--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Arnold, Frank H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 20 number: 5 published: 1917-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Frank H. Arnold, "An Indian School Paper," *Improvement Era* 20, no. 5 (March 1917): 419–423.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2005unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2005unse start_page: 419 end_page: 423 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2005unse publication_year: 1917 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1917, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # An Indian School Paper An Indian School Paper By Frank R. Arnold We have all heard of Indian skill in hunting and we know that when the Indian goes to Carlisle he makes the best of football material, but it may be a surprise to some to know that the Indians at the Sherman school at Riverside, California, run a paper of their own in which they do all the work of writing, editing, and typesetting. Riverside is famous for its oranges apid its Indians, but the 700 Indian boys and girls at the Sherman school are by far the more interesting. I went out to see them one Saturday morning and found the scholars scattered all over the grounds. The agricultural brigade was just starting at the front gate to sweep all the walks and driveways. They were a merry, talkative crowd, working side by side, and the noise of their joking and of their scratching brooms, coming in regular cadence, could be heard all over the ten acres or more of front lawn. All around the dormitories red and blue blankets were spread in the sun to air, and the girls were busy within with the weekly cleaning. Back in the grounds some of the older boys were doing the brickwork on the new library. Other boys were bringing bricks and lumber in hand carts, stopping now and then for practical jokes, trying to push the empty cart into some boy ahead who was walking slowly, and when there was any slope the whole crowd would race down hill at full speed. All the 700 Indian scholars seemed to be out of doors but I found a good many in the shops. In the printer's shop were five or sixMission Indian boys hard at work. They were in charge of an Oneida Indian who had worked for the Saturday Evening Post. One was painting an artistic illumination of a Christmas poem. Others were setting type and a little Albino boy was folding papers for mailing. These papers were the weekly Sherman Bulletin, the school paper of the institution. These Mission Indians are handsome, quiet fellows and seemed more like Hindoos with a touch of Italian blood than like the average redskin. The four pages of their paper are creditable work in school journalism and the reading of any issue will give you a good idea of the school work and interests. The first page shows that world. The issue the School comes in contact with the outside H10 IMPROVEMENT ERA they were printing gave the information that the school band would participate in the community Christmas celebration of Riverside, and that sixty boys and girls from the school would help in the singing of the choral hymns. Then came an editorial clipped from a Washington paper discussing the new courses of studies for the Indian schools. At present the studies are purely industrial with only elementary grade work and the new plan is to divide the time between industrial and academic subjects. After the editorial was a report of the State Christian Endeavor rally of Virginia which Indians from Hampton Institute had attended. On the program was a Pima Indian from Arizona who sang "When the Roll is called up Yonder," the first leligious hymn to be translated into the Pima language. He also talked about the work of Dr. Charles Cook among the rimas. As there are 86 Pima Indians this year at Sherman this report had real news value. The first page as a whole had much news and some serious comment. Nothing red or "yellow" about it. The three other pages contained nothing but school news. There were personal items about the teachers and reports of the Literary society meetings and much news of the industrial departments. The girls in their meeting had had songs and given q notations, the boys had debated as to whether salt was more useful than iron, and Antonio Chico had given a talk on liquid air. One item about the mending room girls told how 19 girls were doing mending for the entire school and had besides made 1.000 Pullman towels and expected to make many more. Here arc two or three items culled from many which plunge you right into the life of the school and tell you what useful citizens are being trained at the Sherman Institute: "Martha Talas, Annie Scott and Tamania Harrison have 'blue ribbons' on their beds this week in the Minnehaha Home. Judging from the general excellence of their beds, the other girls will have a hard time in getting in the blue ribbon class if these three keep up to the standard they have set." "Mr. Lubo and Mr. Meairs, with the engineer boys, William Enos, Philip Jose, Daniel Wilson and George Ruiz, are putting up the concrete lamp posts along the parade grounds. When finished and put into operation, this will furnish enough light and add much to the beauty of the institution." "Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Gagnon and family of five children from Solon Springs, Wisconsin, spent yesterday and today at Sherman. Mrs. Gagnon is a sister of William Baker, '13. She is a graduate of the Flandreau school, at which place she knew Mrs. Ewbank, who was matron there before coming to Sherman. Mr. and Mrs. Gagnon have been touring California, having taken in AN INDIAN SCHOOL PAPER 421 both expositions. While in San Francisco they called upon leaker who is employed by the H. S. Crocker Printing Company of that city. Mr. Gagnon seeing one of William's pay envelopes on which was marked $30, he determined to see the school where he was trained." Blanket Weavers, "The Painted Desert" San Diego Fair The last of these items has certainly nothing aboriginal about it and that is the surprising thing about the whole school. These children are as happy, as care free as white boys and girls, and fully as intelligent. They belong to 41 different tribes but the Mission, Papago, Pima, Navajo and Pueblo tribes lead in numbers. Of the first there are 148 and of the last 54. The mere fact that they can compose and set up a small paper and correct each other's typesetting mistakes is proof that they can do careful, accurate work. Pullman towels and school journalism may not be very advanced stages of civilization but any one who remembers Fremont's account of the California Indians when he met them in the forties will find that their descendants are vastly improved. It was interesting to visit the Americanized Indians at the Eiverside school and then see the Painted Desert at San Diego with its Pueblo, Apache, Hopi, and Navajo Indians living their primitive lives. To many it was the most interesting corner of thf San Diego Fair and it was certainly a characteristic exhibit of the Southwest. Only four or five tribes were represented. You saw the Acoma Indians making pottery and the Navajos in 422 IMPROVEMENT ERA their round huts weaving rugs and hammering out crude jewerly. and that best is not It was the southwest Indian at his best far behind the civilizing influences of Sherman Institute. But between the two there is a sharp line of cleavage. The Indians of the Painted Desert are genuine specimens with the unique arts and language of their race. At Sherman nothing is left of the Indian but his blood. He is learning the useful arts of inT'ueblo looming up in the midst of "The Painted Desert" San Diego Fair dustry, but why should he abandon completely those beautiful aits in which his race excels and which give him distinction? Arts of weaving and pottery that no white man can perform may perhaps be more valuable to him than anything the white man can teach him. We should rather see the Indian girls at Sherman weaving rugs and baskets than making Pullman towels. We should first develop the best that is in us before taking on foreign culture. Logan, Utah THE MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN Is an institution to be built in New York, fronting 65 feet on Broadway, just south of 155th Street, near the Hispanic Museum. The new structure is to be devoted to the solving of what the New York Times, quoted in the Native American, calls "the great mystery of the origin of the pre-histo:ic races of the Western Hemisphere." The notable Indian collection of George H. Heye is to be placed in the new structure. The