hot and cold water. The greatest obstacle in the work of these departments is the annoyance of having green wood much of the time.

The sewing room has been enlarged and nicely papered. The light is admitted from the east, so that they get the benefit of the morning sun. This department is well equipped, and the amount of work done each week is surprising. The girls over 7 years of age knit their own stockings. In the sewing department they learn quickly and accomplish much. Sewing machines are in daily use, and the girls soon learn to use them. Almost every graduate has a machine of her own.

All the shoes are made by the boys, apprenticed under the direction of a master workman. Considerable custom work is also done.

Gardening.-Mr. John Gamble, gardener and general worker, has three mediumsized plats of arable land. One garden, which has been cultivated for several years, produces lettuce, beets, peas, and onions in abundance. Of the other gardens, which are new, one is planted in potatoes and the other sown in turnips. Cereals, for lack of warmth and sunshine, do not ripen. Currants, rhubarb, raspberries, cauliflower, and celery are easily grown. Fruits, such as apples, plums, and pears, have not been fully tested, but it is believed that they could be grown with success.

Blacksmithing can hardly be classed among the trades by which a man can earn a living in Alaska, yet there is much work in this line, doing repairs about the mission, mending machinery, repairing stoves, making stovepipes and camp hooks, sharpening tools, and doing miscellaneous jobs for the citizens of the quaint little capital. Soldering and a little tin work are also done. The constant wear and tear in most of the work departments require much repairing, nearly all of which is done by the boys.

Painting. Two or three of the boys have received instruction in this useful branch of industry, and are kept busy painting, papering, glazing, and calcimining.

Recreations and amusements. The home life of the school is particularly pleasant. Their games and plays are such as white children enjoy, consisting of games of marbles, baseball, townball, playing soldier, flying kites, sailing ships, target practice with bow and arrow, authors, checkers, dominoes, rope jumping, hideand-seek. Coasting and skating are indulged in by both sexes. Then there is an organ for the girls and another for the boys, and violins, guitars, fifes, bugles, and the irrepressible mouth organs are among the amusements and recreations of each day.

A rational system of discipline is easily and well maintained.

Those in charge aim to make the industrial training school just what its name implies. Manual occupations are in reach of the pupils as fast as they acquire sufficient knowledge of the English language to enable them to prosecute the learning of a trade with success. To accomplish anything permanent and of material benefit in the way of mastering trades they must first acquire a fair, commonschool education, before which they are not prepared to serve an intelligent apprenticeship. After certain initiatory advancement has been made, industrial training is then made coequal with schoolroom work. While the boys are taught trades, the girls are taught all branches of household industry. Indeed, the appointments and work of the school are such as to familiarize them with American ways of living and to ingraft into their lives industrious habits.

The steam laundry, with its labor-saving machinery, relieves the teachers and pupils of much hard drudging work incident to a school of this character, where water and soap must be used in such copious quantities.

Carpentry department.-All of the buildings on the mission premises, twenty or more, have been built by boys apprenticed to this trade, under the supervision of a competent foreman. Shopwork consists in the making of furniture, bookcases, clothespresses, screens, chests, curtain poles, picture frames, hand sleds, bric-a-brac work, and undertaking. The outdoor work consists of joining, framing, contracting, and building. Sailmaking and boat building are among the useful industries of this department. Among our carpenter apprentices a number have shown special aptitude as artists and designers. The spirit of earnest industry is most praiseworthy, and the boys appreciate their opportunities.

In the winter of 1887-88 the Society of Alaskan Natural History and Ethnology was organized and incorporated. The purpose is to collect and preserve in connection with the Sitka Industrial and Training School specimens of the natural history and ethnology of Alaska.

In addition to the Sitka Industrial School, the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions maintains stations at Point Barrow, St. Lawrence Island, Haines, Hoonah, Juneau, Fort Wrangell, and Jackson.

MORAVIAN MISSIONS.

We are indebted to the Rev. J. Taylor Hamilton, secretary of the Moravian Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, for the following sketch of the progress of Moravian mission work in Alaska:

Moravian missionary and educational work in Alaska began in 1884, at the suggestion of Dr. Sheldon Jackson. After a preliminary tour of exploration, the then practically unknown region of the Kuskoquim and Nushagak rivers was selected. To establish the work two ordained missionaries, the Revs. William Weinland and John Kilbuck, were sent out with their wives, together with a lay assistant, Mr. Hans Torgersen, who was to superintend the erection of the needful houses. Mr. Kilbuck is a full-blooded Indian, the descendant of a long line of distinguished Delaware Christians, and, like his colleague, was a graduate of the Moravian College and Theological Seminary at Bethlehem. Before one house had been erected Mr. Torgersen was accidentally drowned in the Kuskoquim River. Before any converts had been won Mr. Weinland and his family had to withdraw, owing to seriously impaired health, later to labor in California. For a while Kilbuck and his wife held out alone, contending with the severities of a climate which in winter sometimes reached 60' of cold below zero, and with the difficulties of the Eskimo language. But God blessed their zeal and fidelity. The first sign of any reward for their labor was given on Good Friday, 1887. In the best Eskimo at their command the missionaries had been striving to acquaint the people with the love of God, and now he was telling that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, when an old Eskimo interrupted him: "Thanks. We, too, want our badness washed away."

From the inception of the mission attention has been paid to education, and at the three main stations-Bethel and Ougavig, on the Kuskoquim, and Carmel, on the Nushagak-industrial schools have been steadily maintained, except when for brief intervals lack of provisions, after a season of failure in the catch of salmon, has compelled a temporary intermission. The schools at Bethel and at Carmel are boarding schools; that at Ougaviga day school. The two former during certain years in the past have been Government contract schools. Two boys were for a period entered at the Government school at Carlisle, Pa., and are now serving as assistant missionaries. The pupils at Bethel average about 30, at Carmel 35, and at Ougavig 15.

At present 15 missionaries are in this field. On the staff are a graduate of the Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia-Dr. Herman Romig-and two professional nurses. Four hundred and seventy patients were cared for at Bethel during the last year, for which a report has been received. Three principal stations are occupied and seven outposts. Twenty-seven native assistants cooperate in the care of 625 converts, young and old. On January 30, 1897, the first fruits of home mission work among the Eskimos themselves were gathered in the baptism of a convert at a village 80 miles from Bethel, up to that time served by two native assistant missionaries. For several years the mission at Bethel has had a steam sawmill in operation, the natives bringing logs and receiving planks in exchange. It is hoped that thus decent houses will gradually supplant the underground hovels of a former time.

When the missionaries came they found the Eskimos filthy, degraded, cruel, the prey of the medicine men or shamans, given over to superstition, seeing evil spirits in everything, without knowledge of God and without hope for the future. In the reeking atmosphere of their underground kashimas. 16 to 24 feet square, three or four families, two to three dozen persons, might cower over the fat lamps. Privacy and decency were unknown. The standard of morality was utterly low. The aged and the sick were taken out and exposed to death by cold or starvation, lest a kashima should become haunted by death occurring within. The persons of the people swarmed with vermin. Now the decencies of family life and the proprieties of civilization are beginning to be prized. Heathen rites have practically ceased through a considerable stretch of country.

That the Eskimo will ever become civilized in a mode patterned after that of the European or American is scarcely to be expected. Climatic conditions and environment are against this. But it is hoped he will imitate the culture and civilization of the Laplanders. The Moravian mission is, therefore, deeply interested in the success of the effort to distribute the domesticated reindeer throughout Alaska, the benevolent project with which Dr. Sheldon Jackson is so closely identified. This is desired, both as a civilizing medium and as likely to afford a more assured means of subsistence than the precarious products of the chase and the uncertain returns of toil on the waters. But it is also earnestly desired as likely to afford a more regular and frequent means of communication and transportation. At present an exchange of letters between the mission and its schools on the one hand and the church at home on the other can be counted upon with certainty only once

a year.

CONGREGATIONAL MISSIONS.

The Rev. C. J. Ryder, corresponding secretary of the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church, has prepared the following statement with regard to the work of the society at Cape Prince of Wales:

This station is under the care of the American Missionary Association, the society of the Congregational churches. Work at this station was begun in 1890. Geographically. -Cape Prince of Wales is situated on the most western point of mainland in the United States, only a few miles from the Arctic Circle. The country is broken and mountainous running back from the shore of Bering Strait. Much driftwood is available here and is utilized by the missionaries in the erection of their cottages. The station holds a good position strategically for reaching the Eskimo in the interior of Alaska. The Eskimo residents at Cape Prince of Wales are especially active and energetic for people of this race. They are counted among the great smugglers of the North. In former reports in this Bureau reference has been made to this fact. From Cape Prince of Wales the natives cross the straits and carry on trade in "deer skins and sinew and wooden ware of Alaska," which they exchange for walrus, ivory, skins of tame reindeer, and whale blubber of Siberia." They also secure in this way "firearms and whisky," neither of which prove very important factors in their Christian civilization.

Missionary force. Messrs. W. T. Lopp and H. R. Thornton were the first missionaries in this field. They opened the work at Cape Prince of Wales in 1890. Two frame buildings were erected. One of these was occupied as their home and the other was used for school and chapel purposes. These buildings are still standing. Mr. Thornton was murdered August 19, 1893. His murder was committed by some native desperadoes who were soon after punished by the Eskimos themselves. His death did not indicate any opposition on the part of the natives generally to the work. Mr. Lopp and his wife have continued work in the field until the present, and are still there. Mr. Lopp has proved very efficient in his administration. He has been commissioned by the United States Government to conduct important investigat on along the coast to the north of Bering Strait. He has also had charge of the reindeer herd assigned by the Government to this station, and has been commissioned to go to the north upon an expedition to relieve the whalers that are locked in the ice.

Present condition of the station. From the last reports received by the American Missionary Association we gather the following facts concerning the present condition of the work at Cape Prince of Wales. Mr. Lopp had been absent in the States for some months and was most cordially received by the natives upon his return. He entered immediately upon preparation for the winter. Driftwood for fuel and building purposes was rafted down the coast, which was a considerable undertaking. Mr. Lopp reports to the American Missionary Association as follows:

A log house 22 by 24 was finished and divided into kitchen, two bedrooms, a storeroom, and hall. During the winter the house is buried in snowdrifts to the roof, making our side windows almost useless. Two sides and roof were sodded, a sod lean-to 20 by 12 was built onto the front in October, which is used as a vestibule, woodhouse, and carpenter shop. This temporary inclosure, or entrance as we call it, was lighted by sky-windows, made of clear blocks of ice. This house has proved decidedly the most comfortable and convenient house we have ever used in the Arctics. A house for herders was built near ours. It is the same style as ours and has been used as a home for them when in from the camp. It is hoped that these two buildings will prove object lessons which will not be lost to this settlement. A house which they can use both winter and summer. a compromise between their underground and the civilized house, is undoubtedly what they need.

"Mr. Thornton's monument, which was purchased in San Francisco with funds contributed by Southport, Conn., friends, gave these natives a much needed object lesson in respecting the dead. Before taking the monument up to the grave, we exhibited it at a Sunday service in the Storrs Chapel, explaining to the people its object. We also told them about visiting Mrs. Thornton and her little son and the kind words of greeting which she sent to them and the prayerful interest which she had in them all.

"To think of Mr. Thornton lying in an Arctic grave recalled to us that he often expressed a sent ment so similar to that of the African missionary who is said to have compared pioneer mission work to building the foundation for a great bridge, and, God willing, was content to lie in an African grave as one of the unseen foundation stones.

"A big Christmas box sent by Dr. Storrs's missionary boys (may their tribe increase), containing knit caps, nuts, pocketknives, beads, dolls, etc., a box of ship biscuit contributed by Mrs. Thornton, and dates and raisins from our own supplies on Christmas made it a memorable day-Christmas, 1896.

"Since 1894 no prizes have been given for attendance at school. One serious objection to the prize (biscuit) system was that it educated them to think we were under obligation to them for attending school.

"The religious work.-Two sermons have been preached almost every Sunday. The Sunday school had an average attendance of more than 100 during the winter months. Having but four teachers, the classes were often large. We hope some of the advanced pupils will soon be able to take classes. It was very gratifying and sometimes amusing to see the interest taken in the collection boxes every Sunday. Lead, powder, caps, cartridges, spoons, matches, muskrat, ermine, and squirrel skins were contributed. We expect to use this collection to build a small mission house in the neighboring settlement where driftwood is plentiful.

"Reindeer herd. -The mission herd of reindeer has passed successfully through the three winters and now numbers about 360. It has been free from diseases which have aldicted seriously the Government herd at Port Clarence. To milk a cow they lasso her and throw her to the ground. The mikhusno unfavorable or distasteful flavor and is highly prized by us who have had to depend upon the tin cow'so many years. The herders live in deerskin tents. Our herders consist of six Eskimos. With but $54 worth of goods and supphes, it required close manging to feed and clothe nine people one year. These sax herders should have been permitted to devote their entire time to herding, driving, and breaking, but the limited amount of supplies compelled us to use one or two in turns at the Cape to hunt and work. With our nets and rifles we got some white whale, seals, and fish, and in June walruses, which kept them fairly supplied. Each of them now