Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:10
“The appearance of the Carlisle students is everywhere favorably commented upon, partly because of the excellent physical bearing and gentlemanly conduct of our students, and because of the neat uniforms they wear.”
“The students, in their uniforms, made an excellent appearance. It has been remarked that the Carlisle student is characterized by a fine physique, and a manly and womanly bearing, which no doubt is due to the regular training which all of our students receive in physical culture.”
“The Carlisle plan is to take the Indian from his tribal surroundings and place him in environment of civilization. Removed from influences which are immoral, degrading, slovenly, and tending towards shiftlessness, the young Indian is placed in contact with others of superior tribes, amid surroundings that exemplify civilization and inspire within him the possibility of useful citizenship.”
A student’s arrival at the Carlisle Indian School began with the stripping of their identity and individuality. A vital aspect of the assimilation process was the uniform. Carlisle in particular had rigid standards for physical presentation, holding the Indian students to the same standards as their white peers. CIIS was held up as a model boarding school experience due to this careful uniformity as well as the demanding physical and academic standards of the institution.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:02
“The Nation is rapidly waking to the fact that education of the right sort, which teaches the elements of knowledge, which does not forget the moral nature, and which gives thorough instruction and training in some vocational activity, is responsible to a very large extent for the progress which the Indian has made on all sides.”
“The Carlisle school places strong emphasis on vocational training. It believes that every boy and girl should have some definite occupation or vocation in life. With that end in view every student of the school takes up some trade or occupation … It is a common comment that the Carlisle boy and girl is not afraid of work when he or she leaves school.”
“...this education has now become...excellently suited to the needs of the students, and is so conducted as to raise the mental, physical, economic, and moral condition of the Indian people. The work in Government schools has necessarily been of a grammar grade, with strong emphasis on industrial and vocational training, so that the young people would be fitted to take up more efficiently the duties of life and of earning a livelihood.”
The vocational education received at Carlisle offered a respectable professional path forward after graduation. Un-educated Indians found themselves unable to join white society, causing further division between Indians on reservations and those who were educated at boarding schools.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:01
“The Indian News is published monthly, and all the mechanical work thereon is done by pupils. The printing department is not nearly so well equipped as it should be, but the work turned out by the apprentice printers is really remarkable when one takes the conditions into consideration. The yearly catalogue, all programs and announcements, and practically all of the school stationery is turned out of the school plant. Uncle Sam would be doing just the right thing by investing about a thousand dollars in new material for the print shop. The writer saw three Indian boys at work in the print shop—a Santee, a Winnebago, and an Omaha. “Twenty or thirty years ago a mixture like that would have resulted in a fight,” was Superintendent Davis’s smiling comment when he made known the tribal relations of the three stalwart young fellows.”
Carlisle’s printing presses produced newspapers intended both for students as well as the larger public. Pratt’s experiment garnered considerable national attention: The Indian Helper boasted a circulation of as many as 10,000 subscribers for 10 cents per year. The Red Man offered “discussion of different opinions and phases of the Indian question” and was circulated monthly at 50 cents per year. In the printing offices, the more advanced students were given the opportunity to learn the trade. While their work was heavily censored, the Carlisle printing press provides records of Indian student writing that is useful to historical analyses.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:58
“The Gymnasium was decorated with the school colors and with numerous American flags, and every available seat in the large running gallery was occupied by visitors from the town of Carlisle and vicinity and special guests. The drills were conducted to the accompaniment of music and showed careful training on the part of the students. There was an Indian Club Drill by both boys and girls, in which they excelled.”
Pratt believed that cultivating military discipline was a crucial component of an effective educational program. Students performed drills in the gymnasium frequently to foster these skills. Carlisle residents were often invited to view the spectacle, creating a closer relationship between the school and the town which had once been wary of Pratt’s intentions.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:57
“It serves to recall attention to the system of physical training in vogue at Carlisle. Every boy and girl in the school receives regular instruction in calisthenics, wisely adapted to their needs, and combining indoor and outdoor work of a varied and comprehensive nature. Athletic sports are conducted for the many and the success of this school in sport is due to the fact that all the students take an interest in the sports, and all the boys who are physically sound compete.”
The Carlisle Indian School was revered for the intensity of its physical training program. In addition to the physically demanding vocational training every student went through, the school had an extensive physical education program. Both women and men participated in various forms of physical exercise on a daily basis, and any man who was physically able competed in one sport or another.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:56
“The Indian boy takes as naturally to running and whooping and handsprings and marbles and swimming as his white cousin and the Indian girl is just like her white cousin in the yearning for dolls and long dresses and bows in her hair and high heels on her shoes The Indian boys take to baseball quite as naturally as the white boys and the Indian girls take as kindly as the white girls to sitting in the grandstand and cheering their side on to victory.”
The baseball team at Carlisle was one of many athletic pastimes offered to students in their free time. Sports offered a space in which Indian boys could exercise their new All-American identities. America’s pastime may have offered students a glimpse of social equality on the field, but the highly gendered language of this author in The Red Man is a reminder that while some racial boundaries could be stretched, other hierarchies were very much enforced.
