It is a question not a little perplexing, What shall be done with the Indian when he shall be thrown helpless on our government and people? What _has_ been done with tribes and bands which have reached this condition has been, as we have said, of every description; and the results have been not less various. We have had guardianship of the strictest sort. We have tried industrial experiments on more than one plan, and have attempted the thorough industrial education of Indian communities as a security for their social advancement. We have, on other occasions, let the Indian severely alone just so soon as it was ascertained that his power for harm had ceased, and have left him to find his place in the social and industrial scale; to become fisherman, lumberman, herdsman, menial, beggar, or thief, according to aptitude or accident, or the wants of the community at large. True it is that the modes adopted, in fact, in dealing with particular tribes, have generally been due to chance or to the caprices of administration; true, also, that the experiments which have been made do not reflect much credit on the sagacity of the superior race to which have been intrusted the destinies of the red man: but there has been a vast amount of good-nature and benevolent intention exhibited; the experiments have been in many directions, and have covered a large field; and while the results, in the manifest want of adaptation of means to ends, and of operations to material, cannot be deemed wholly conclusive of the philosophy of the situation, yet very much can be learned from them that bears upon the questions of the present day. As has been stated, the issues of the experiments tried have been of every kind. To assertions that the Indian cannot be civilized, can be opposed instances of Indian communities which have attained a very considerable degree of advancement in all the arts of life. To the more cautious assertion, that, while the tribes which subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet are susceptible of being tamed and improved, the meat-eating Indians, the buffalo and antelope hunters, are hopelessly intractable and savage, can be opposed instances of such tribes which, in an astonishingly short time, have been influenced to abandon the chase, to undertake agricultural pursuits, to labor with zeal and patience, to wear white man's clothes, send their children to school, attend church on Sunday, and choose their officers by ballot. To the assertion that the Indian, however seemingly reclaimed, and for a time regenerated, still retains his savage propensities and animal appetites, and will sooner or later relapse into barbarism, can be opposed instances of slow and steady growth in self-respect and self-control, extending over two generations, without an indication of the tendencies alleged. To assertions that the Indian cannot resist either physical or moral corruption by contact with the whites, that he inevitably becomes subject to the baser elements of