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called a halt, and is proceeding on a far more cautious and conservative policy, with less regard for a radical theory and more for practical facts. Tribal herds had their vogue. They probably went up too fast and came down too hard. They undoubtedly have their place, for on some of the reservations stock raising is the main economic possibility. The fact is, however, that the Indian Service has lacked for its different jurisdictions a well considered, well rounded program, arrived at after a full and careful consideration of the various essential factors in the situation by persons competent through training and experience to evaluate these factors and develop such a program.
Without stopping to discuss the more or less academic question of whether this failure has resulted from a lack of funds, or from a lack of vision of the necessity for such work, or a combination of the two, it may be said unqualifiedly that the Indian Service lacks expert technical advisers in most branches of its work. The duty of studying, planning, and developing has fallen on general administrative officers, whose days are already filled with myriads of administrative duties, some major and some minor. Although in some instances these employees have considerable technical knowledge and experience in some one or more special fields covered by the Indian Service, they cannot possibly be experts in them all. As administrators they must be general men, not specialists, and the work of surveying conditions and working out programs calls for specialists who can cooperate and develop a program which good general administrative men can carry out.
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs needs the advice and assistance of such men in addition to that of his administrative assistants. In the matter of school curriculum, for example, he needs not only the advice and experience of those who have devoted their lives to the administration of Indian schools, but also of those who, free from the burden of administrative work, have had the training and the opportunity to specialize in the study of curricula in all kinds of schools and can bring to the Indian Service the wealth of experience gained in educational enterprises conducted under widely differing conditions. Both types are necessary; one without the other is like a single blade of a pair of shears.
Superintendents of agencies and of schools are equally in need of expert advice and assistance in the varied activities of their