ASSIMILATION'S AGENT:MY LIFE AS A SUPERINTENDENT IN THE INDIAN BOARDINGSCHOOL SYSTEM byEdwin L. Chalcraft editedandwithan introduction byCaryC. Collins University ofNebraska Press, Lincoln, 2004. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. 368 pages. $59.95 cloth. INTHE LATE-NINETEENTH and early twentieth centuries, a singular drama unfolded in Indian Country. The tale of federal Indian boarding schools depended on a varietyoffigures. Ameri can Indian children appeared first,surrounded by familyand kin groups. Federal bureaucrats marched onto stage next, as if responding to the "Cry of theMacedonian." During the first act, school superintendents and staffstepped in from thewings, ready to perform roles pre scribed by theworld views of late-Victorian America. Between 1879 and 1928, reservation and off-reservation Indian Service schools taught thousands of Indian youth thevalues of white, ProtestantAmerica, including the"three R's" and pre-industrial revolution vocational skills. In thismemoir, editor Cary C. Collins reminds us thatthe most obscure players in this drama remain those Indian Service employees who carried outWashington's mandates within theboarding school's tightconfines. Since few of these employees' recollections have survived,Edwin L. Chalcraft'smemoir, As similation's Agent: My Lifeas a Superintendent in theIndian Boarding School System,gains signifi cance. In an account penned shortlybefore his death in 1943,Chalcraft has reminded us of the dogma of his times, one predicated on Indian assimilation into the dominant society,while simultaneously deflecting readers' eagerness to stereotype these agents of federalpower. Chalcraft's recollection begins in 1881, when he and his wife Alice took the trainfrom their hometown ofAlbion, Illinois, to Seattle. Within twoyears of their move, theyoungmidwestern ers had shifted their residence to theChehalis reservation, in southwestern Washington Terri tory, where Chalcraft became superintendent of thetribeand itsboarding school. Serving indual rolesofbureaucrat and school teacher,likeother Office of Indian Affairs (oia) employees, they remained among theChehalis for sixyears. Accustomed tomoving its employees from one Indian nation to another, as in a chess game, the oia transferredChalcraft many times.His peripatetic career,covering fourdecades (1883 1925), reflected thispattern aswell as national political party affiliation, aggressive competi tors,and Chalcraft's persistent use of corporal punishment in the schools. Hence, sometimes he foundhimself exiledfrom his adopted Pacific Northwest and, on occasion, from hiswife and children. During the 1890s, the oia dismissed him for a five-year intervalbefore he and his network of oia friends could engineer a new appointment. Chalcraft could almost be called a name dropper. He knew all of the leading figures in the Indian Service at the turnof the twentieth century,and theirassistance helped his survival. Richard Henry Pratt, founder ofCarlisle Indian School, supported Chalcraft, and Estelle Reel, superintendent of oia schooling, stopped to visitwhen shewas touring schools. Although dissension within the Indian Service disrupted many employees' lives,all remained bound by theirassimilationist creed. In his introduction, Collins observes thatChalcraft did not receive any "formal training" forhis oia career,but I would argue thathis immersion in the values of middle-class, mainstream America served as the equivalent (p. xxvi). As Collins points out, Chalcraft neverwavered inhis commitment to assimilation. Collins portraysChalcraft and his colleagues in the oia as pioneers of "social engineering," a characteristic of Progressivism. JohnCollier, later commissioner of Indian Affairs (1933 1945), followed thispath inhis pre-WorldWar Iwork with New York's immigrants.Bearing in common theneed to alter the cultures of other people, these reformers shared the colonialist mentality. InChalcraft's case,however, the storyretains a complexity thatCollins could have empha 148 OHQ vol. 107, no. 1 sizedmore fully. Although Chalcraft remained glued to assimilation, exemplified inhis efforts to squash the Indian Shaker faithwhen itfil tered into theChehalis culture, in a number of instances he also defended various Indian peoples against the infractions of outsiders, such as land thieves.Yet,Chalcraft would have been astonished towitness tribal defense of the federal Indian schools during the largely successful closures during Ronald Reagan's administration. Chalcraft recalled that during his first su perintendency at Chemawa Indian School, the students saved their earnings from hop picking during vacation and donated them to the federal government to enable thepurchase of eighty-fiveadditional acres for the school. In thisway, theNative children initiated their claim over the school thatwould be echoed in theirdescendants' struggleto exemptChemawa from thedraconian...