per capita per
annum) for each pupil actually in attendance, the religious society or
individual to whom the contract was given providing buildings, teachers,
and equipment. It does not appear that there was any unjust
discrimination between religious bodies in the application of these
funds, and the fact that in the course of a few years a large and
increasing proportion passed under the control of the Bureau of Catholic
Indian Missions must be attributed entirely to their superior enterprise
and activity. This was a period of awakening and rapid growth. By 1886
the total appropriations for Indian education had risen to more than
$1,000,000, and the contracts aggregated $31,000. In ten years more the
Catholics alone drew $314,000. But, during this decade, the policy of
assisting sectarian schools with the public money, claimed to be a
violation of the American principle of separation of Church and State,
had been continuously under fire; and in 1895 it was finally decided by
Congress to reduce the contracts 20 per cent. each year until abolished.

Meantime, the Methodists first in 1892, followed by all the other
Protestant bodies, voluntarily relinquished their contracts, but the
Catholics kept up the fight to the end; nevertheless, in 1900, all
Congressional appropriations for sectarian schools were finally
withdrawn.

Naturally this reversal of a policy of such long standing, even though
due notice had been given, worked serious hardship to schools
established in the expectation of its continuance. Bishop Hare's
valuable work in South Dakota was crippled, particularly as the
principle at issue was so interpreted by the Indian office as to forbid
the issue of treaty rations to children enrolled in mission schools,
although they would have received such rations had they not been in
school at all.

It was held by the Bureau of Catholic Indian missions that Indian treaty
and trust funds are in a different class from moneys derived from the
taxpayers, and that it is perfectly legitimate for a tribe to assign a
portion of its own revenues to the support of a mission school. The
Supreme Court has since declared this view to be correct, and
accordingly this church still utilizes tribal funds to a considerable
amount each year. Rations were also restored to certain schools by act
of Congress in 1906.

As in the case of the sectarian protests against President Grant's
policy in regard to manning the Indian agencies, I be