Today the children of our public schools are taught more of the history, heroes, legends, and sagas of the old world than of the land of their birth, while they are furnished with little material on the people and institutions that are truly American.

As a child I understood how to give, I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized. -.

White men seem to have difficulty in realizing that people who live differently from themselves still might be traveling the upward and progressive road of life.

Certain small ways and observances sometimes have connection with large and more profound ideas.

Silence is the Mother of Truth, for the silent man was ever to be trusted, while the man ever ready with speech was never taken seriously.

The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.

Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library.

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as wild. Earth was beautiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.

Training began with children who were taught to sit still and enjoy it. They were taught to use their organs of smell, to look where there was apparently nothing to see, and to listen intently when all seemingly was quiet. A child who cannot sit still is a half-developed child.

For the Lakota there was no wilderness. Nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly.