hing else--rations, annuities, and tribal negotiations,
with the agents, inspectors, and commissioners who distribute and
conduct them--must pass away when the Indian has become a citizen,
secure in the individual ownership of a farm from which he derives his
subsistence by his own labor, protected by and subordinate to the laws
which govern the white man, and provided by the General Government or
by the local communities in which he lives with the means of educating
his children. When an Indian becomes a citizen in an organized State
or Territory, his relation to the General Government ceases in great
measure to be that of a ward; but the General Government ought not at
once to put upon the State or Territory the burden of the education of
his children.

It has been my thought that the Government schools and school buildings
upon the reservations would be absorbed by the school systems of the
States and Territories; but as it has been found necessary to protect
the Indian against the compulsory alienation of his land by exempting
him from taxation for a period of twenty-five years, it would seem to
be right that the General Government, certainly where there are tribal
funds in its possession, should pay to the school fund of the State what
would be equivalent to the local school tax upon the property of the
Indian. It will be noticed from the report of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs that already some contracts have been made with district schools
for the education of Indian children. There is great advantage, I think,
in bringing the Indian children into mixed schools. This process will
be gradual, and in the meantime the present educational provisions and
arrangements, the result of the best experience of those who have been
charged with this work, should be continued. This will enable those
religious bodies that have undertaken the work of Indian education with
so much zeal and with results so restraining and beneficent to place
their institutions in new and useful relations to the Indian and to his
white neighbors.

The outbreak among the Sioux which occurred in December last is as to
its causes and incidents fully reported upon by the War Department
and the Department of the Interior. That these Indians had some
just complaints, especially in the matter of the reduction of the
appropriation for rations and in the delays attending the enactment of
laws to enable the Department to perform the engagements entered