ffer than the drugged vision of those succumbed to the lure of peyote.

'E ANSWER

rnoon ten days ago in the of the Hampton Normal stitute rose the sound es, fresh, young, hopesemi-humorous, semilightful old Negro sunshine and soft hrough the open 3 filled with a tudents, other neighboring lothes, the hool, and

r or less vorth, and West.

gathering was the annual

cement" and the celebration of the aying of the corner-stone of the building that is to commemorate the great services of the late Robert C. Ogden to the cause of education generally and to Hampton especially.

It was in the South that the great tragic drama of American life was staged-the slave trade made possible by the ignorance, indifference, and cruelty of the people of both North and South, the terrible penalty for wrong-doing paid in blood by all sections of the country during the Civil War, the crushing burden lai on the impoverished and saddened South when the hordes of untrained Negroes, reckless and intoxicated with their new freedom, were suddenly turned loose on the society of their late owners. Here was a problem which had never been given to any other people to solve. How bravely, wisely, and unselfishly they have faced their difficulties, and how nearly they have solved their problem, in fifty short years, all the world. knows.

Hampton is but one of many of these solutions, though perhaps the most interesting and conspicuous. This beautiful place-beautiful physically and in the spirit of unselfish and cheerful service which prevails there is a stronghold of faith in the greatness of this country, and in the ability of its people to meet and overcome all dangers and difficulties which may beset it, and particularly faith in the promise of the Negro race. Though some of the race are lazy and unintelligent, thousands of them are making good, and from among themselves they have

163

found wise leaders. The young men and women who graduate from Hampton every year scatter all over the South, establishing schools in which they preach the gospel of thrift and industry; or they establish homes or settle on farms where they set an example of wise and successful living.

A LESSON IN BLACK FOR THE WHITES

The Negroes who are lucky enough to attend Hampton Institute or one of its offspring, so to speak, are being better fitted for life than most of the white children in the North. The public school of the North does excellent service for the exceptional child— for the child who later goes to college or adopts as a means of livelihood one of the bookish professions; but the public school does not serve as it ought the able-bodied white boy who leaves school with no prospect but of digging ditches or driving a grocery wagon at two dollars a day for the rest of his life, or the nice girl who goes into the factory with little prospect of rising above a wage of six dollars a week, or who marries the twodollar-a-day boy and becomes a hopeless slattern in a tumble-down house after the arrival of their first two unfortunate babies. Hampton graduates need never fear this fate.

At Hampton the students also learn things. out of books-abstract things-but they learn to apply them to concrete life or work problems. Psychology is made practical by showing its applicability to understanding future employers, employees, pupils, or offspring; geometry is practically applied in the building trades; English, in the printing trades; chemistry, in cooking. For the girls the school has most wonderful classes for teaching thrift. The pupils are shown how to utilize all kinds of waste material-rags are woven into rugs (incidentally an eye for color is cultivated, as the choice of combinations is carefully supervised and criticised), really charming furniture is made out of old wooden boxes and packing-cases, strong and useful mats are made out of corn husks. The pupils are also taught how to make simple repairs about the house-how to set a pane of glass, to solder a leak, to recane chairs. course they learn dressmaking, cooking, the nutritional value of different kinds of food, its cost and its appetizing service.

Of

The people who most need industrial and domestic training are not the ones who demand it. Typical of them is the mother

and a golden-colored badge bearing the inscription, “A Citizen of the United States," and the Secretary impressively explained what each meant. Thus the purse means "that the money you gain from your labor must be wisely kept;" the flag ("the only flag you have ever had or ever will have "), that the Indian must give his hands, head, and heart to the doing of all that will make him a true American citizen. In the same way the Indian woman is handed a work-bag and a purse and told what are the ideals of the American family and home. The ceremony is repeated with each man and woman, and as it concludes the audience shouts its greeting to the new citizen, hailing him by his “white” name.

There are both romance and common sense in this ceremony. It is a token of notable advance in Indian life and of a new and fine attitude on the part of the Government toward the first Americans.

THE CASE AGAINST THE "PEYOTE"

For some time now the Indian Bureau has been alive to the danger that lurks in the little cactus known to botanists as Anhalonium Lewinii. It is the root of this plant that the Indians of the Southwest and Mexico have used as a narcotic drug in menacing quantity. In a recent article in the "Survey" Gertrude Seymour has carefully discussed the distribution of this noxious cactus and its effects upon those who have the "peyote" habit. Peyote is the Indian name for this cactus. Miss Seymour writes:

In Mexico peyote has been of commercial and medicinal importance since long before the Spaniards came, and was included in the Mexican Pharmacopoeia till 1842. It is now used ceremonially and medicinally among practically all the tribes between the Rio Grande and the Pacific, and up to the Dakotas and even to Wisconsin-Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Kiowa, Comanche, Osage, Omaha, Kickapoo, Winnebago, and others. As one writer expressed it, "Peyote has become their religion and hearthside, their physician and their corner drug-store --the preserver of their life." And this is literally true. This cactus they use in an extraordinary variety of cases as medicine; it has become the center of a religious cult for which its worshipers have earnestly fought and are still fighting; it is an article of some importance in

commerce.

The Indians who have acquired an almost fanatic regard for this dangerous drug have

had to face the opposition of all those who have studied its effects upon its users. Legislators and officials in the Indian Department, doctors, matrons, superintendents, teachers, missionaries, and scientific experts have all condemned peyote. Concerning the power of the Government to control the use of this drug Miss Seymour writes:

For years the only statute upon which the Indian Office could depend was the law of 1897 concerning the sale of intoxicants among Indians. . . . A definite gain was made in 1915, when the Department of Agriculture secured the inclusion of peyote under the Food and Drugs Law.... Those who are nearest to Indian interest believe that an amendment of the Harrison Narcotic Law would do the work. . . . Such an amendment is now before Congress under the Thompson Bill, which adds peyote to the list of drugs brought within the Harrison Law. . . . A second bill, yet more drastic, has been introduced in the House by Congressman Gandy, of South Dakota. Congressman Gandy has seen with his own eyes the effects of peyote among the Indians of his own State and elsewhere; and in unmistakable terms his bill aims to "prohibit the traffic of peyote."

Miss Seymour sees in the peyote problem something more difficult to solve than the mere question of its prohibition. She quotes a distinguished anthropologist as saying:

You must see this thing in its proper background. It is a psychological condition, this peyote worship, like several other similar institutions of recent revival among the Indians. The real trouble is the deadly vacuity of their lives.

And here is her own conclusion:

The deep religious and idealistic nature of the Indian, his poetic impulse and æsthetic appreciation, cannot be satisfied with negations, annot perhaps be industrialized, cannot find complete satisfaction in schools and manual .aining or instruction in agriculture. The wider education that shall provide for philosophy and aesthetic culture, as well as a religionthis, and not less, is involved in the problem of peyote.

This testimony as to the idealistic and imaginative quality of the Indian mind is common among those who have observed the Indian at close hand. It is even alleged that some Indians, for the sake of retaining their use of this drug, may be willing to give up valuable property rights which white men covet. Surely it is a sad commentary upon the white man's civilization that, while destroying the native beliefs of the Indian, the white man has no better substi

HAMPTON, THE ANSWER
TO A PROBLEM

On a May afternoon ten days ago in the huge gymnasium of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute rose the sound of one thousand voices, fresh, young, hopeful, singing one of the semi-humorous, semireligious, but wholly delightful old Negro melodies. Bright Virginia sunshine and soft Virginia breezes came in through the open windows. The building was filled with a mixed assemblage of colored students, other colored people from all the neighboring villages dressed in their best clothes, the white people connected with the school, and two hundred odd visitors of greater or less distinction from the South, North, and West. The occasion of this gathering was the annual "Commencement " and the celebration of the laying of the corner-stone of the building that is to commemorate the great services of the late Robert C. Ogden to the cause of education generally and to Hampton especially.

It was in the South that the great tragic drama of American life was staged-the slave trade made possible by the ignorance, indifference, and cruelty of the people of both North and South, the terrible penalty for wrong-doing paid in blood by all sections of the country during the Civil War, the crushing burden laid on the impoverished and saddened South when the hordes of untrained Negroes, reckless and intoxicated with their new freedom, were suddenly turned loose on the society of their late owners. Here was a problem which had never been given to any other people to solve. How bravely, wisely, and unselfishly they have faced their difficulties, and how nearly they have solved their problem, in fifty short years, all the world knows.

Hampton is but one of many of these solutions, though perhaps the most interesting and conspicuous. This beautiful place-beautiful physically and in the spirit of unselfish and cheerful service which prevails there is a stronghold of faith in the greatness of this country, and in the ability of its people to meet and overcome all dangers and difficulties which may beset it, and particularly faith in the promise of the Negro race. Though some of the race are lazy and unintelligent, thousands of them are making good, and from among themselves they have

163

found wise leaders. The young men and women who graduate from Hampton every year scatter all over the South, establishing schools in which they preach the gospel of thrift and industry; or they establish homes or settle on farms where they set an example of wise and successful living.

A LESSON IN BLACK FOR THE WHITES

The Negroes who are lucky enough to attend Hampton Institute or one of its offspring, so to speak, are being better fitted for life than most of the white children in the North. The public school of the North does excellent service for the exceptional childfor the child who later goes to college or adopts as a means of livelihood one of the bookish professions; but the public school does not serve as it ought the able-bodied white boy who leaves school with no prospect but of digging ditches or driving a grocery wagon at two dollars a day for the rest of his life, or the nice girl who goes into the factory with little prospect of rising above a wage of six dollars a week, or who marries the twodollar-a-day boy and becomes a hopeless slattern in a tumble-down house after the arrival of their first two unfortunate babies. Hampton graduates need never fear this fate.

At Hampton the students also learn things out of books-abstract things-but they learn to apply them to concrete life or work problems. Psychology is made practical by showing its applicability to understanding future employers, employees, pupils, or offspring ; geometry is practically applied in the building trades; English, in the printing trades; chemistry, in cooking. For the girls the school has most wonderful classes for teaching thrift. The pupils are shown how to utilize all kinds of waste material-rags are woven into rugs (incidentally an eye for color is cultivated, as the choice of combinations is carefully supervised and criticised), really charming furniture is made out of old wooden boxes and packing-cases, strong and useful mats are made out of corn husks. The pupils are also taught how to make simple repairs about the house-how to set a pane of glass, to solder a leak, to recane chairs. course they learn dressmaking, cooking, the nutritional value of different kinds of food, its cost and its appetizing service.

Of

The people who most need industrial and domestic training are not the ones who demand it. Typical of them is the mother

who, in foolish but genuine pride, declared that her son Link could "talk Latin like the Latiners." The mastery of this classic tongue, however, did not procure for "Link" a more remunerative job than that of day laborer. Another mother, the despair of the local charity society, when advised that if her daughter were trained for housework she might capably assist in cleaning up and taking care of a very filthy and completely disorganized household, replied that she did not want her daughter to know anything about housework; she wanted her daughter to have a career. This is understandable. The poorer classes and all women were long denied book learning. Book learning seems to these people a badge of superiority. They do not realize that it is the ability to make some practical use of book learning that constitutes whatever of superiority there may be. Perhaps only when the Negroes are excelling the whites in prosperity will the whites. come to their senses.

For the woman who has the strength and talent to be a successful lawyer, doctor, teacher, or any other well-paid practitioner. society is learning to provide means by which she may become such. Neither all women nor all men need to turn to manual work for a livelihood or usefulness. A large majority of women, however, devote themselves to the care of the home, expending for it the money earned outside by their husbands; and a smaller majority of men must earn their living as hand-workers. Then why, in the name of common sense, should they not be taught to do well, economically, and easily what now so many of them do badly, expensively, and painfully?

We doubt if any white Commencement in the North or South will have this May or June the human interest or the striking exemplification of the vital principles of education which were characteristic of this black Commencement at Hampton. Are the white people of the North always going to rest content with an education which is inferior to that which many of the black people of the South are receiving?

CONVICT-BUILT ROADS
NEAR DENVER

Not long ago the members of a Colorado convict road camp quit their work on a highway close to Denver and, without guards, attended a theatrical performance in town and then returned to their tents without

a man being reported missing. Warden Thomas J. Tynan, of the Colorado State Penitentiary, who is famous for his development of the honor system among convict road-builders, allowed the members of the camp to attend the theater merely to give an effective answer to the criticism of an Eastern penologist to the effect that it would not do to let prisoners go without guards close to a big city.

ver.

So many gangs of honor convicts have worked on the scenic highways about Denver that motorists from the Colorado capital no longer give the matter a second thought when they come upon one of "Tynan's road camps." A typical scene of this kind is shown in our picture section this week. Convict built roads are to be found in the mountains in many localities adjoining DenTwo roads to the newly created Rocky Mountain National Park are the work of honor convicts from the State penitentiary. These roads are still under construction, and will rank among the greatest scenic highways in the world when finished. One of them is the Fall River Road, which will bisect Rocky Mountain National Park from east to west. The work is all being done by convicts. For many miles the road has been blasted out of the solid rock. Only expert road-builders could put through such a gigantic task. The National Government and the State of Colorado are combining in bearing the expense of this highway through the National Park. Another convict-built road in this region is under construction up the canyon of the Cache la Poudre, connecting the town of Fort Collins with Rocky Mountain National Park.

Owing to the fact that road-building on the honor system has been in effect many years in Colorado, a majority of the convicts at the Cañon City penitentiary have become first class highway-builders. It is Warden Tynan's plan to give most of this work to the long-time men. He finds they are easier to deal with than the short-timers, and less likely to break their word.

The crowning feat of the Colorado convict road-builders was the construction of the most difficult part of the highway connecting Denver and that city's mountain parks. A few years ago Denver laid out a remarkable. system of mountain parks. Denver itself is on the plains, fourteen miles from the most easterly foothills of the Rocky Mountains. But, owing to the coming of cheap transporta