Irreclaimable Savages

“1899 – Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1899, Part 1” (2017). US and Indian Relations. 51. https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/hornbeck_usa_2_e/51

“It is a wonderful work in which the Government is engaged, and a visit to the schools will astonish the most unsympathetic. On the reservation will be seen the half-naked, often filthy and vermin-infected, children brought in from camps and placed in the little day schools to receive there their first instruction in the practical application of the maxim ‘cleanliness is next to godliness.’  Filled with superstitions, and rebellious, wild, and intractable, in the hands of the teacher the work of regeneration begins…” (page 4)

Intractable – hard to control or deal with (Oxford Languages)