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administration. Numerous instances can be cited of able efficient field administrators who would be quick to profit from suggestions for improvement in lines of activity which lie outside the range of their special training and experience, Again it must be emphasized that they are not being criticized because their training and experience do not embrace every line of activity they are called upon to supervise and administer. To get administrators who had such training and experience would be humanly impossible. They must have specialists to whom they can turn for aid. As an illustration of what may be done in this direction may be cited the progress made in the Indian schools in recent years in the teaching of home economics, an improvement brought about in no small measure by the employment of a specialist in this field to advise and work with the school administrators. What the superintendents need is far more assistance of this general character, so that in each important field they can secure expert technical aid.
These technically trained and experienced persons are also needed to investigate complaints from the field which are technical in their nature. As an instance, a group of Indians complain that they have been charged with heavy construction costs for the irrigation of their lands, a work undertaken by the government upon its own initiative, and that it is impossible for them so to use their lands that they can meet the construction charge and the operation and maintenance charge. They have the fear that the whole enterprise is a conspiracy ultimately to deprive them of their land and get it into the hands of white men. The hurried examination of this case by the present survey indicated that the Indians were probably right in their impression that under existing conditions in agriculture they could not make the land pay the charges; but it was extremely doubtful if any white people would take it over if they had to meet the same charges. The Secretary of the Interior has himself recognized the necessity for technical and scientific investigation in these fairly numerous irrigation cases and has appointed a well qualified fact finding committee to visit the various irrigation projects in the Indian Service. Similar investigations are needed in many fields and the Indian Service needs in its organization a definite provision for making them, hence the recommendation for a Division of Planning and Development.