REPORTS OF AGENTS IN DAKOTA. 
 
19 
 
OAHE, DAKOTA, August 22, 1885. 
DEAR SIR: I send herewith statistics, accompanying my annual report, for
the sev- 
eral schools in my care among the Indians of this agency. 1 have charge here
of seven 
out-station schools and the home school located on Peoria Bottom. Of these
out-sta- 
tion schools one (Cheyenne River No. 1) is supported by t he Native Missionary
Society; 
two (Cheyenne River Nos. 4 and 5) are provided for by the Society for the
Propaga- 
tion of the Gospel, of Boston, and four (Cheyenne River Nos. 2 and 3, and
that opposite 
Fort Sully with the Fort Pierre school) as well as the industrial school
for girls here on 
Peoria Bottom, are supported by the American Missionary Association. 
The new feature of the year's work has been the change of the Peoria Bottom
School 
from an industrial day school to an industrial boarding school. This has
been done 
on a somewhat limited scale, but work is now begun upon a building that will
be 
ready by the close of October to accommodate 50 pupils. The progress made
by the 
few girls whom we have had during the past year has been marked, and cannot
fail of 
good results. The girls, ranging from 6 to 18 years of age, have been taught
house- 
keeping, laundry-work, how to cut and make their own clothing, in addition
to in- 
struction in English both from text-books and by oral lessons. The most of
them were 
from the villages where they had already been attending our day schools.
The out-sta- 
tion schools at the several villages have in many respects given good proof
of their 
value as educational means. At all but one the vernacular has been the principal

medium of instruction, although at four of them easy lessons in English have
been 
taught. 
The great need of our Indians just now appears to be careful, rational teaching.
You 
may order them to attend school or to do this or that piece of work. You
cannot 
order them to learn with any results worthy the name. I firmly believe that
attend- 
ance must be enforced to secure the best results under existing conditions,
but the In- 
dian must be taught in order to learn; and this is true in the line of industrial
effort, 
most emphatically. I have known of garden seeds being issued year after year,
and 
to this day many of our Indians do not know that it will not do to plant
onion seed, 
squash, and cabbage in exactly the same manner. I give this as an illustration
only. 
When an Indian truly learns to do a piece of work in the proper manner he
has made 
great gain. Doing work properly is second only to willingness to work in
any man- 
ner. I had a man some years ago ask me for a shirt. The shirt was promised
him 
when he should cut and split up a pile of wood into stove lengths. He went
home 
and thought on the matter after accepting, and returned to tell me that I
might keep 
my shirt. It took that man two years to ask me for work, and when I went
with him 
to the potato patch it was wotth far more than he earned to teach him to
hoe. I would 
emphasize the need of industrial training-the commonest kind of industrial
training. 
A teacher in one of our schools does far more in giving some idea of a clean
cornfield, 
neatly kept door-yard, than in any amount of instruction in the school-room
where th& 
pupil repeats this or that Engiish word, when bidden, very much as a parrot
might say 
"Polly wants a cracker"; and it has occurred to me at different
times that possibly 
here is just the field for our boys and girls after they have spent a few
years at Hamp- 
ton, Carlisle, or Santee, and matured somewhat after return home. If Hampton,
Car- 
lisle, and Santee would only teach how to teach these common things! 
I am, very respectfully, yours, 
T. L. RIGGS, 
Missionary. 
WILLIAM A. SWAN, Esq., 
United States Indian Agent, Cheyenne River Agency, Dakota. 
CROW CREEK AND LOWER BRULUI AGENCY, 
Crow Creek Agency, Dakota, August 17, 1885. 
SIR: I have the honor to submit my third annual report as agent for the consoli-

dated agency of Crow Creek and Lower Brul6. 
CROW CREEK AGENCY. 
The average number of Indians drawing rations at this agency during the past
year 
was 1,009. Of these 6 are Lower Brul6 Sioux, 14 Yanktons, 20 Santees, and
of mixed 
blood 93. 
 
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