1900 SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT Indian Rights Association, pp. 15-22

THE EDUCATIONAL HOME.

The Association is reluctantly obliged, in justice to itself and in the interests of truth, to make a statement concerning the controversy it has recently had with the managers of the Lincoln Institution, of this city, which for many years has been conducted as a Government Indian contract school. The work of the Lincoln Institute has been divided into two parts under the same management: (1) The Lincoln Institution proper, located at 324 South Eleventh Street, devoted to the education of Indian girls; (2) the Educational Home, Forty-ninth Street and Greenway Avenue, West Philadelphia, for the education of boys.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs declined to recommend an appropriation for the Institution for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1900. Certain of the managers charged that the Indian Rights Association was responsible for this decision of the Commissioner, and they allege that the Institution has been maligned and persecuted by those who pose as the defenders of the rights of the Indians. It is therefore incumbent upon us to let the actual facts be known.

For a number of years past rumors prejudicial to the good name of the Educational Home (the boys' department) had frequently come to our notice, but they were too vague and general to warrant an investigation. In December, 1898, however, complaints were brought to the office of the Association and personally placed before the corresponding secretary by certain pupils of the Home. They were so explicit and of so serious a nature that the matter could not be ignored, and an investigation was instituted. The charges of the Indian boys were (a) uncleanliness in the school; (b) insufficient and ill-cooked food; (c) lack of proper clothing; (d) inefficiency on the part of the Superintendent and occasional undue violence in punishments; (e) lack of any real industrial training and of systematic teaching, with consequent undue idleness in the school.

It is due these boys to say that this latter complaint was the one most emphasized by them. They said: "The promises made to us by the agents of the school at our homes that we would get industrial training have not been kept. We are being brought up to be 'bums.'"

At the regular monthly meeting of the Association, held December 9, 1898, the Executive Committee appointed a subcommittee of investigation, composed of Messrs. N. Dubois Miller (chairman), Charles E. Pancoast, Charles Chauncey, and Edward M. Wistar, to make careful inquiry into the whole matter. As a result of this investigation the committee made an adverse report, condemning the present management. This report was sent to the chairman of the Indian Committee of the House in February, 1899, when the question of renewing the appropriation for the school was being considered, with the recommendation that the support be discontinued. The Indian Commissioner went personally before the committee and recommended similar action on the part of Congress. This advice, however, was disregarded, partly on account of the activity and influence of Mrs. J. Belangee Cox, the managing directress, but principally because of a telegram sent to the chairman of the committee, Mr. Sherman, by Bishop Whitaker, which was construed as a strong indorsement of the management of the Home and a criticism of the action of the Association. As Bishop Whitaker was the official head of the Home and a vice-president of the Indian Rights Association, Mr. Sherman very naturally and justly gave great weight to his opinion, concluded that there was serious division of opinion among the members of the Association, and so secured from his committee a continuance of the appropriation. There was, however, entire unanimity among the members of the Executive Committee of the Association who attended the meetings at which the matter was considered. Unfortunately, Bishop Whitaker was not of this number, and was not, therefore, fully conversant with the facts.

The report submitted to the Association stated that the Committee visited and inspected the Home, and examined pupils of the Institution and other witnesses, including a former manager. Others whose testimony was requested declined to make any statement. The report continues:

"The history of the Institution is not such as to create a prejudice in its favor. About the year 1885 or 1886 the Board of Public Charities of the State of Pennsylvania made an investigation into the management at that time, and reported in the strongest terms against it, and, we are informed, were met with no assistance from the managers in remedying the abuses then found to exist. Subsequently, charges having been preferred against the Institution before the Society to Protect Children from Cruelty, a committee of that society made an investigation that resulted in the resignation of the Superintendent then in office, and no further publicity ensued. In the present investigation, your committee has had the full cooperation of the Committee of the Board of Council, but that committee has apparently been hindered and obstructed by the managers of the Home in obtaining the desired information. This fact has not only limited to some extent our sources of information, but indicates a lack of frankness on the part of the managers, which, to say the least, is unfortunate."

The report then recites in detail the unsystematic educational methods of the Home and the lack of facilities for industrial training, which has, in some instances, resulted in keeping boys who have come to the Institution to learn trades in idleness for a year or eighteen months. Attention is also called to the inadequate library and to the poor facilities and encouragement for reading.

The conclusions reached by the committee are as follows: "First, the management of the Institution is left entirely too much to the care of one of the Board of Managers, styled Managing Directress, without the necessary and proper supervision and sharing of responsibility by the other managers.

"Second, the salary paid the Superintendent [$300 per annum] is wholly inadequate to secure the services of a man competent to fill the position. As a consequence, the former Superintendent was compelled to resign because of gross misbehavior, and the present Superintendent is, in our opinion, not qualified, either by education, training, or temperament, to fill the place.

"Third, the system employed does not secure industrial education to more than a very limited number of boys, and can not compare in efficiency with that employed at other institutions where the Government pays exactly the same amount per capita.

"Fourth, unless radical changes were made at once in the several points to which we have called attention, we should consider it most unfair to send Indian boys to the Educational Home if they can be provided for at any one of the other institutions where they can receive regular systematic industrial training in conjunction with an ordinary English education. We believe the system sought to be employed at the Educational Home to be practically impossible."

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs was most outspoken in his opposition to granting the appropriation for another year, and is on record as saying that "the money was practically wasted, so far as the school for boys is concerned.""

It should be noted that the Association has made no attack on, or hostile criticism of, the work for girls carried on in the Lincoln Institution proper.

Shortly after public attention had been called to the shortcomings of the Educational Home by the Association a wave of reform swept over the place. Several of the boys reported an improvement in the quality and quantity of their food; that the place had been practically overhauled from top to bottom, and that much had been done in the way of painting, scrubbing, and carpentry work, which greatly improved the appearance of the Home.

Colonel Given, who was Superintendent when the investigation was first made by the Association, soon retired, and within two months he was followed successively by three new men. During the past summer fresh complaints of cruelty were brought to our attention from various sources. One boy came to our office and showed upon his legs and arms welts and bruises which he stated were caused by a whipping received in the Home for a trivial offense. These charges were practically substantiated when Mr. Ebner, the third man to follow Colonel Given, found it necessary to dismiss his assistant for administering cruel punishment to pupils - of which he seemed to have been ignorant.

The complaints thus received were forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the statement that the Association could not vouch for their accuracy, but that their truth or falsity could be ascertained if the Department would make an investigation of the matter. About the same time the Indian Office received letters from several points in the West reporting the statements of former pupils of the Home as to the manner in which they had been treated while there.

The Indian Bureau therefore sent Mr. Charles H. Dickson, one of the best men in the service, to Philadelphia to look into the matter. He spent nearly three weeks here, and made a careful and thorough investigation of the charges made against the Home. His report was strongly adverse to the management of the Home. We are safe in saying that all the complaints or charges referred to the Department by the Association were fully substantiated by the facts. Mr. Dickson's report in substance is as follows:

The contract entered into between the managers of the Industrial Home and the United States provides that the Home shall instruct the Indian pupils in gardening, farming, care of stock, and certain pupils in mechanical trades. The investigation revealed the fact that no provision was made at the Home for any of these industries; and, in addition, in accordance with the contract, they were to have mechanical tools, seeds, etc., but none was provided; that only three or four boys had the advantage of these industries in the city now.

The present Superintendent admitted that twenty-two boys now at school should be having the advantage of some trade, but were denied at that school because facilities were lacking. The agents sent out by the managers to secure pupils represented that the school provided better industrial training privileges than either Carlisle or Hampton. In this way they secured the pupils.

In no sense of the word is it an industrial school as the contract with Government requires. The school has been frequently reported against by different organizations. There were six separate reports by the Board of Public Charities of Philadelphia, the first one in 1884. Four of these very strongly condemn the school management; two show slightly better conditions. The report of October 5, 1884, in which it was shown that only four pupils were out in the city who had received instruction at the school, and who were making a living in different ways, - in bakery and in shoe-shop, - is a fair sample of what the conditions are to-day.

The matter of inhuman treatment of the pupils has also been made the subject of investigation by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Disinterested and impartial citizens of Philadelphia reported that a former Superintendent Jackson, had stripped and flogged one of the boys, administering over a hundred lashes, until, as he admitted, the poor boy fell at his feet and begged for mercy. Jackson was followed by another Superintendent, who used ball and chain around ankles of boys and confined them for some time in a dark and forbidding stable, where they were fed on bread and water.

The evidence submitted shows that one of the pupils quite recently was tied with chains around his legs, handcuffed, and then marched about the grounds. Mrs. Cox admitted having heard of these cases of cruelty, but disclaimed responsibility therefor. Quite recently members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children brought to public notice the severe punishment given one boy, Chauncey Adams, who had even borne an excellent reputation, who had been cruelly and brutally beaten for a slight offense. Boys at school were often punished for telling the truth when that did not suit the management. A pupil named Lyons, a feeble-minded lad, was punished very severely for a minor offense, his thumb being cut open by a whip. Boys were not allowed to speak at mealtimes, and were punished for doing so. One pupil, who ran away from the school owing to bad treatment, stated that the punishment inflicted is cruel, that the pupils are whipped over the head, shoulders, back, arms, and legs. Former pupils write as to the treatment they received while there. The water at the Industrial Home is not good, and on one occasion two boys crossed the road to get a drink of cool water, and upon returning were whipped for the transgression. Pupils were punished for making the complaints to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and to others, thus seeking to prevent the facts from being made public. The boys not being allowed to attend the public schools of Philadelphia, the usefulness of the school is even further cut off.

It is the conclusion of Mr. Dickson's report that the boys should be sent to some other school - either Carlisle or Hampton; that the Educational Home is not now, nor has it been for some years, an Industrial School.

Inspector Dickson's investigation was finished in September, 1899. Mrs. Cox knew that his report would be an adverse one. At a meeting of the Board of Managers of the Lincoln Institution held early in October it was decided to discontinue the work at the close of the school year, and the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

"Resolved, That we will not ask any appropriation for the coming year from Congress, but will close the Institution as an Indian contract school at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1900."

We would gladly have omitted any reference to this subject, but so many articles have appeared recently in the newspapers of this city giving a garbled statement of the matter and attacking the Association that it has seemed wise to review briefly the matter in defense of our position. Indeed, last spring we prepared a full report of our investigations and findings, together with a summary of the numerous adverse reports that have been made by the State Board of Charities and others, which showed that a similar condition had existed at the Home almost ever since its work began. As it was announced then that the school would close its doors at the end of the fiscal year, our report was not published, since our purpose was accomplished: namely, to close the school or to have it conducted under a different management.

NOTES and POSSIBLE FURTHER INVESTIGATION:

* the Indian Office received letters from several points in the West reporting the statements of former pupils of the Home as to the manner in which they had been treated while there. (p. 19)

* Given also spelled Givin

* Ebner also spelled Ebener

* The school has been frequently reported against by different organizations. There were six separate reports by the Board of Public Charities of Philadelphia, the first one in 1884. Four of these very strongly condemn the school management; two show slightly better conditions. The report of October 5, 1884, in which it was shown that only four pupils were out in the city who had received instruction at the school, and who were making a living in different ways (p. 20)

* Pupils were punished for making the complaints to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and to others, thus seeking to prevent the facts from being made public. (p. 21)

Acknowledgements

Heidi Sproat discovered this report and transcribed it.

Document History

• HTML document created by MB 2024-05-17, updated 2024-05-30.