Tucson's Indian Training School

The vacationing motorists passing through bustling sundrenched Tucson, Arizona, are struck at once by the multitude of street signs warning: "School-Go Slow." As a harassed salesman, trying to find the quickest distance between two points, expressed it: "All these schools give you the feeling you're in the good old U. S. A. all right, but slowing up at every other corner is hard on prompt appointments. No kidding. Tucson has about as many schools as a pomegranate has seeds."

On a tidy 175 acre farm, a scant three miles southwest of the bustling center of the city, and on the direct route to the famed Mission San Xavier del Bac, an imposing group of red-bricked buildings, shaded by lofty old tamarisk trees, duckmarks one of the least publicized but perhaps most inter-esting campus grounds in the abundant Southwest. It is the site of the Presbyterian Indian Training School.

Lacking the dramatic flair of the old Mission San Xavier with its hypnotic appeal to camera addicts the severe red-brick walls with a straight-laced, disciplinarian look are more often than not passed by with a hasty glance. But stop, please!

As you nose in the winding driveway the well-barberedgreen lawn in the deep shade of campus trees is a welcome oasis after the blinding glare of the highway sun. The eye adjusts quickly to the cool dim light and even on the first casual glance around you catch the feeling of youthful vitality. Brown-skinned girls in trim white blouses and gay flaring skirts, chattering like parakeets, stroll to class, book-laden, to learn the three R's as part of their birthright. At a bell's strident ring the football field empties and more reluctant young braves horseplay up the paths to erudition in polished brogues, neat khaki and socks hot enough to fry eggs. No birch rod or rattan cane awaits the laggard. The school is as modern as next Thursday afternoon. What puts it in a class of its own is that its students are only one jump removed from the sage-brush and the witch-doctor, one generation removed from Indians who still walk barefoot and live the catch-ascatch-can existence of their tribal ancestors.

The school has served the Indians now for sixty-two years. Established in 1888, its beginning was meager. A few oneroom adobe shacks bunched together on the cactus strewn desert for security was its start, and reluctant and suspicious Indians were strongly inclined to avoid contact. In their book white man spelt poison. Racial hatreds were very strong.

Dr. Joseph A. Poncel and Mrs. Poncel hold informal social gatherings at their residence.

Today by dint of job-like patience with an assist of wellsown friendliness the school has reaped the harvest. There is a long waiting list of entrants, and Indian students come from as far away as Iowa and South Dakota. Twenty-six brick buildings arranged around the campus lawn make up the school and faculty quarters. The school is well equipped to accommodate 130 Indian students, both boys and girls. Ranging in age from 12 to 20 they receive accredited junior and high school training from a staff of 20 teachers. The standard set is high. Few fail it.

Seventy acres of the school grounds are under constant cultivation. The yield of hay maintains the school herd of Holsteins which in turn supply fresh milk throughout the year to the student body and part of the academic meat course. Essentially the farm offers a practical course in the know-how of modern agricultural methods, and combined with the big vegetable garden the school is partly self-sustaining. Students man the trucks and tractors, and at the mechanical shop learn the knack of fixing pesky motors.

Each noon the bell slows down lunch-minded students who flock to the community dining hall where passing guests are welcome. Indian girl students, actively practicing the art of good housekeeping, wait on table. According to the teachers, they are more enthusiastic about acquiring modern skills in home-making than in learning ancestral crafts. There is a nominal charge for a hearty lunch by the way of breaking even on visitors. Equally nominal is the student tuition fee of $50 per school year. No day students are admitted.

Brisk, quick-witted Dr. Joseph A. Poncel, a Hungarian immigrant who arrived in this country at the ripe age of eleven is the present head of the school. His own trials as an immigrant have given him rather a head start in understanding and solving the racial problem of Indian students eager to find their place as respected equals in the present-day world. Querying good-natured Dr. Poncel about the future prospects of his students in today's competitive life he had this to say: "It is a little unfair to the Indian that we expect him to make a permanent transition from a primitive to an ultramodern citizen overnight-a feat which took us thousands of years to accomplish. The Indian has not yet shifted into high gear. But once human nature starts to snowball it can go awfully fast. Most of the heads of tribal councils today have attended our school. Many of our graduates become leaders of their people."

Every so often, as everybody knows, there is a great to do in the press about the Indian "problem."

"What is your idea about its solution?" I asked.

"One solution," said Dr. Poncel. "is complete assimilation; the other, more schools like this one for the Indians, to make assimilation a probability instead of a possibility."

Be that as it may, the Indian Training School in Tucson, running smoothly under the kindly eye of Dr. Poncel, is a good example of what modern education is trying to do in advancing the lot of all peoples. It was Thomas Jefferson who once cried to high heaven: "Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance."

The Indian Training School has been doing just that. and successfully starting from scratch. Certainly in the roundup of Tucson's high spots the school ranks as a rewarding must to visit. It is in there pitching and supplying in good measure oil for the gears of transition.