"Some Navajos though,  would begin to see the value of a formal education before others.  Manuelito was one of these.  His contacts with the white man and the world outside the reservation caused him to state:

My grandchild, the whites have many things we Navajos need but cannot get.  It is as though the Whites were in a grassy valley, with wagons, plows, and plenty of food, we Navajos up on a dry Mesa.  We can hear them talking, but we cannot get to them.  My grandchild, school is the ladder.  Tell our people this."