The growth of the college is going to depend largely upon the rapidity with which funds can be secured to carry on an adequate building program. Its most pressing demands are a dormitory and a school of mines building. A power plant must be constructed and a gymnasium and a library are hardly less important.

The close of the second year of the college finds it an established institution, well equipped with scientific apparatus, and doing for the people of the Territory of Alaska just what such an institution is supposed to do under the wise provisions of the Morrill-Nelson Act. It is doing the practical thing for education in a practical way. The service it has already rendered proves it to be one of the Territory's best investments.

NATIVES OF ALASKA

The Alaska Division of the Bureau of Education provides for the education of the natives of Alaska, extends medical relief, trains them in the industries, and so far as possible, relieves worthy cases of destitution. Schools, hospitals, and orphanages are maintained, cooperative business enterprises organized, colonies established, and control over the reindeer industry exercised.

The work is of vast extent and it is carried on under great difficulties arising principally from the remoteness of most of the villages, the enormous distances between them, the meager means of communication, and the severity of the climate. The 27,000 natives are scattered along thousands of miles of coast and on the great rivers, in villages ranging from 30 or 40 to 300 or 400 persons. The work would extend to the utmost limits of the United States, in terms of distance, with schools in Maine, California, Georgia, and Minnesota. One of the school districts is twice the size of the State of Illinois. Many of the 83 settlements in which the bureau's work in located are far beyond the limits of regular transportation and mail service. Some of the villages on remote islands or beside the frozen ocean are brought into touch with the outside world only once or twice a year, when visited by a United States Coast Guard steamer on its annual cruise or by the supply vessel sent by the Bureau of Education. During eight months of the year all of the native villages in Alaska, with the exception of those on the southern coast and a few near the Alaska Railroad, are reached only by trails over the snow-covered land or frozen rivers.

One of the greatest problems has been the securing of transportation of appointees and supplies from Seattle to the remoter settlements. In compliance with the requests for a vessel suitable for use by the bureau in its Alaskan work, the Navy Department transferred to the Interior Department the U. S. S. Boxer, a wooden vessel, with a carrying capacity of 500 tons, formerly used as a training ship for naval cadets. During the season of 1923 the Bower made two voyages, the first to the Bering Sea region and the second to points on the shore of the Arctic Ocean as far as Point Barrow. On its southward voyages it brought out teachers whose terms of service had expired and carried from Northern Alaska reindeer meat which Eskimo herders wished to sell in the States. During the winter months it was used in the waters of southeastern Alaska as a school of navigation and seamanship for young native men.

In the Alaskan native community the school is the center of all activity-social, industrial, and civic. The teacher is guide and leader.

For the protection of the natives and in order more effectively and economically to reach a larger number of natives than it could in the small, scattered villages, the Bureau of Education has secured the reservation by Executive order of carefully selected tracts in various parts of Alaska to which natives can be attracted and within which they can obtain a plentiful supply of fish and game and conduct their own commercial and industrial enterprises. Residence within these reservations is not compulsory; natives settling on the reservations are in no way hampered in their coming and going nor is their status in any way changed by residence thereon.

The bureau encourages the establishment in native villages of cooperative mercantile stores, financed by native capital and conducted by the natives themselves, under the supervision of the teacher of the local United States public school. In no other way can the natives so readily acquire self-confidence and experience in business affairs. Such enterprises are now in operation in 12 villages in widely separated parts of the Territory.

Conditions as regards the health and character of the native inhabitants vary greatly in the different parts of the country. In southeastern Alaska, and in other sections which for many years have had the benefit of the uplifting influences exerted by the Bureau of Education and by the various missionary organizations, the natives live in neat, substantial houses, which in many instances are well furnished. In other regions the natives crowd into wretched hovels, small, filthy, and without ventilation, affording the very best opportunity for the spread of contagious diseases. Between these two extremes all degrees of comfort and of squalor may be found in one part or another of the vast Territory. In its endeavor to afford medical relief and to safeguard the health of the native races of Alaska. the Bureau of Education maintains hospitals at Juneau, Kanakanak, Akiak, Nulato, and Noorvik, which are important centers of native population in southern, western, central, and Arctic Alaska, separated from each other by many hundreds of miles.

The hospitals, physicians, and nurses serve only the more thickly populated districts." In the vast outlying areas the teachers must. of necessity, extend medical aid to the best of their ability. Accordingly, the teachers in settlements where the services of a physician or nurse are not available are supplied with household remedies and instructions for their use. Each hospital is a center of medical relief for a very wide territory and each physician must make extended tours throughout his district. Owing to lack of means, the number of physicians and nurses employed in Alaska by the Bureau of Education is small for the task to be performed.

During the last school year educational opportunity was provided for about 44 per cent of the natives, while medical relief was extended to an even less per cent of the population.

During the fiscal year 76 schools were operated in Alaska with 144 teachers employed, including schoolroom teachers, superintendents, and principals.

Including school buildings, teacherages, hospitals, and orphanages, there are in Alaska 116 Government buildings in the service valued

at $273,550, not counting the equipment, school supplies, and other miscellaneous property such as lighting plants and radio stations in a few villages, U. S. S. Bower, some gas boats, etc., used in carrying out the Government programs.

The educational statistics for the school year ended June 30, 1923, show total number of days in actual attendance 367,395.84: total number of pupils enrolled during year, 3,910: average daily attendance throughout the year, 2,652; percentage of attendance. 67.7; average number in schoolroom each day, 26.9; total number of schoolrooms open, 101; average number of days in the school year, 135.12; cost of school per day per child, based on actual attendance, 70 cents; cost of school per year per child, based on actual attendance, $97.65; cost of school per year per child, based on total enrollment, $66.23. During the year there was spent for repairs on school buildings, and not counted as a part of the operation of the schools, $7,193.23; and for new buildings $8,153.33.

For medical relief the Alaska Division of the bureau expended during the past fiscal year. $89,987.15. Patients, or cases handled through the five hospitals, totaled 9,559.

The following welfare services were rendered: Number of teachers visits to homes, 14,137; number of times medical assistance was rendered to the natives by teachers, 17,709. The number of births reported in villages under the Alaskan service, outside of hospitals. 391; number of deaths outside of hospitals, 324.

Foremost among the enterprises undertaken by the Burean of Education for the natives of Alaska is the reindeer service.

During the year 1890 transportation was granted on the revenue cutter Bear, on its annual cruise in Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, to a representative in charge of the bureau's work in Alaska in order that he might gain information for use in establishing schools in the large Eskimo villages of northwestern Alaska. In its cruise the Bear visited all the important villages on both the Alaskan and Siberian shores. The Alaskan Eskimos were found eking out a precarious existence upon the few whale, seal, and walrus that they could catch. Across Bering Strait, in Siberia, but a few miles from Alaska, with climate and country precisely similar, were tens of thousands of tame reindeer supporting thousands of natives. This fact suggested the idea that it would be a wise national policy to introduce domestic reindeer from Siberia into Alaska as a source of supply for food and clothing to the Alaskan Eskimos in the vicinity of Bering Strait. The matter was brought to the attention of the Commissioner of Education, by whom the project was indorsed and given enthusiastic support.

REINDEER INDUSTRY

Pending the securing of a congressional appropriation for the introduction of domestic reindeer from Siberia into Alaska as a source of supply for food and clothing to the Alaskan Eskimos, an appeal was made to benevolent individuals for a preliminary sum in order that the experiment might be commenced. With $2.146 thus secured 16 reindeer were purchased in 1891 and 171 in 1892. In 1893 Congress made the first appropriation of $6,000 for the work of importing reindeer from Siberia into Alaska. Congress has

continued its support ever since by annual appropriations ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.

During nine seasons the Bear carried the agents of the Bureau of Education back and forth between Siberia and Alaska and transported Siberian reindeer to Alaska.

Early in its history the reindeer service became an integral part of the educational system for northwestern Alaska, the raising of reindeer proving to be the form of industrial education best adapted to the Eskimos inhabitating the barren, untimbered wastes of Arctic and sub-Arctic Alaska. Year after year new centers were established, until now the reindeer service has become a great wealthproducing industry affecting the entire coastal area from Point Barrow to the Aleutian Islands.

One thousand two hundred and eighty reindeer were imported from Siberia. So rapidly have the herds increased that the total number of reindeer now in Alaska is estimated at 350,000, of which about 235.000 are owned by the natives. The present commercial value of Alaskan reindeer herds is approximately $8,750,000.

It is estimated that there are in northern and western Alaska approximately 200,000 square miles of treeless region, worthless for agriculture, which could furnish pasturage for about 4,000,000 reindeer. It is possible that at a date not far distant the United States may draw a considerable part of its meat supply from the reindeer herds in Alaska.

Commercial development of the reindeer industry in Alaska has been organized for the first time. Through negotiations completed with a wholesale meat concern in Seattle, arrangements have been made for the shipment of reindeer meat to the United States from Alaska this season.

The plans provide for the slaughtering of the reindeer at Kokrines, Alaska, on the Yukon River, where the meat will be dressed and frozen. The product will then be shipped in a barge to Nenana, a terminal of the Alaska Railroad, and at that point placed in cold storage for distribution locally as well as for exportation by way of Seward and steamer lines to Seattle for sale in that city and as far east as the Atlantic coast in the United States.

This is the first effort that has been made to place Alaska reindeer meat on the market in this country in large quantities. At the present time there are about 3,000 head of reindeer feeding on moss near Cantwell station, on the Alaska Railroad, and a great many of these animals will also be killed for exportation during the coming season. A cold-storage plant for the initial freezing of the reindeer meat is already under construction at this point on the railroad line. It is planned to introduce reindeer steaks upon all dining cars and river-boat service operated by the Alaska Railroad; and the Government-owned hotel at Curry, Alaska, will serve this meat when the season opens.

WILD LIFE

Conditions touching game and fur-bearing animals in Alaska are most promising and satisfactory. There is no portion of the Territory that does not have one or more species of game and fur bearers. There is prevalent a wholesome sentiment for game protection

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throughout the Territory. Alaska's annual production of land fur is approximately $2,000,000. The value of game is not as easily determined, as game is consumed locally and does not enter the markets to any appreciable extent. Wild meat is an important item of food in all but the larger communities, which have ready access to domestic meat supplies. As an attraction to those interested in hunting, photographing, and study. Alaska's game is unsurpassed. The Territory for the purpose of showing general distribution of its wild life may be divided into six sections as follows:

Southeastern Alaska, comprising the Alexander Archipelago and the strip of mainland from Dixon Entrance to Yakutat. In this region are found brown, grizzly, and black bears, deer, mountain goats, beaver, mink, land otter, ermine, muskrat, foxes, and wolves.

South Central Alaska, composed of the mainland for about 150 miles inland from Yakutat west to Cook Inlet and adjacent islands. In this region are found the same animals as abound in Southeastern Alaska and, in addition, moose, mountain sheep, and caribou.

The Kodiak-Afognak Island group off the southern coast has the big brown bears, foxes, land otter, and ermine.

The Alaska Peninsula has the brown and grizzly bears, caribou, foxes, land otter, mink, and ermine.

The Aleutian Islands have no game with the exception of Unimak, which has the same animals as the Peninsula. The remainder of the chain has only red and blue foxes with the exception of Attu. where a herd of reindeer has been established.

Interior Alaska embraces most of the Yukon and Kuskokwim River drainages. This section has caribou, moose, grizzly and brown bears, mountain sheep, foxes, land otter, beaver, mink, marten, muskrat, and ermine.

Caribou, mountain sheep, grizzly and polar bears, red and Arctic foxes, wolverines, and ermine are to be found in Arctic Alaska (the Arctic slope).

The above boundaries are not definitely fixed but are outlined in a general way to show the regions in which the various game and fur-bearing animals may be found.

Moose continue to be plentiful on the Kenai Peninsula.

The caribou of the Alaska Peninsula have been depleted due to killing by both whites and natives from the numerous bays on both sides of the Peninsula. Plans are being made to give this herd protection which will result in an increase. The caribou of the interior continue to travel in immense herds like the bison of the States formerly traveled. They seem to be holding their own in a satisfactory manner and constitute an important meat supply to the vast interior country.

Deer in Southeastern Alaska had been depleted due to intensive hunting and several severe winters, but owing to recent mild winters and less hunting they have increased in numbers.

Mountain sheep and mountain goats on Kenai Peninsula became depleted during the past few years, but under protection given them by regulation they have increased in recent years.

During the year deer from the Sitka region were transferred to islands in Prince William Sound and the Kachemak Bay region on Kenai Peninsula, and goats were placed on Baranoff Island from