Posted: March 18, 2005

by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today

People dedicated to the good and proper development of the young are still too rare. There are more than a few superlative educators in Indian country, but always there is great need for more. Never before have Indian youth (and all youth) needed more guidance in reaffirming their core identities in a positive and overwhelming manner.

American Indian people across the Western Hemisphere recognize that a Native intelligence must guide the education of their young people. Grounded in traditional cultural values, this education would be expansive of the knowledge incorporated, studying everything, debating everything that humanity has conceived and produced.


This week we ponder the beginning of a new Indian university in Mexico, the seeming demise of a classic Indian college in California and words spoken on the life of David Risling Jr., whose example in gentle persuasion is worthy of emulation.

In the center of the Mazahua region of Mexico, a university was founded recently that has become the first such institution for Indian people sponsored by the federal Education Secretariat of Mexico. This is great news for a country where not 20 years ago, the notion of an exclusively ''mestizo'' nation, countenancing little to no survival for indigenous people, was the dominant concept for society.

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