WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENCE
for the Indians should not be permitted ; that the
extension of the practise should be definitely
prohibited; that the only real question open
to discussion is the treatment which should
be accorded to the teachers who are now in
the government service and who have been
officially given a civil-service status.
That any rule which is now adopted with
regard to these teachers must recognize the
fact that the government not only permitted
but originally encouraged the churches and
various religious and charitable organizations
to establish schools among the Indians; that
many of these schools have been taken over
by the government under an arrangement, ex-
press or implied, by which the teaching force
was covered into the public service without
discrimination as to religious beliefs and with-
out discrimination as to whether the teachers
did or did not wear a distinctive garb indica-
tive of such beliefs, and that as a result a
number of teachers are now, and some of them
for many years have been, members in Catho-
lic orders whose vows are for life and which
require the wearing of a garb distinctive of
such membership,
That both Congress and the department have
heretofore adopted the policy of proceeding by
definite but gradual steps to terminate the
practise of recognizing sectarian religious or-
ganizations as governmental agencies in the
education of the Indians, but that while apply-
ing this policy to the gradual and now com-
plete elimination of the contract schools the
Indian Office has mistakenly continued to take
into the classified service additional teachers
wearing a distinctive garb, permitting these
teachers to carry on the schools in a manner
almost as distinctly sectarian as before they
were taken over by the government.
That it is this mistake (about the exist-
ence of which we agree) which should now
be corrected, not by abruptly dismissing from
the service those whom we have taken into
it and given the protection of the civil-serv-
ice law, but by ceasing to introduce into the
service the teachers of any sectarian relig-
ious schools; by filling all new positions and
all vacancies in the teaching force from the
eligible registers of the Civil Service Com-
mission : and by requiring all teachers, whether
now in the service or hereafter admitted,
whether wearing a religious garb or not wear-
ing such a garb, whether Protestant or Catho-
lic, to refrain from all sectarian instruction
753
or the use of their positions for sectarian
ends.
With almost one accord the Catholic
periodicals expressed their joy over the
fact that the nuns and priests now em-
ployed in the Indian service are to con-
tinue to wear their garbs and teach, un-
til they drop out by reason of death or
other cause. However, in the light of
Mr. Fisher’s order, these Catholic teach-
ers stand in no enviable position before
the American public, in spite of their ap-
parent victory. It is freely stated by
the secretary that they are in the schools
because of a mistake on the part of the
Indian Department in failing to carry
out the policy adopted by Congress years
ago, which should “now be corrected.”
More than that, Mr. Fisher says that the
wearing of religious garbs should be
definitely prohibited as a matter of “wise
and far-seeing administrative policy ;”
and that this regulation should be “kindly
but firmly enforced.”
Mr.
Fisher's decision is worthy of
study ; he suggests some conditions ex-
isting in this country that should pro-
voke serious thought. He states that the
question as to whether or not distinctive
religious apparel may be worn in our
Indian schools is merely a
MATTER OF ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY.
Should a matter of such importance be
left to the varying moods of diverse ad-
ministrations? There is a possibility if
not a probability that when our govern-
ment becomes a little more Romanized,
an official will arise and affirm that in
his judgment it is proper to continue the
wearing of these garbs. In the liberty
granted to him in carrying out his “ad-
ministrative policy” he would no doubt’
carry his point.
There are many citizens in this coun-
try who believe that the wearing of re-
ligious garbs by teachers amounts to