But if you are a guardian, and have a ward, you are not satisfied if your
ward, presumedly an ignorant person in a state of pupilage, merely has
enough to eat and to wear. You endeavor to form his manners and morals.
Well, the Indian camp at Round Valley is in a deplorable state of
disorder. No attempt is made to teach our wards to be clean or orderly,
or to form in them those habits which might elevate, at least, their
children. The plain around the shanties is full of litter, and overgrown
with dog-fennel. As Mr. Burchard, the superintendent, walked about with
me, half-grown boys sat on the grass, and even on the school-house steps,
gambling with cards for tobacco, and they had not been taught manners
enough to rise or move aside at the superintendent's approach. As we
sat in the school-house, one, two, three Indian men came in to prefer
a request, but not one of them took off his hat. We entered a cabin and
found a big he-Indian lying on his bed. "Are you sick?" inquired Mr.
Burchard, and the lazy hound, without offering to rise, muttered "No; me
lying down."

The agent, in reply to my questions, said that they gambled a good deal
for money and beads during the week, but he had forbidden it on Sundays;
and he would not allow them to gamble away their clothing, as they
formerly did.

There are about eighty scholars on the school-list, and about fifty attend
school. Was there any compulsion used? I asked, and he said No. Now surely
here, if anywhere, one might begin with a compulsory school-law.

Did he attempt to regulate the conduct of the growing boys and girls? No.

Do the Indians marry on the reservation? No. One chief has two wives; men
leave their wives, or change them as they please.