February 3, 1934
THE STATE:
Pace Seventeen
The Cherokees Are Goiftg to School
- by -
R. W. PREVOST
★
NEARLY five hundred Cherokee
Indian boys and girls, descend¬
ants of the powerful tribesmen
that once inhabited the highlands of
Western North Carolina, are now re¬
ceiving modern educational training
provided by the United States govern¬
ment through schools maintained on the
reservation in Jackson. Swain, and
Graham counties where the Indians live.
The center of the government educa¬
tional system is the boarding school at
Cherokee, in Swain County. Here three
hundred pupils live for nine months in
the year, while nearly a hundred more
who live in nearby communities come
to the school for classes. Small schools
in different communities offer elemen¬
tary instruction to about a hundred
more children.
Through the education which the
1 Government is providing for these In¬
dian youth an attempt is being made
to combine academic with vocational
training in such proportions as will en¬
able the young Indians to adjust them¬
selves as far as possible to the modern
ways of life, at the same time preserving
and perpetuating the best traditions of
their own raee.
The Cherokees have succeeded re¬
markably well in guarding their racial
identity as well as much of their primi¬
tive culture against the encroachments
of the white man’s civilization. They
at present have a population of more
than three thousand scattcml over their
sixty-three thousand acres of reserva¬
tion lands.
Fifty thousand acres of the reserva¬
tion lie along the slopes and valleys of
the Great Smoky Mountains, while
thirteen thousand acres arc located
among the Snowbird Mountains of
Graham County. The soil in the coves
and valleys, and wherever it is smooth
enough to be cultivated, is very fertile
and produces bountiful crops of pota¬
toes, corn, beans, and other vegetables.
By occupation the Indians are mostly
small farmers whoso tillable land usual-
runs from five to fifteen acres. Upon
is small plat the Indian farmer is
able to make a living.
It is frequently said that the Indian
ill make little use of the education
vided for him, but that as soon as
EDUCATIONAL work on the part of the government with Cherokee
children in the western port of North Carolina is progressing in a
most efficient manner. And the Indian boys and girls ore taking
a great interest in their various courses of study.
ANTIQUITY and modernity meet in
typical Cherokee fashion in the names
of these two Cherokee youngsters —
Woodrow Wilson Oocummo (left) and
Jeremiah Wolfe. Eoch is aged 9 years.
- ★ -
he completes his studies at the Govern¬
ment school he will go back at once to
his cabin in the mountains and live as
he did before. While this statement is
in some measure true, it is a trait not
to be condemned but rather commended.
It reveals the heroic efforts the Indian
is making to adapt his educational train¬
ing to the most practical uses possible
amidst his own peculiar circumstances.
The Government undertook the edu¬
cation of Cherokee children in 1000.
Since that time there has been developed
at Cherokee a modern educational plant
providing dormitory space for three
hundred students; schoolroom, shop,
and field equipment for the various vo¬
cational projects, hospital facilities,
and recreational opportunities adequate
to the pupils' needs.
The children come to the hoarding
school at the age of six years. Matrons
have charge of the dormitories where
these younger children stay, giving them
the personal attention that would ordi-
★
narily be rendered by their mothers.
The course of instruction at present
runs through the tenth grade, but it is
expected that the eleventh will be added
next year.
When the school was first established
there was considerable opposition shown
by the Indians to sending their children
to a boarding school for nine months in
the year, but this opposition has now
practically disappeared since the ad¬
vantages of education have become more
apparent.
In addition to the academic courses
in the grades and high school, instruc¬
tion is offered in sewing, cooking, home-
making, nursing, farming, dairying,
carpentering, painting, pottery-making,
weaving, music, and other vocational
subjects. The vocational instruction is
chiefly individual and practical in
character, the students being detailed
to their various projects for a half day
every other day.
The class in pottery-making was es¬
tablished this year and is under the
direction of a native Cherokee woman.
Mrs. Maude Welch, who lives on the
reservation. Mrs. Welch has never
studied ceramics or any of the new¬
fangled ideas about the use of clay, hut
sho knows her pottery and displays a
rare skill in modeling and decorating.
Extra-curricular activities are pro¬
vided in music, scouting, socials, hikes,
and a well-planned program of ath¬
letics. Basketball, football, and base¬
ball are the mast popular forms of
sport. There is a party given every
week by some class in the school under
the direction of the teacher, and every
Monday evening there is a movie. On
Sunday morning Sunday school is con¬
ducted and in the evening there is a
preaching service in the chapel.
Л
school paper is edited and published by
the students.
On the school campus there is a
twenty-four bed hospital with a resi¬
dent physician and a corps of nurses in
charge. In addition to serving the need-
of the school the hospital staff also ren¬
ders medical assistance and does public
health work on the reservation nt large.
Examples of unusual ability are not
( Continued on pnt/r Iweniy-'i.r)
