Report-1851, October 1

Transcribed report on the activities of the Indian Manual Labor School Thomas Johnson, Superintendent Manual Labor School to Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated Oct 1, 1851.

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Ind. M. L. School
October 1st 1851

Sir

     I have the honor to submit to you the following, together with the accompanying documents, as the Report of our School for the quarter ending Sept. 30th 1851.

     Document No. 1 is an Exhibit of the names of the scholars in the Male, and No. 2 of those in the Female Department, together with the other items of information required by instructions.

     On inspection of these, you will find the number of scholars in the one to be 30 – in the other 37 – making the aggregate in the school 67.

     I would here beg leave to explain what perhaps you may not otherwise under­ stand while examining these Documents.

     Our plan last year was,+ henceforth will be, to teach 10 months without any vacation – throwing the other 2 months all in our vacation – + so to arrange it that this may fall in the hottest+ most sickly part of the year.

     We therefore closed a ten months session on the last of June+ gave vacation till the 29th of August – at which time our present session commenced. Our annual vacation having thus taken up nearly all of the first two months of the past quarter, you will understand the reason why most of the scholars are marked as having been in attendance but five weeks.

     Those who remained during vacation, + who were boarded, clothed,+ required the care of a teacher during that time, we have set down as having been in attendance three months.

     This we considered – + you will no doubt agree – was nothing more than strict justice to ourselves.

     Although sickness this season has prevailed+ is still prevailing to an unusual extent among the adjoining Tribes, still our number of scholars is uncommonly large for this particular season for generally they are very hard to be collected in, until late in the Fall. The present prospect is that we shall be unusually crowded with scholars this winter.

     The health of the school itself has been even better than we could have expected, considering the prevalence of disease through the country.

     Though we have had some sickness, yet in no instance has it proved fatal + the sickness itself seems now to be subsiding

Respectfully submitted
Thos. Johnson supt

Hon. Luke Lea.

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[Transcribed from microfilm roll# MS981 Frames 1410-1411 in the collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, (National Archives Microfilm series M234, roll 785) by Roger Berg Jr. April, 1991]