n of the Government of the United {121}
States to dictate in matters so purely religious and to override the
Christian churches in the choice of their most approved methods of
disseminating the Gospel?

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S LETTER.

The President, under date of March 29, 1888, in response to some
resolutions adopted by the Philadelphia M.E. Conference, writes a
letter on this subject, which deserves careful and candid
consideration, both for what it concedes and for what it does not
concede. We present the portion of the letter bearing upon the points
at issue.

"Secular teaching is the object of the ordinary Government schools,
but surely there can be no objection to reading a chapter in the Bible
in English, or in Dakota if English could not be understood, at the
daily opening of those schools, as is done in very many other
well-regulated secular schools. It may be, too, that the use of words
in the vernacular may be sometimes necessary to aid in communicating a
knowledge of the English language, but the use of the vernacular
should not be encouraged or continued beyond the limit of such
necessity, and the "text books," the "oral instruction" in a general
sense, and the curriculum certainly should be in English. In
missionary schools moral and religious instruction may be given in the
vernacular as an auxiliary to English in conveying such instruction.
Here, while the desirability of some instruction in morals and
religion is recognized, the extreme value of learning the English
language is not lost sight of. And the provision which follows, that
only native teachers shall "otherwise" (that is, except for moral or
religious instruction) teach the vernacular, and only in remote places
and until Government or contract schools are established, is in exact
keeping with the purpose of the Government to exclude the Indian
languages from the schools as far as is consistent with a due regard
for the continuance of moral and religious teaching in the missionary
schools, and except in such cases as the exclusion would result in the
entire neglect of secular or other instruction."

On this letter let me remark:

1. That it concedes what has not heretofore been granted, the reading
of the Bible in the vernacular in contract schools and its use in
explaining the English. We accept this concession with gratification.

2. But it makes no concession whatever (beyond that made in the order
of the Commissioner) in regard to t