Mr. GORDON. Yes, sir.

Senator HAYDEN. What is your own judgment with respect to the situation there? Have you had an opportunity personally to visit Alaska?

Mr. GORDON. I have been in Alaska 18 months, and during that time I think, out of 125 stations, I have covered 98, as far west as Unalaska and as far north as Kotzebue. Dr. Fellows, of the medical department, has covered all the stations as far north as Point Barrow. Mr. Hawksworth, who has served for several years in the service, is very well acquainted with the Territory.

Senator HAYDEN. What is the personal judgment of all of you medical men with respect to this medical and educational work in Alaska?

Mr. GORDON. I submit, first of all, that in the educational situation we have in Alaska a unique opportunity for doing a genuine piece of educational work in the Territory and with the people that have peculiar problems and live under very peculiar and extraordinary conditions. The expenditures for educational work in Alaska, when we compare them with the increased cost of transportation, the increased cost of labor, the increased cost of materials, the increased cost of fuel and light, is a very modest sum. There are also, in addition, villages in which we have not yet ventured with a formal educational program attached to a school or in a formal way.

Senator HAYDEN. Are you trying to develop boarding schools for these Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians or establishing a day-school system?

Mr. GORDON. We are, on the other hand, endeavoring to strengthen the day-school system. We have in Alaska at the present time 3 boarding schools, 1 in southeastern Alaska, which was opened 2 years ago, and now has an enrollment of 80. We have a boarding school at Eklutna, which is slightly east of Anchorage, possibly in the center of Alaska, with an enrollment of 131. We have another boarding school at White Mountain, about 60 miles east of Nome, or generally speaking, in the northern part of Alaska, with an enrollment of about 120, of whom about 70 are boarders, and the rest come from the village of White Mountain.

Senator ADAMS. To what extent is the cost of education contributed to locally?

Mr. GORDON. There is no local contribution.

Senator ADAMS. No local taxes or anything of that kind?

Mr. GORDON. On the natives of Alaska; no, sir.

Senator HAYDEN. Are they admitted to the public schools in Alaska?

Mr. GORDON. They are admitted to the public schools in Alaska when we do not have facilities for them.

Senator HAYDEN. Do you pay tuition in the public schools for the education of these Indians?

Mr. GORDON. We are not paying tuition in the public schools at the present time; no, sir.

Senator HAYDEN. Would it be possible to persuade a large number of Indian children to attend the public schools, if tuition were paid? Mr. GORDON. The answer to that question probably rests upon two or three things, only part of which I can answer. It would partly

rest upon the policy of the territory officials, partly rest upon the policy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Upon those two questions I cannot speak. I can speak with some certainty, I believe, with reference to the attitude of the natives themselves. The natives of Alaska rush to school. Contrary to what people very often found at one time in the States in the case of Indians not wanting to go to school, the natives of Alaska clamor for schools, and go to them as long as they possibly can. Where there is a territorial school available, or a native school available, the natives make every use of it that you can expect.

Senator HAYDEN. În these day schools you establish are you trying to carry out the policy of encouraging in them their native arts and crafts?

Mr. GORDON. We have a very definite policy of building the curriculum of each local school upon the needs of that place. We believe two things: First of all, it is not in any way an inferior type of education from the abstract educational standpoint. We can get across as much education on that basis. In the second place, we feel that it is, to use the usual word, a more practicable and more applicable and more lively type of education.

My time in the last 18 months in visiting the various schools has largely been taken up in studying the various situations locally and trying to figure out how the curriculum that is usually regarded as standard throughout the country might be bent, might be adapted, might be changed so as to fit the situation in the various localities. and a new or different program inaugurated, based upon educational principles and geared to the local problems. That, you will readily understand, is not exceedingly easy when you have standard text book, when you have teachers who are graduated from standard courses of study, and who look at standardization as the ultimate end of education.

Senator HAYDEN. In the continental United States there is an opportunity for a young Indian boy or girl, if educated in the Indian schools, to leave their tribal relation and enter into the life of the country as any other citizen. It seems to me that that would be to a large extent denied in Alaska, if you must plan your educational system to fit the Indian into the environment to which he has been accustomed, and that might not be as expensive a type of education as that which we have been giving other Indians here in the United States.

Mr. GORDON. The most expensive type of education, of course, is the boarding school type of education, and of those in Alaska we have only three boarding schools.

Senator HAYDEN. I would like to ask the delegate, if I may, what is the attitude of the people of Alaska toward the admission of the Indians to the public schools?

Mr. DIMOND. So far as I know, no Indian child has ever been denied admission. Wherever the Federal Government maintains a school, the territorial officers have tried to pursuade the Indian children to go to the Federal school, upon the ground of expense. At the present time I cannot give the figures, but I know there are many cases of Indian children in the public territorial schools maintained by the Territory, without any contribution, as Dr. Gordon said, from

the Federal Government. That has been done because the Federal Government, as we conceive it, has not performed its duty with respect to the Indians, and consequently the white people there, who have a hard enough time to get along themselves, take the Indians in, partly on humanitarian grounds, and partly because they are a part of the citizenry. As a matter of fact, I do not suppose they could deny them admission, if they wanted to.

Senator HAYDEN. Are the appropriations made for the payment of tuition for Indian children in the public schools available for expenditure in Alaska as they are elsewhere in the United States? Mr. DODD. I do not believe they would be so construed.

Senator HAYDEN. Do you think that the appropriations we have made from time to time for paying tuition of Indians in the public schools refers to State public schools, and not to Territorial public schools in Alaska?

Mr. DoDD. I do not believe under the present system of appropriating, the funds made available for public-school tuition could be used in Alaska, because the Alaskan educational program is financed through a specific appropriation. Under the alternate scheme which we discussed this morning, the new one of a general educational fund, I believe we could apply the payment of tuition to the Territory of Alaska the same as we do to the several States.

Senator HAYDEN. Permit me to suggest that during the remainder of this year, if you have the opportunity to look into that matter in connection with your proposed change in the budgetary form, that consideration be given to the meeting of this problem in part by the payment of tuition of the Indian children in the public schools of Alaska.

Mr. DODD. I will be glad to do that.

Mr. DIMOND. I want to call attention directly to health conditions among the natives in Alaska. The statistics will show, I believe, all the statistics we have on the subject, that deaths in Alaska from tuberculosis are about three times the ratio that exists in the States and, of course, very few white people die of tuberculosis in Alaska, and therefore the high tubercular rate of mortality exists among the Indians, and really something ought to be done for the relief of those people.

Senator ADAMS. Is that due to physical stability, or to living conditions?

Mr. DIMOND. Both physical stability, in the first place, and also largely living conditions there, and also economic conditions. That is one thing that really, for the welfare of the country, ought to be taken care of to some extent. They ought to be provided with hospitalization and with medical care.

Senator HAYDEN. We thank you for your appearance before the

committee.

Mr. DIMOND. I thank you, sir.

(Whereupon the committee adjourned.).

Cherokee Indians, purchase of land for--.

Consolidated Chippewas, cooperative marketing service for---

Cooperating marketing of crops-

Estimates for 1936, method of submission_

Health, conservation of__

Menominee Indians, allowance for old and indigent.

Natives in Alaska--

Nurses, need for additional_.

Seminole Nation, presentation of claims..

Statisticians, need for additional___

3, 38 40

3, 38 4, 40 3,36 4, 40

52

1

5

5,46

1,5

2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14

2

30

2,30

29

30

49

48, 50

30

2

34

57