Friends of Baltimore Monthly Meeting continued their support of the work among the Iowas and New England Friends continued to help the Kickapoo station. In the latter case however the responsibility for financial support was transferred in 1902 from the Women's Foreign Missionary Society to the Yearly Meeting's Committee on Western Indians.

The continued interest in the Indian work so long shown by Friends across the sea was witnessed in this period by the visit of Harriet Green, an English Friend, to the Oklahoma missions. She was much impressed with the evident results among the Indians of the evangelizing message During a visit at Modoc station she dined with Hiram and Ellen Blackfish, Christian Indians. In reporting this visit to Friends in England she related the following incident: "I told Hiram I should like to welcome him to London Yearly Meeting, and I shall never forget the grand ring of his voice or his dignified manner as he said, 'If I came, I should tell the Friends, I am saved of the Lord, saved by the same grace as you are."" This incident illustrates a very general impression made upon visiting Friends that the Indians had a real understanding of the fundamental implications of the Gospel message.22

On the whole the work was somewhat less encouraging in this period. The conditions of Indian life were fast changing. The presence of many white settlers seemed to lessen in some ways the impact of the evangelizing message. There was less need for Friends' schools as the government and public schools became more numerous and more efficient.

22 The Friend, London, 37 (1897): 168.

In 1902 Superintendent Hartley reported as follows: "Within the past twelve months, there has been drawn into this new country, by the opening up of new lands, a mixed multitude of people, tens of thousands in number, of almost very nationality on the face of the earth." Again just at the close of the period, in 1904, he reported along similar lines, reviewing the changes of the preceding decade: "On first coming into this locality the nearest railroad station was fifty miles distant, and these Indians were comparatively isolated; but now the whistle of the trains may be heard on every hand, and white people, side by side with the Indians, are transforming the broad prairies into fertile fields of grain, and orchards of fruit. The huts and cabins are being rapidly exchanged for commodious dwellings, and the promise of financial prosperity seems evident.

"The stimulus to activity thus given, is bearing fruit among the Indian population, in the way of self-support, as more and more they are beginning to cultivate their own farms instead of renting them.

"Eventually the change that is now taking place must become a blessing to the natives, after the rougher classes have pushed on to the frontier countries and left their places to be filled by honest industrious settlers.”23

The great development in the central organization of the mission work during this period was the relation established between the Associated Committee and the Five Years' Meeting. Edward M. Wistar, for many years the faithful chairman of the Associated Committee, read a paper on the Indian work before

23 Indiana Y. M. printed Minutes, 1902, p. 24; 1904, p. 22.

HARTLEY.

the Five Years' Meeting in 1902 and there followed a discussion participated in by Rachel Kirk, Francis W. Thomas, Allen Jay, Carolena M. Wood and others. As a result the Five Years' Meeting adopted a series of four resolutions endorsing the Indian mission work as worthy of the continued and increased support of the Yearly Meetings and appointing the Associated Committee as its "official representative in this field.” The Committee was requested to continue its annual reports to the several bodies represented in it and to send a full report to each Five Years' Meeting.24

During the decade 1904-1914 William Perry Haworth and his wife Abigail C. Haworth occupied the mission station at Shawnee and were superintendents of the entire system of missions.

One of the changes that culminated in this period was the elimination of the Indian schools maintained by Friends. In 1898 there were two Friends' boarding schools, at Kickapoo and Skiatook (Hillside) respectively, besides seven day schools. Gradually, as the government and public schools became more. numerous and more efficient, these private schools closed their doors until that phase of the pioneer work came to an end. The following extract from the report of the Superintendents in 1908 explains the new conditions that had arisen and also points out the value of the Friends' schools in the past: "With the changing events, circumstances change, surrounding many

24 Indiana Y. M. printed Minutes, 1903, pp. 26-27. Minutes of Five Years' Meeting, 1902, pp. 30, 152-153, 126–141. The Five Years' Meeting is the central representative body of Friends in America and was organized in 1902. It includes all of the Orthodox Yearly Meetings except Philadelphia and Ohio and some small conservative bodies.