village, and develop a new respect in fathers and mothers for the school as a practical and not a mere scholastic institution. The problem is only one of popularization. The experimental work has been done. We know where the best seed is. Here is call for the cooperative leadership of the Government in a work of supreme value to the State. The man to direct this work should be one whose word the Nation would heed. That such a man can be secured there is no doubt, for experience justifies the statement that there are no men of large capacity whose services the country can not command at a material sacrifice.

If asked how this work could be done I should say that it could best be done by showing to the picked teachers of the country the model schools. The quickest and the surest way to set this country aflame with zeal for a better type of country school would be to show the teachers such schools, make them live in them, and learn from them by seeing them in action.

There is no such lesson as the one that is taught by experience. Lectures, moving pictures, and books may aid. But to see and be part of a movement or life is to make it one's own. If ten live men or women were taken from each State to some one of the two or three most modern rural schools and there for a month were initiated into the art of teaching out of life, by doing things and not reading about things being done, and if each of these ten went home a missionary for the new idea, how long would it be before the States were converted and old methods abandoned? And once the right kind of school were started in any State how long would it take others to follow? This thing can be done and by methods that are so simple and direct that they will be startling. The need is immediate, and surely it would be a shame to let a generation waste itself while the idea slowly creeps on all-fours through a country that has invented wireless telephony.

In this work the newspapers of the country could, and I feel assured would, give invaluable assistance. Not merely by the publicity given to the movement, but more definitely by helping in the

selection of the candidates for this opportunity, in sending them to these selected schools, and carrying on the campaign for putting what they have found into reality.

THE TEST OF A DEMOCRACY.

There is an evolution in a new nation's life quite as interesting as that in the life of a man. We pass through stages of development from the simple and earlier period when food is the one thing desired into the more elaborated and complex stages where first we begin to deal with the easily handled things and later reach the point where mind has a controlling part in all that is done. The pioneer builds his cabin and turns his cattle to graze upon the unfenced wilderness. He takes his water from the stream and makes his gun serve him with food and give him protection. It is not many years, however, before he has passed from herdsman to farmer, when soil must be plowed and seed sown. At first the one-horse plow will do, and any seed. But life grows more intense-society has gathered around, new demands are created-machinery must be used, seed must be selected, soil fertilized, credit obtained, markets sought, and the life of the simple herdsman has become complicated and broad. The gay recklessness of other days gives way to constant thought. So has it been with this country. For a long time we lived off the country's obvious supplies. Later we were producers of raw materials-grains and minerals, lumber and cotton. When manufacturing began it was of the larger, coarser things, which perhaps in their turn went abroad for higher fabricating. Now, however, we have come into the full tide of modern life when we seek for greater and more varied industries, wider markets, more economical methods of production and exchange. And in such a new time direction is needed, mutual and coordinated effort must be set up and the more elaborate machinery of organization put into service. Thought becomes the basis of the new life-hard, close, insistent, constructive thought, illuminated by knowledge and made practical by imagination.

I have reviewed some of the activities of this department that they may suggest how adequate to the task of efficient national development a democracy, even one so young, may be made to be. It has a foundation in the spirit and self-confidence of its people which no other government can have. There is needed but the crystalliz

ing touch of coordinated action to make its success complete. To develop methods by which the energies of many individuals shall be brought to work together is the need. And as the method of doing this politically has been found in this Republic, so we may feel assured that economically and socially we shall not fail.

An intense nationalization has been the marking note of the past year. Each American has realized with keener consciousness the meaning of this land to him, and has sought for a larger view of it in its many aspects and, if possible, to gain a glimpse at its future. To each has come his dream. We know now that there is more to national feeling than pride in the possession of a land that is rare and valuable or the splendid memory of a history of struggle for those things of the spirit which men call principles. The highest sense of nationality comes with a sense of purpose a sense of common purpose. In what direction are we consciously going? What are we determined that this land shall be? This, I take it, is the accepted test of a real national sense; and if it is, the obligations we must carry are certainly serious. For the United States is not yet ours in the proudest sense, and can not be until we are doing all that can be done to give to all its people and to the world the full expression of its highest intelligence applied alike to its resources and to the life of the people.

Respectfully yours,

The PRESIDENT.

FRANKLIN K. LANE,

Secretary.

ADMINISTRATIVE EFFORT.

GENERAL LAND OFFICE.

1. Patented under all classes of entries, 13,025,427 acres, as against 12,678,076 acres in 1913 and 10,135,475 acres in 1912.

2. Issued 2,711 patents on desert-land entries, embracing 448,752 acres, as against 2,127 patents, embracing 346,794 acres, during the year previous; 2,209 patents, embracing 356,477 acres, in 1913; and 2,285 patents, embracing 364,728 acres, in 1912.

3. Issued 1,669 patents in fee to Indians, relieving 202,050 acres from restrictions against alienation and rendering such acreage subject to taxation, as against 986 patents, embracing 122,432 acres, in 1913, and 1,051 patents, embracing 137,267 acres, in 1912.

4. Patented 146,079 acres under the Carey Act, as against 4,244 acres the year before and 35,170 acres in 1912–13.

5. Patented and certified under railroad and wagon-road grants, 1,624,142 acres, as against 828,911 acres in 1914, 1,340,998 acres in 1913, and 20,975 acres in 1912.

6. Allowed entries of public and Indian lands for 16,861,214 acres, as against 16,522,852 acres in 1914, 15,867,222 acres in 1913, and 14,574,688 acres in 1912.

7. Disposed of 2,943 applications for second entry, compared with 777 in 1914, 749 in 1913, and 837 in 1912.

8. Approved and accepted original surveys covering 11,988,387 acres and 2,350,962 acres of resurveys, an acreage largely in excess of accepted surveys in any year during the last two decades.

9. Surveyed and opened to entry 27,416 acres of Arkansas lands heretofore erroneously shown on the plats of survey as lake or sunk lands.

10. Reserved 23 town sites on the line of the new Government railroad in Alaska.

11. Laid out and surveyed town site of Anchorage, Alaska, and sold at public sale 655 town lots for $148,980, all within six months. 12. Disposed of 1,389 applications for rights of way for irrigation and kindred purposes, as compared with 898 of the same class the year previous.

13. Investigated 714 railroad rights of way under original action taken in the present year, of which 302 were declared forfeited for failure to construct the road.

14. Issued notices for the restoration of 2,838 lists of lands in national forests, by which approximately 280,000 acres of agricultural lands were opened to homestead entry, compared with 2,580 lists embracing 255,000 acres the year previous.

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15. Restored to the public domain 530,841 acres as the result of investigations by the field service, as against 516,298 acres the year previous.

16. Sold 889 tracts of lands surveyed as villa sites, fronting on Flathead Lake, Mont., for $125,000, some tracts selling for $300 per acre. First sale of the kind in the disposition of public lands.

17. Settled and disposed of controversy of several years' standing, involving the exchange of over 400,000 acres of land in the Navajo and Moqui Indian Reservations, Ariz., for lands outside of said reservations.

18. Restored to settlement and entry after special investigation in the field 7,805 acres in the Imperial Valley, Cal.

19. Surveyed in the field under the Alaska coal leasing act of October 20, 1914, the coal lands in the Matanuska, Bering River, and Nenana coal fields, organizing therefor 15 field parties.

20. Restored from national forests during the period from March 14, 1913, to June 30, 1915, inclusive, 4,789,910 acres, as against 2,400,149 acres restored during the period from November 4, 1910, to March 3, 1913, inclusive.

21. Surveyed within railroad grants during 1914 and 1915 4,008,000 acres, as against 1,620,000 acres in 1912 and 1913.

THE INDIAN OFFICE.

1. Health conditions are considered of first importance. Six new hospitals were constructed during the past year in furtherance of a vigorous health campaign. Every Indian hospital bed not necessarily occupied with those suffering from disease or injury is being utilized for the Indian mother in childbirth. Education and protection of property are highly important, but everything is regarded secondary to the basic condition which makes for the perpetuation of the race. 2. The Indian Office has taken aggressive steps toward the development of improved vocational training, and has adopted plans in several of the boarding schools which will accomplish the educational training necessary to instill in the Indian youth the real object of educational equipment. Emphasis is being placed on agriculture and domestic science. This program will be carried out in all nonreservation and reservation boarding schools.

3. All Indian schools and reservations are being required to utilize every acre of available farm land for the production of the things they consume. Every effort is being put forth to the end that the Indians shall no longer be altogether consumers but shall become producers, thereby bringing about a corresponding reduction in congressional appropriations.

4. Through the use of the $600,000 reimbursable appropriation for the promotion of industry among Indians the Indian Office has been enabled to purchase equipment and establish on a sound and business