Many of the persons who furnished me with data for my table of statistics also wrote out their views at considerable length. These are valuable in that they are sincere; they come from men and women who are in direct contact with the people. We will omit all those who agree with our present policy. It may be summed up thus: to give the Indians vocational training; to ground them in the rudiments and to make of them farmers, mechanics, carpenters, stockmen, lumbermen, weavers, etc., rather than to attempt to fit so many of them for higher callings. It is well to consider the opinions of several persons residing in separate communities in the great West, and I herewith append their statements, but omit the names of the writers. “Allow me to make one more remark. As far as I can see, the fact that the condition of the Indians is not satisfactory is due largely to the nature of the education provided for them. I think that the education given them is too high and far above their condition in life. It seems to me to be an attempt to make them leap from the bottom to the top rung of the ladder of civilization without having them touch those that lie between. They are not yet far enough advanced in civilization and culture to enable them to follow successfully the higher pursuits of civilized social life, against which the present educational methods try to put them. Thus when leaving school, they are unable to compete with Whites of equal education, while they are unwilling and often unqualified to take up farming or mechanics.” Naturally they all will have to work for a living, and the proper and only occupation that would make them self-supporting will be farming or other manual labor. But having passed ten or more years at Carlisle, Hampton, etc., and coming home to the reservation, serious work is no longer to their liking. Playing and spending money for amusement is about the only thing they know and care for. If they get a position in the Indian Service, they get along as long as they are able to hold it. But the day they are discharged for any reason, they join the army of grumblers and idlers, and help to raise the howl—the Indians are cheated, robbed and trodden under foot. The fact is, as long as they go to school they are coddled and furnished with everything, as only children of well-to-do parents are in a position to enjoy. Then when they are finished, so that they have to stand on their own feet and make their own living, they are not able to do it. Whatever has been used for their education is worn, then thrown away. It has been used to spoil and enervate them, has made honest work hateful to them, has certainly not fitted them for the task of earning an honest livelihood suited to their condition of life.