chanical work, the remarkable
success which has attended the experiment of employing as freighters
a class of Indians hitherto counted among the wildest and most
intractable, and the general and urgent desire expressed by them for
the education of their children may be taken as sufficient proof that
they will be found capable of accomplishing much more if they continue
to be wisely and fairly guided. The "Indian policy" sketched in the
report of the Secretary of the Interior, the object of which is to
make liberal provision for the education of Indian youth, to settle
the Indians upon farm lots in severalty, to give them title in fee to
their farms, inalienable for a certain number of years, and when their
wants are thus provided for to dispose by sale of the lands on their
reservations not occupied and used by them, a fund to be formed out
of the proceeds for the benefit of the Indians, which will gradually
relieve the Government of the expenses now provided for by annual
appropriations, must commend itself as just and beneficial to the
Indians, and as also calculated to remove those obstructions which
the existence of large reservations presents to the settlement and
development of the country. I therefore earnestly recommend the
enactment of a law enabling the Government to give Indians a title in
fee, inalienable for twenty-five years, to the farm lands assigned to
them by allotment. I also repeat the recommendation made in my first
annual message, that a law be passed admitting Indians who can give
satisfactory proof of having by their own labor supported their
families for a number of years, and who are willing to detach
themselves from their tribal relations, to the benefit of the
homestead act, and to grant them patents containing the same provision
of inalienability for a certain period.

The experiment of sending a number of Indian children of both sexes to
the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, in Virginia, to receive
an elementary English education and practical instruction in farming
and other useful industries, has led to results so promising that it
was thought expedient to turn over the cavalry barracks at Carlisle,
in Pennsylvania, to the Interior Department for the establishment of
an Indian school on a larger scale. This school has now 158 pupils,
selected from various tribes, and is in full operation. Arrangements
are also made for the education of a number of Indian boys and girls
belonging