the
spread of serious contagious ailments. More stress is being laid upon
sanitary precautions and hygienic instruction in Indian schools, and an
effort is made to carry this instruction into the Indian home through
field matrons and others. Four sanatoria or sanitarium schools have been
successfully established in suitable climates, and it is recommended by
an Indian Service specialist that certain boarding-school plants be set
apart for trachoma pupils, where they can have thorough and consistent
treatment and remain until the cure is complete. Much larger
appropriations are needed in order to carry out in full these beneficent
measures, and I earnestly hope that they may be forthcoming.

It is interesting to note that whereas a few years ago the Indians were
reproved for placing their sick in canvas tents and arbors, and in every
way discouraged from any attempt to get out of their stifling houses
into the life-giving air, sleeping-porches are now being added to their
hospitals, and open-air schools and sanatoria established for their
children. The world really does move, and to some extent it seems to be
moving round to his original point of view. It is not too late to save
his physique as well as his unique philosophy, especially at this moment
when the spirit of the age has recognized the better part of his scheme
of life.

It is too late, however, to save his color; for the Indian young men
themselves have entirely abandoned their old purpose to keep aloof from
the racial melting-pot. They now intermarry extensively with Americans
and are rearing a healthy and promising class of children. The tendency
of the mixed-bloods is toward increased fertility and beauty as well as
good mentality. This cultivation and infusion of new blood has relieved
and revived the depressed spirit of the first American to a noticeable
degree, and his health problem will be successfully met if those who are
entrusted with it will do their duty.

My people have a heritage that can be depended upon, and the two races
at last in some degree understand one another. I have no serious concern
about the new Indian, for he has now reached a point where he is bound
to be recognized. This is his native country, and its affairs are
vitally his affairs, while his well-being is equally vital to his white
neighbors and fellow-Americans.

CHAPTER X

NATIVE ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

In his sense of the aesthetic, which is closely akin to reli