The scientists have made him the subject of technical study, beginning with the generalities of two centuries ago and continuing down to the minutest of detail of modern investigations. Through our records of wars, and our sensational articles, we have been given the impression that his days were spent in fighting, and his nights in war dances. To the scientist he has appeared, not as a man, but as a bit of life to be dissected and preserved; or a specimen duly catalogued, described, and placed in an exhibition case. To the average man or woman, influenced by sensational books, and degrading wild-west shows, and that modern invention, the motion picture, he presents a figure as unreal as it is unhuman. The Indian of today, with few exceptions, having lost his aboriginal characteristics, the faith of his fathers and his whole life changed, is indeed, a fit subject for the educator, the philanthropist, and the social reformer. Would one desire to understand this very peculiar race of red men, one should begin his study by observing the Indian of today. And his observation should cover the character, activities and condition of this Indian of modern times. He should regard him not merely through the cold, unsympathetic eyes of the scientist, who looks for survival of savage or primitive customs, but in a larger and broader sense. To begin with, everyone should realize that the survivors of the American race[2] are more in need today of protection and help than of scientific study. From a purely scientific point of view, the Indian has been pretty thoroughly studied the past fifty years. This statement of mine does not necessarily imply that there should be no technical study of the American Indian in these present days. But as between the work of the scientist and that of the humanitarian the Indian is vastly more in need of the latter than of the former. In the belief that our studies of the American Indian have so progressed that one may now consider the race in its entirety, I have set myself the rather ambitious task of preparing a number of volumes treating of the American Indian of the present and past. After much deliberation it has occurred to me that the Indian of today should be first considered—hence this volume. At the outset, we find that generally speaking the Indian throughout the United States although maintaining much of his original speech, and in places some of his aboriginal characteristics, yet, as a whole, he is in the transition period.