Brothers—If this first attempt succeeds, the way
will be opened in
which your young people may
learn other useful practices of the
white people, so
as to enable them to supply all their own wants,
and
such as choose it may learn to read and write.
Having thus explained to you the plan of your
friends, the Quakers,
I conclude with heartily recom-
mending it to your adoption, as
better calculated to
procure lasting and essential benefits to your
Nations
than any plan ever before attempted. Wishing it
great
success, I remain your friend and brother,
* Timothy Pickering
George Washington
The Society of Friends, always manifesting a
desire to promote the
best interest of the Indians,
have now formed a plan to introduce
among them
the most necessary arts of civil life, and have
raised,
and will raise, money, and employ agents, to carry
it
into effect, or at least to make a fair experiment
to change their
present habits, and to adopt in their
places the practice of those
most necessary arts. In
this attempt, the Friends will need the
assistance of
all well disposed men, who are capable of
deriving
pleasure from the happiness of their fellow men, and
are therefore willing to promote it. But, of all men,
those who
understand the language of the Indians,
if possessed of capacity
and humanity, have it in
their power to do them most good; for this
reason,
the Friends earnestly desire your aid; their great
object is, not to teach peculiar doctrines,
but useful
practices; to instruct the Indians in
husbandry, and
the plain mechanical arts and manufactures directly