What they have already accomplished
in the pursuit of agricultural and mechanical work, the remarkable
success which has attended the experiment of employing as freighters
a class of Indians hitherto counted among the wildest and most
intractable, and the general and urgent desire expressed by them for
the education of their children may be taken as sufficient proof that
they will be found capable of accomplishing much more if they continue
to be wisely and fairly guided. The "Indian policy" sketched in the
report of the Secretary of the Interior, the object of which is to
make liberal provision for the education of Indian youth, to settle
the Indians upon farm lots in severalty, to give them title in fee to
their farms, inalienable for a certain number of years, and when their
wants are thus provided for to dispose by sale of the lands on their
reservations not occupied and used by them, a fund to be formed out
of the proceeds for the benefit of the Indians, which will gradually
relieve the Government of the expenses now provided for by annual
appropriations, must commend itself as just and beneficial to the
Indians, and as also calculated to remove those obstructions which
the existence of large reservations presents to the settlement and
development of the country.
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