UNITED STATES BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATIONAL COMPETENCY.

This certifies that Everidge Benton, a five-eighths blood Indian, of the Choctaw Tribe, having satisfactorily completed the course in commercial training at the Haskell Institute Indian School, as authorized by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was awarded a diploma of graduation at the close of the school year 1917, and from this record and other information submitted concerning his work as a student he is regarded as possessing such character, judgment, and educational qualifications as render him reasonably competent to transact his own business and to care for his own individual affairs.

Given at Washington, D. C., on this 12th day of June, nineteen hundred seventeen.
[SEAL.]
CATO SELLS.
Commissioner.

THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL.

The United States Indian School at Carlisle, Pa., will not continue as an institution for the academic and vocational training of Indian boys and girls, but is being turned over to the War Department to be used for Army hospital purposes, and for the rehabilitation and reeducation of sick and wounded soldiers. While the actual transfer will not be finally made until September 1, 1918, yet the plans therefor have been fully perfected and partly carried into effect. The educational system of the Indian Department will not suffer because of the abolishment of the Carlisle School, as the student body has been considerably depleted by enlistments in the Army and Navy, and the war industrial requirements are such as to demand many older pupils who might otherwise be enrolled as students. Therefore accommodations for the Carlisle students are available in other Indian schools and arrangements are being made for their transfer to well-equipped schools located nearer the vicinities in which they reside, which will be to their advantage in many respects rather than otherwise.

This important transaction will create surprise among many, and possibly regret to those who have had intimate knowledge of the great influence of this school as an educational factor among the Indians, but it can not fail to meet with general approval and the most cordial patriotic sanction when the facts and demands of the present conditions are considered. The sick and disabled soldiers of the American Army must have adequate care and treatment and this need is constantly increasing. The medical department of the Army has been in quest of suitable buildings and sites for hospitals, and there is present urgent need for such facilities as can be utilized with the least possible delay. Moreover, post-war problems are already at hand and reconstructive measures must be initiated. A large factor in this work is the reeducation of soldiers physically disabled in the war. The school plant at Carlisle is well adapted

to this purpose and many of its buildings, with a little alteration, can be speedily used for hospital purposes, while its extensive shops and much of its machinery and equipment afford the requisites for vocational training and for the practice of new occupations or the new ways of following old trades.

The following correspondence between the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Interior concerning the transfer of the Carlisle School is self-explanatory:

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, July 9, 1918.

MY DEAR MR. SECRETARY: The Army medical department has been looking for suitable buildings and sites for hospitals. We are greatly in need of hospital facilities at the present time. My attention has been drawn to the Carlisle Indian School, which, because of its far eastern location and remoteness from the centers of Indian population, might be available for this purpose, especially as under the law of 1882, which created the Indian School at Carlisle, its return to the Army was provided for under certain eventualities.

I am wondering whether the Department of the Interior would care to consider the advisability of turning this property back to the Army for hospital purposes and for the rehabilitation and reeducation of the sick and wounded from the war. I am informed that there is a very considerable equipment there which might be utilized for this purpose.

Cordially, yours,

The honorable the SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR,
WASHINGTON, July 16, 1918.

DEAR MR. SECRETARY: I have your letter of July 9, asking whether the Indian School plant at Carlisle, Pa., could be turned over to the Army for hospital purposes and for the rehabilitation and reeducation of the sick and wounded soldiers.

I find that the pupils now enrolled in the Carlisle School can be accommodated in other Indian schools, and in view of the need by the Army of an institution of this character, I have given my consent to the turning over of the plant for the purposes indicated.

I have asked Commissioner Sells to arrange to vacate the plant by September 1, and suggest that any matters pertaining to the use of furnishings or equipment be taken up with him by such official of your department as you may designate. Cordially, yours,

Hon. NEWTON D. BAKER,

(Signed)

FRANKLIN K. LANE.

Secretary of War.

HEALTH.

The health work of the Indian Service throughout the past fiscal year was conducted under increasing difficulties, owing to the patriotic response of many of our physicians and nurses to their country's call, yet, due to the impetus given the campaigns on the various reservations during the immediately preceding years, a definite progress has been recorded.

All our health activities are planned and promoted upon the principle that permanent results in these matters must come through popular education in sanitation, ventilation, care of children, care of the sick, domestic economy, etc. Despite the loss of many health workers this line of endeavor has been faithfully carried forward to the greatest possible extent and much good has been accomplished. Another hardship which has been keenly felt is the greatly increased prices of all supplies, particularly medicines, drugs, and surgical instruments, the cost of which it has been necessary to meet with appropriations no larger than those of former years, or not increased proportionately to the advanced cost of the material, for the purchase of which they were intended. A patriotic spirit of endeavor, however, has actuated our employees, and a faithful attempt has been made to secure the best possible results with the facilities available.

Tuberculosis and trachoma continue to furnish two hard problems to solve in upbuilding the health of the Indian race. Notwithstanding the loss of physicians, it has been possible to operate all of our sanatoria during the year, and many cases of tuberculosis have been treated therein. Additional facilities have also been provided, and in some instances existing institutions have been enlarged, where the need was imperative, either by limited new construction, or through the purchase of buildings already completed, or by remodeling.

The endeavors to eradicate trachoma have suffered principally from the loss of specialists who were employed particularly for this work. These losses, however, occurred during the latter part of the fiscal year, so that the work was continued with but little abatement, and much has been, and is being, done to suppress this disease among the Indians. It is not uncommon to find trachoma entirely under control and practically eradicated at many of the boarding schools, due to the effective treatment which is possible when suitable control can be exercised over the cases. The greatest difficulty in this work exists among the older infected Indians who are more difficult to reach and treat, and as a consequence remain as foci for the dissemination of the disease. Accordingly everything possible is done to place them under treatment where feasible, and to educate them in cleanliness, in order to prevent contagion.

Continued emphasis has been laid upon the better babies' movement, which was actively inaugurated year before last, and which demonstrated such remarkably immediate and gratifying results. This campaign has now become a regular feature of the reservation activities and will continue to receive the earnest attention and efforts which it merits.

A number of schools and reservations were visited during the past year by epidemics, including smallpox, "liberty" measles, pneumonia, and acute influenza. Measles is always dreaded among Indian children, a common sequel being tuberculosis, and for this reason all possible steps were taken to prevent the spread of the disease and to give those infected proper care and after treatment. Fortunately, the epidemics for the most part have not been of a severe nature and, as a rule, serious results did not follow.

Among the Navajos and Hopi Indians in Arizona and New Mexico considerable trouble has been experienced with smallpox, which, though of a mild form, became epidemic among these people during the last year. Vigorous steps were immediately taken to suppress this contagion, special physicians and the medical supervisor being detailed for the purpose of conducting a campaign of vaccination. Hundreds of Indians were vaccinated and it is now known that the efforts of these physicians, which were augmented and continued after their departure by the regular medical forces on the reservations, have placed the disease under control. Of especial interest in this connection is the campaign of vaccination conducted by the supervisor of hospitals among the Hopi Tribe living upon the Moqui Reservation. These people dwell in communities and for that reason are more amenable to quarantine and control than the nomadic Navajos. The supervisor in his report upon this work states that every Hopi Indian not presenting a history of recent successful vaccination. or who had not had smallpox, was immunized in this campaign, and he is of the opinion that the whole tribe has been rendered immune.

At the Haskell Institute during the past spring a severe epidemic of influenza, or as observed in many parts of the United States a combination of streptococci and influenza bacilli, accompanied by pulmonary complications suddenly developed, resulting in several deaths among the pupils. For the purpose of assisting the local medical force in handling this epidemic, and for the purpose of investigating its source, a special physician and nurse were immediately detailed to the school, and the services of an epidemiologist from the Public Health Service were secured. Prompt measures succeeded in keeping the mortality down to a minimum. High winds and dust storms were prevailing at that time in the country surrounding this school, and the consensus of opinion seemed to be that the infection was wind-borne

Altogether, the health propaganda of the Indian Bureau is rendering its most righteous service. The perpetuation of the race is a first consideration. Education, and the protection and accumulation of property are greatly to be desired; to this end we are exerting ourselves to the uttermost, but everything is necessarily secondary to life.

IRRIGATION.

Irrigation was practiced to a considerable extent by many Indians of the southwest long before the white man came to this country. Evidences of prehistoric canals and ditches, among the Pimas in Arizona, bear mute testimony of the genius and industry of these people who eagerly grasp the improved facilities offered by the white man and the belated assistance extended by the Government. When the Spaniards came to New Mexico they found the Pueblo Indians packing baskets of earth on their backs to repair their old ditches or construct new ones to irrigate additional lands.

Irrigation is or should be resorted to in those localities where rainfall is insufficient or is not dependably sufficient for crop production. Fundamentally, it consists of the artificial application of water to land for agricultural purposes.

Water for irrigation is ordinarily secured by damming rivers, pumping from underground reservoirs or impounding flood-waters. The first has been longest used and is the most general. Pumping water has been resorted to with satisfactory results, and in some localities is the best, if not the only means, of supply. The impounding of waters which would otherwise be wasted is a method of conservation which has been utilized to a great advantage and is certain to be more extensively employed. There are millions of acres of land, particularly in the southwest, that could in this way be brought under cultivation. Such land lies largely in semiarid sections, where drought and crop failures are so frequent and disastrous as to make failure to employ this feasible solution an economic crime. A notable example of flood-water conservation, from an intermittent and ordinarily limited flow, has been successfully effected in damming a branch of the Trinity River, near Fort Worth, where a great lake, containing an immense and permanent supply of water, has been created. What has been done to furnish water for the city of Fort Worth, and for pleasure purposes, can be as successfully accomplished for irrigating land not only in Texas but everywhere, under like conditions, throughout our entire country.

The fast growing population of the United States and the constantly increasing requirements for food production demand that every acre of tillable land should be made to yield each year to the full extent of its possibilities.