Untitled article by C. P. B.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 23, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 42

State Aid in Alaska.

By C. P. B.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM WELLS gives in the Christian Advocate, of September 18, a very interesting account of mission and educational work among the Alaska Indians. We quote a portion of three paragraphs of his letter, as follows:—

Alaska has been fearfully neglected in regard to its schools. It was a strange fact that while the real owner of the country did nothing for the education of its wards, Russia has continued to devote comparatively large sums for this purpose; but Russia did this for her church rather than for the schools, and as the United States could do nothing of the kind for a church, and nothing was done by the State, the whole matter remained for a long time in a state of total neglect.

But at last the Government, by an appeal of the Alaskans, was spurred on to duty, and arrangements were made to establish district schools. A Territorial Board of Education was formed, and Dr. Jackson, of the Presbyterian mission work, was placed in the post of General Agent of Education in Alaska. He soon found that the only practical and immediate way of advancing the interests of the charge was to take advantage, so far as possible, of the work already accomplished by the missionaries, and to adopt, to a certain extent, the schools already established and in successful operation. And thus sprang up a system of assisted schools and contract schools, the former receiving a certain sum to aid them in their work on the condition of making it more general, and the latter taking a contract with the Government to perform a work aside from the mission, though in connection with it, that would impart to a certain number of children, or indeed young men and women, the elements of education and a teaching of the trades, etc. One hundred dollars annually given by the Government will support, clothe, and train pupils in these schools, only those being chosen who show an aptitude for the work.

The great question now is, “How does the present system succeed, and what are its wants?” Dr. Sheldon Jackson, at the head of the work as agent, is a thorough worker and a most efficient official. There is naturally a complaint that as the leader of the Presbyterian mission work he will be partial in his patronage of the schools. But he is under the control of the Territorial Board, composed of the Governor and the chief officials of the capital, and accountable to our General Educational Commissioner, Dr. Harris, at Washington. This naturally ties his hands and keeps him within a line acceptable to these gentlemen.

And so it seems that this purely secular Government, a Government which has no connection with any church, a Government whose fundamental law says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” has formed a partnership with several denominations in Alaska. And of this union, Rev. Nathaniel W. Conkling, D. D., a Presbyterian minister, who has just returned from a trip to Alaska, has this to say in a letter to the New York Observer, of September 11:—

Our own mission at Sitka is the most important and flourishing of any of the others. Some one hundred and fifty boys and girls are in the schools, and are there trained for usefulness and good. The baneful feature of Government aid is here found, making a sort of union of Church and State. It is to be found not alone here, but also in connection with the whole Indian school system; it should be found nowhere. It would be well if the Presbyterian Church would decline to accept Government aid in connection with any of its Christian missions.

Just what these evils are, Mr. Conkling does not say; but a remark from another paragraph of his letter gives a sufficient hint of what he had in mind. He says:—

The spoils system extends its wonderful sway even to these far-off shores, and the lust of office induces men to leave their homes in the States and take petty positions in this distant and isolated country. Alas, alas! there are many abuses yet to be remedied before our country becomes what it should be in accord with its name and fame throughout the earth.

So long as human nature remains what it is now, the abuses which the Doctor deplores are practically unavoidable to some extent, in civil government; but the Church might be kept comparatively free from them by keeping it entirely separate from the State. State aid corrupts the Church and does not improve the State, indeed, it corrupts both Church and State.

C. P. B.