Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1892 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

bers the numbers by which they are to be designated on the clearinghouse sheets. The first broker to whom No. 13 was assigned asked to be excused, and his example was followed by nearly a hundred others. Every one of the lot objected in the most decided terms to having that “unlucky number” stand opposite hi# name on the books. Applicant No. 101 accepted it, but after “sleeping over it” went to the managers the next day and begged them to change it for another. At last one was found sufficiently brave or sensible to ask that it might be assigned to him, and Mr. R. H. Niles is entitled to the credit of smilingly accepting the dis* tinction which had been refused by so many of his brethren. It is a wonder those chicken-haurted ones dr not object to transacting business or Friday, that being an unlucky day ijs the calendar of the superstitious And this suggests a query. The pees pie of New York have decided U celebrate on the 12th of next Octobei the discovery of the new world by Columbus. That was the date on the calendar in use at the time of tha discovery. But ten days afterwards were dropped from the count when the change was made from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, one oi those days of error having been added on eight years after the landing ol Columbus. Hence four centuries will not have elapsed until Oct. 21, which day falls this year on Friday. As tht American people have made the requisite change for. Washington’i birthday, and those of them who ob serve Forefathers’ day have similarly complied with the rule, it is in ordei to ask if the New-Yorkers deliberate ly ignored it because the true daM will fall on the sixth day of the week

In admired refutation of tlrt wretched theory that the Indian is intractable to the habits, practice, and restraints of civilization is Carlos Montezuma, agency physician at White Rock, Nev. Dr. Montezuma is a full-blooded Apache, who, tweD. ty years ago, arrived in Chicago from Arizona, as unpromising as any of his people, and began studies that, earnestly pursued, led him through the Illinois University and secured to him a degree of the Chicago Med ical College. The Apaches are be lieved to be the most savage, relent less and defiant of the American Indians, but the Western Shoshone Agency has brilliant proof of tha power of education to transform them into valued citizens. Dr. Montezuma declares: “The Indian question will cease to be a problem when the Government enforces the compulsory education of the Indian—not on reservations or near them, but among civilized communities.” This, it seems to us, is a self-evident prop* osition, the great mistake of tha Government having been in the exercise of a policy that isolated the In* dian, denied to him the rights and privileges accorded to all other per sons born on this soil, and entirely disregarded his capabilities of development from the savage into responsible citizenship That the Indian problem will be unsolvable as long as Indian children are permitted to grow up to the indolence, irresponsibility and viciousness of a depraved and dependent life seems to admit of no argument. The Indian must be separated from his past, divorced from traditionary habits and rescued from the demoralizing influence of hereditary superstitions lefore he can b« reconciled to the demands - "of TnduJ try and beauties and glories of youth is the one sensible and only feasible wayof accomplishing the desired result; and Indian youths can* not be successfully educated to thn appreciation of the new idea of lifft and their relation to it while they ara environed by the old conditions of a rebellious, dispirited, slothful people and discouraged by the example of their ignorant and half-savage elders. Indiau children should have the same advantages as sound judgment demanded for the children of the freed negroes. They must be placed where they can learn the lessons of civilization f*om their surroundings and associations as well as from their books. They need contact and affiliation with the superior race in youth if they are to be expected to emulate that race in maturity. Indian schools | on reservations and at agencies are j better than no schools, certainly, but I they are very far from meeting the requirements of Indian civilization. The necessities of the situation are excellently and sensibly stated by Dr. Montezuma, and as a survey of the case from the Indian point of view ■ we commend his views to the considi eration of those of our readers who ; are interested in the just, honorable | and wise treatment of the Indian.