REPORTS OF AGENTS IN INDIAN TERRITORY. 
 
up the stock. All have more or less ponies, in which they take great pride.
While 
,stock will do well for eight or nine months in the year, yet more care should
be taken 
to prepare feed for the remaining three or four months. Indians and others
that have 
had stock in this country have suffered greatly the past year for want of
sufficient 
feed to tide them over the cold winter. Perhaps one year in three stock will
get 
through, but they are in poor condition to take food in the spring. The Indians
are 
beginning to learn this, and more hay is being put up this fall than was
ever known 
'before. A large number of full bloods have purchased new machines and are
cutting 
for themselves and neighbors. 
INDIAN EDUCATION. 
I have long believed that to educate the Indian was the only way to solve
the 
much perplexed Indian problem, and am more fully convinced that, while the
Gov- 
ernment is looking after their interests in other directions, ample provision
should 
be made for the education of every Indian child, and they be compelled, if
necessary, 
to comply with such provision. If this were carried out, in one generation
the Indians 
would be an English-speaking people, acquainted with the labors, habits,
and means 
,of our self-sustaining, self-governing race. They would then be ready for
citizen- 
ship, and should be accorded the privilege of earning their own livelihood.

With the above idea in view I secured the passage of a compulsory "
education 
law" by the Osages, penalties pertaining only to their annuity rights.
In my last 
annual report I noticed the progress as a result of this law as far as the
opening of 
the school September 1, 1884. 
The agency school soon became overcrowded. I first sent 50 children to Carlisle,

ra., then 15 to Osage Mission Kansas, and 30 to Haskell Institute, Lawrence,
Kans. 
We still had more in school than could be accommodated comfortably. A day-school

was then organized on Bird Creek by some of the citizens, and a number of
young 
scholars taken out and placed there. Also 16 children were sent to Houghton,
Iowa; 
making a total of over 120 taken from the agency school during the year,
and still the 
school was full nearly all the time. During the entire year the results were
beyond 
my fondest anticipations. The Indians soon learned that if they wanted a
child for a 
few days for any special reason they must first obtain an order for it from
the office. 
At Kaw the regulation of the Indian office was equally as effective of good
results, 
and I am fully convinced that if the vantage-ground is not lost, the children
of this 
agency will practically all in ten years secure a common-school education.
I cannot 
believe that the Government can afford to let the opportunity pass. 
WATER-SUPPLY. 
For years we have been trying to secure a supply of water for the schools,
and at 
last succeeded in striking a vein of good water sufficient for all purposes
near the 
-center of the village. Having on hand a steam-pump, I erected a 500-barrel
tank on 
a stone tower 20 feet high, on the hill or plain upon which the school buildings
and 
agent's residence are situated, and with a system of pipes water is furnished
to almost 
any part of these buildings; have also laid mains and placed hydrants to
all the Gov- 
ernment buildings in the village below, having about 90 feet pressure, which
gives 
good security from fire. The steam-pump is also so arranged that it can be
utilized at 
twenty minutes' notice, and increases the force of the water-pressure to
any extent 
the pipes will bear. There is in all nearly three-fourths of a mile of pipe,
all the work 
being done by agency mechanics, except the building of the tower, and at
an ex- 
-ense not exceeding $600. 
LEASES TO CATTLEMEN. 
As I stated in my last report, these leases were made by the Indians of this
agency for 
two reasons: first, that they might derive a revenue from a portion of their
reservation 
that they did not require for their present use; and, second, as a means
of protection 
from the promiscuous grazing of their lands by cattle owned by parties living
along the 
borders of the reservation that allowed their cattle to run at will. As a
result of the 
-system, the Indians have received during the past year more than ten times
the amount 
ever received in any one year prior to the granting of these leases,,and
to my knowl- 
edge there is not a herd of foreign cattle on the reservation outside the
pastures. 
Many fanatics have filled the newspapers of the country for months past with
sen- 
sational articles, stating how the poor Indian was being crowded off from
his range, 
and would-be philanthropists have expressed their sympathy with the poor
Indian 
ponies that must suffer and die because the white man's cattle were allowed
to eat 
up all the grass. I can assure all such troubled spirits that I can take
them a week's 
ride over the million acres inclosed by these pastures, and reserved by the
Indians for 
their own use, where the grass is belly-deep to horses, in which they cannot
discern 
the trail of a pony (Y, cow the past summer, all of which will be burned
this autumn 
inutilized.