study to bring them out. We are hardly progressing as we might. We gave them an honest government, but we made the mistake, in trying to do it, of concluding to too large an extent that old methods and old ways would do best with new rulers and new principles. It is never well to try to make "patchwork.” We all know about the "old wine and the new bottles." We ought never to have left the Spanish law and practice in force, or tried to "patch" them upon American principles and practice.

We found a sanitary condition which demanded our utmost efforts. Smallpox was rife in the island as in no other place (except possibly Russia) that I have ever known. Three thousand cases on the first of January, 1899, were scattered throughout the island; and what was exceptional, instead of spreading from the cities and towns, it was spreading to them from multiple little market places and hamlets throughout the island, which, of course, made it far more difficult to control. It had been said that the United States Government was hardly likely, in acquiring "new possessions," to gain the confidence of the people by its paternal care, as England has done. In this matter of sanitation, at least, I think the United States was as beneficent as it was potential in the new great problems that came to its hand. Suffice it to say, that at the end of five months we had vaccinated 856,000 people, making our own vaccine lymph from 1,240 head of cattle, and leaving only those people unvaccinated throughout the island who were protected by having had smallpox previously or by vaccination, or who were too young, infirm, or diseased to be vaccinated. Since then smallpox has not shown its head, and the United States has furnished to the world as one of its first and great beneficences in itsnew possessions" the proof positive, that universal vaccination will anywhere and everywhere control and eradicate this dread.

Scourge.

We gave them a new financial condition-honest money. We made a mistake in doing it, because the island had only about five million pèsos in circulation, and that was not enough for its needs; and when we came to transmute it into the better material of Uncle Sam we reduced it about one third, and the island has gone "hobbling" on its shortened allowance ever since. We know more now than we did then.

In the matter of religion and education, perhaps there have been greater advances made than in anything except sanitation. There is a population of a million souls, nearly 75 per cent of them classed as 66 white," and yet, as I have said, there was not a structure on the island especially constructed for school purposes when we took possession. There were a few little huts which we made use of during the vaccination period as rallying grounds for our people, that had formerly been known as schoolhouses. The Rev. Dr. Hale asked me once, in regard to the vaccination, how we accomplished so much in so little time, and I told him that I thought it was a case of "Thus saith the Lord" and "no back talk." We made it a "bread-and-butter" question.

The University of Pennsylvania furnished a noble Commissioner of Education in Dr. Brumbaugh, under the civil government which Congress soon gave the island (in the obtaining of which I was happy to bear an active part), and which was their best boon; and the 360,000 children of school age have now over 50,000 of their number in modern schoolhouses, and the number of those for whom school accommodation is being provided is steadily increasing. A normal school, as was stated here last night, has been recently established, and is thriving.

I take it my friend, Dr. Lyman Abbott, did not have in mind undertaking the national control of education where there were already proper facilities. In Porto Rico you can see what these facilities are doing. But unfortunately their revenues are reduced, -partly by the hurricane and partly by the changes in markets for their staples that have taken place, so that they do need the help of the United States Government in the matter of education. It is interesting to note that in this study of Indian affairs and of those of all our dependent peoples we are all agreed upon two things: first, that there must be an increase of education; and second, that those higher moral and religious influences which underlie all other ennobling efforts must be strengthened. In that dual work the adjunct help of the United States can very readily and wisely be given in Porto Rico. We need it there, and it ought to be rendered. For although great effort has given 50,000 children proper school facilities, when you have 310,000 left unprovided for, time is too short to bring them all under the influences of education and the moral and religious influences (which we will all agree are what they must have) by purely insular resources and efforts. There must be on our part an earnest, strenuous effort to increase just those two elements that I have named. It will not be surprising to you to learn that four hundred years of tyranny should have developed in those people great skill in lying and trickery. Mrs. Ames was very much disturbed because the little boy I brought from Porto Rico and sent to Phillips Academy, Exeter, did not seem to realize the propriety of telling the truth. It never occurred to him. It was something entirely foreign to his thought. I had forbidden the young chap to smoke in his room, but coming in late one night I smelt cigarette smoke, and going upstairs found all dark and Henry apparently asleep, but the air thick with smoke. I said, "Henry, you have been smoking." "No, Major," he said, "I was not smoking." A few days after Mrs. Ames called his attention to the fact that he lied very foolishly, and cited his denial to me of a few nights previous, saying that I knew then that he was lying. Whereupon he said, most innocently, "Why, Senora, what was I to say? the Major said smoke not in the house, and I had just been smoking."

When the only weapons of defense for generations against the oppression and rapacity of a brutal taskmaster have been deceit and procrastination, people must be imbecile if they do not become

adept in their use and slow to part with them. The Porto Ricans are not imbecile, but are a people of great individuality. It only remains for this Conference and for other associated forces of the kind to see that the little laches, the little mistakes we have made in the grand work upon which the United States has a right to pride itself, are corrected, and to go forward.

Mr. H. B. PEAIRS.-This subject, "religious work among the Indians," is the one nearest to my heart or I would not take your time this evening at all. I know that you are all well acquainted with the fact that within a few years most of the missionary schools for the Indians in this country have been closed, the work is no longer being done in a good many of them; that is, the missionary work and the Government work have been separated.

While the civil service is one of the best institutions of this country it is almost impossible for us to secure a corps of workers in the Indian service who are deeply interested in the religious work. In training the Indian young people of this country, religious work is more important than anything else. The Government does nothing in the way of providing for religious training, and many of the mission schools having been closed, there is a greater demand to-day for religious training in the Indian schools than there ever was.

The work at Haskell Institute has been organized in a way to make it possible to do considerable active Christian work. We have 325 girls and 425 boys, representing 70 tribes, and those 70 tribes represent approximately 200,000 people. The school is to those young people a home for three, four or five years. We all know that were it not for the training which the child gets at its mother's knee, in later years the grown-up child would many more times go astray, so that we feel that the work of the home should be done in these schools.

We live so near the city of Lawrence that our pupils can attend the different churches in that city. The Sunday mornings are given up to that, and the children are urged to attend those services. Then we have a three years' Bible course arranged, and every student in the school takes that course. Besides that we have a preaching service, a gospel service, non-sectarian entirely, and in addition to that we have our young people's societies, the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. These societies are attended by a surprising number of the young people; at the last meeting of the Y. W. C. A. there were 125 girls present, and the Y. M. C. A. had about the same number of boys, and with the junior societies the meetings are well attended.

In addition to all this the Rev. Father Downey, of the Catholic Church of the city, visits the school twice a week regularly to give instruction to the children of his church. In past years there has been a feeling that no active Christian work could be done in the Government schools for fear of criticism. Last year there was a decision rendered by the Honorable Secretary of the Interior which

makes it possible for active religious work to be done. The decision was that any religious denomination might be accorded three hours a week to give instruction to the pupils belonging to their denomination. This decision is of very great importance to our Indian work, and the religious people of this country need to awaken to the fact that although the Government is giving to these young people the best academic and industrial training they are not getting the relig ious training they should have. There is nothing in the way now of that religious training, and the churches should awake to the situation and there should be more active effort to do religious work.

Most Rev. P. J. RYAN.-Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Before entering on the subject of my address this evening, I shall say just one word in regard to the observation made by Major Ames as to the amounts charged for marriages in Porto Rico by the clergy. The discipline of the Catholic Church requires that all sacraments shall be administered to the people without any charge. We are not allowed to charge anything for the administration of any sacrament, though a voluntary offering may be received. If a priest should demand a certain amount of money to marry a couple, he would be censured of the Church. If they do it in Porto Rico it is an abuse on the part of the clergy. But I am informed that the Government in most instances demanded of the clergy there and in the Philippines a certain amount for each marriage that they performed, and if the priest had not the money he could not conveniently give it to the Government, and it became therefore a necessity for him to demand a certain amount, which he had to pay to the Government. I may also add, that it is certainly not the spirit of the Catholic Church to keep her children in ignorance. If ignorance exists, the cause must be sought outside her influence and action as her history shows, for her schools with her churches marked her path of progress.

I now come to the subject of this evening's address. I was very glad indeed to hear from the last speaker his appreciation of the necessity of positive instruction on the part of the denominations of the children committed to his care.

I presume that the object that we all have nearest to heart is to civilize the Indians, not merely by the external civilization of progress in the arts and manufactures, but in the moral civilization of the Indian heart. And all moral civilization, as the speaker observed, all moral civilization of any people will depend upon religion, as affording motives sufficiently strong to overcome human passion. The classic civilization of Greek and Roman was aided by the religion of Greece and Rome. We often hear it said, "Well, they were pagans." What is paganism? There was, mingled of course with many gross errors, a great deal in paganism which was good and conservative, and which our modern pagans reject. They believed in the existence of a Supreme Being; they believed

in an overruling Providence; they believed in future rewards and punishments; they believed in a number of truths which the men of our day reject, and if they reject them they reject with them even that classic moral civilization which was built upon them.

I remember some time ago meeting an exceedingly bright, highly educated young New England girl, who boasted that she had thrown off the old notions of Christianity and the faiths of the past. After talking with her for some time, and finding in what danger she was from the principles of entire liberty, or rather license, which she laid down, I gave her a letter of introduction to a priest in Boston who was a convert to the Church and knew thoroughly the state of society there. Afterwards when I met her she said, "Why, in that letter you called me an amiable pagan!" "Well," said I, "I must most humbly apologize, and I do apologize to paganism, but not to you. Why, the pagans believed in conservative truths that you told me you were too advanced to believe."

There was also the civilization of the Jews. The Jews had their great moral truths. When we read of them in the Bible we think they were very bad people, but you must remember that the Bible is a sort of general confession of all the crimes of the Jewish people. They were infinitely above the pagans, and they were infinitely above any other people of their day in their moral condition; they had the Ten Commandments; they had the prophets; they had the teaching of their high priest, who with authority said, "Thus saith the Lord."

To that moral civilization succeeded Christianity. Christ spoke with authority, no mere pious platitudes, no mere opinions. He was the founder of Christian civilization, and he left a body upon this earth to continue those truths which civilize the world, and which alone can keep the world civilized, and the teaching of which can alone perpetuate the civilization which we all so prize. To that body he said: "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth; go ye therefore, because of this, and teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world." "As the Father sent me I send you." "He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me, and he who despises me despises Him who sent me." Here was a body with his own power. Here was the charter of Christian civilization. These great truths remain with us, and there must be an authority as great as that of the Jewish high priest to give certainty to these truths, to give authority to these truths, commanding them, teaching them, not merely leaving them to themselves to decide on, but commanding them. "And he who does not hear this body, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican."

Therefore these truths of religion taught by the Church of God must have the certainty that the Jew had in his day, and a higher certainty, as Christianity is superior to Judaism; and hence the necessity of teaching these truths with certainty, with authority.