The American Missionary | Page 9

last New Year's day, the same young man, "Huntington Wolcott,"
came to me and said--"Last night I arose in the dance and told them that
I had given the old customs and the old Indians a fair trial, and that they
did not satisfy, now I should leave them forever and give myself to God,
and if any others were ready to follow to arise and so make it known.
The other two leaders arose, stood silently a moment, and walked out."
From that time they have given themselves up to singing, praying and
studying the Bible. They had, for two years, been halting between two
opinions, attending the school, church, etc., and the Indian feasts and
dances, too. These three having come out so boldly on God's side, has
made a great change in our work here.
Poor old Running-Antelope feels very sad. It is his desire to keep the
young men from learning Christianity and civilization as long as he can.
He wants them to have everything in common, and to feel that for an
individual to accumulate anything is a disgrace. As long as they feel so,
of course squalor and suffering will be the natural consequences.
The young men are working hard to build up homes and to accumulate
something for their families during the winter. One young man has cut
logs and is building a house. I try to teach them that long prayers and
loud singing is not all of Christianity--that however regularly a man
attends to his church duties, if he fails to provide for his family, his
religion is vain; and if he gives all his goods to his friends and lets his
wife and children cry for bread, that their cries will reach the ears of
God, and his prayers and hymns will be lost in this round of wailing of
the hungry. All this is very different from their old Indian doctrine and
hard to understand.

Elias, our native teacher, has formed a class of young men who meet
every Tuesday night and talk and pray and sing together, and he directs
their thought. I think it will prove very helpful. Then on Thursday night
I have my Bible class, which now numbers about twenty. It is formed
of the young men and women who wish to follow Christ's example, and
band themselves together to learn of him. It has been the training
school of the young Christians.
* * * * *
What could be more encouraging than such facts as these? An Indian
unattended by any white person, dissatisfied with the religion of his
fathers, walks out of heathenism; out of sympathy and connection with
his tribe; out of the religion and customs of his fathers and into the
customs of civilized life, into the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ! In
the words of that quaint old Negro hymn, let those who so earnestly
desire the conversion of the Pagans in America exhort one another to
"Pray on: Pray on."
C.J.R.
* * * * *
THE RAMONA INDIAN SCHOOL.
BY DISTRICT SECRETARY JOS. E. ROY.
This is a department of the University of New Mexico at Santa Fé,
occupying separate buildings and a separate locality, and managed by
the American Missionary Association. A recent visit to the school it
may be worth while to report. It is for the Apache Indians and the youth
who are gathered into it are of the Jiccarrilla band. Their reservation is
about two hundred miles west, and is reached by railroad or by pony
transportation. The teachers deem it better to have the school some
distance from the people so as to make its impression the more positive,
and yet near enough for the parents to visit their children occasionally
while at school. This keeps up the interest and prevents the children
from being educated away from their elders. Two good sized buildings
are used. In one there are the school rooms, the accommodations for the
teachers, and the lodgings for the boys. In the other, under a matron,
there are lodgings for the girls, work rooms for the same, and the
boarding department for all. The Indian girls do the cooking for the
establishment. I saw them getting dinner and I saw many loaves of
beautiful white bread made by them. In their work shop they make their

own clothes. The boys, under the lead of the principal, Prof. Elmore
Chase, work at cobbling, making ditches and cultivating the soil, and
also do something with carpenter's tools. The Government pays over a
hundred dollars a year for each student toward the expense of board,
clothes, etc. The American Missionary Association appoints the
teachers and directs the school. The scholars, thirty in all, have made
very creditable progress in their studies, considering