The gravamen of the objections urged in all this controversy is that the _Government has no right to interfere with these mission schools_; in the first place, in excluding all use of the vernacular in contract schools, even for religious instruction, and in the next place, in controlling the studies of the mission schools _supported wholly by missionary money_ and in excluding white teachers from vernacular schools. The missionary societies have found by long experience that these mission schools in which the vernacular is taught, especially in remote places, are the most effective, and in many cases the only modes by which the people can be reached by the Gospel. The pupils are taught to read the Bible and it is carried by them to their homes. Now we ask, is it the function of the Government of the United {121} States to dictate in matters so purely religious and to override the Christian churches in the choice of their most approved methods of disseminating the Gospel? PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S LETTER. The President, under date of March 29, 1888, in response to some resolutions adopted by the Philadelphia M.E. Conference, writes a letter on this subject, which deserves careful and candid consideration, both for what it concedes and for what it does not concede. We present the portion of the letter bearing upon the points at issue. "Secular teaching is the object of the ordinary Government schools, but surely there can be no objection to reading a chapter in the Bible in English, or in Dakota if English could not be understood, at the daily opening of those schools, as is done in very many other well-regulated secular schools. It may be, too, that the use of words in the vernacular may be sometimes necessary to aid in communicating a knowledge of the English language, but the use of the vernacular should not be encouraged or continued beyond the limit of such necessity, and the "text books," the "oral instruction" in a general sense, and the curriculum certainly should be in English. In missionary schools moral and religious instruction may be given in the vernacular as an auxiliary to English in conveying such instruction. Here, while the desirability of some instruction in morals and religion is recognized, the extreme value of learning the English language is not lost sight of. And the provision which follows, that only native teachers shall "otherwise" (that is, except for moral or religious instruction) teach the vernacular, and only in remote places and until Government or contract schools are established, is in exact keeping with the purpose of the Government to exclude the Indian languages from the schools as far as is consistent with a due regard for the continuance of moral and religious teaching in the missionary schools, and except in such cases as the exclusion would result in the entire neglect of secular or other instruction." On this letter let me remark: