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 - 14:06
“At present the work with the girls is on a well organized basis. Regular meetings are held Sunday evenings and the girls are enabled to get in personal touch with Miss Wister on Saturday and Sunday. A large Bible class is conducted for the young ladies Sunday mornings.”
The young girls who attended government run boarding schools such as Carlisle were often made members of the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). They attended church and had regular bible studies, most often multiple times a week. American Indians who attended the boarding schools were forced to abandon their native religion and accept the white man’s God.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:05
“When these savages arrived at the Carlisle School they would have nothing to do with any of the other students and began to live their lives apart. As they could speak no English, they expressed their thoughts by gestures and in garbled language. In order to experiment, the authorities of the school did not order these Hopis to have their long locks of hair cut, but waited to see if their association with the advanced Indians at the school would not have some good effect upon them. In less than ten days one of the Hopis indicated by gestures that he would like to have his hair cut like the other students, and on the same day another Hopi was discovered snipping off his own locks with a hunting knife.”
The Carlisle Indian School would sometimes host important figures among the American Indian community. Often these were figures that had been vocal in their protests of the assimilation occurring in the boarding schools. In the one instance the quote above is referring to, members of the Hopi tribe who still spoke only their native language, wore their native garb, and had long hair, came to stay. The Carlisle Indian School performed a social experiment on the visiting Hopis by making the decision not to force them to cut their hair. The Red Man labels this experiment a success, declaring that the Indian’s decision to cut their hair shows a willingness to assimilate. Texts such as these were distributed to make those still clinging to Indian traditions feel like outsiders.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:04
“This building has a history, which gives one an insight into the history of the place. It is called the ‘guard house;’ sometimes Indians needing discipline are imprisoned in it. The dark walls, if they could talk, could tell a long story of similar service. It was built by the Hessian soldiers whom Washington had captured at the battle of Trenton in 1776, and sent to this place.”
The Guard House pictured above reveals the harsher side of Carlisle’s military style of education. Students who resisted the acculturation process were sometimes locked within the building as punishment. The coercive element of Pratt’s educational experiment was rarely discussed in Carlisle’s publication; however, this comparison is particularly interesting for its historical comparison of Indian students to prisoners of war.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:03
“The reservation boarding schools necessarily do less work, the pupils are younger, the facilities more limited. Only three or four trades are dealt with, usually carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking* harness making, some painting and bricklaying.”
Pratt argued that boarding school such as Carlisle were a far superior alternative to day schools on reservations. The schools on the reservation did not receive as much funding as the other Indian schools, and therefore were unable to provide a high quality education. The teachers were often under qualified and had not received proper training. The vocational training was limited to just a few subjects, as mentioned in the quote above. Those that received their education on the reservation were often unable to leave and join the rest of society if they so desired - they were not sufficiently qualified to do so. Most importantly to Pratt, the boarding school experience allowed him to completely separate the students from the cultures of their home.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 14:03
…”the Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs stating after a recent tour that the Indian schools are “at least twenty-five years in advance of the present public-school system in industrial training.”
Appearances were vital to the success of this government-run Indian boarding school. The lawns were often well manicured and the grounds well kept. These schools were considered to be in better condition than most of the public schools offered. Moreover, the education was considered finer than those in the public schools as well as the teachers had a higher education and superior training and there was a much wider range of subjects taught.
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 - 13:59
“It has been decided to abolish the Business Department and to discontinue the tinsmithing and carriage-making trades, and to establish in lieu of these, thorough, practical courses in domestic science and agriculture….To get the Indian on the soil—his own soil—and to teach him how to raise food products is one of the ambitions that can be entertained by any true friend of the race.”
The tinsmithing shop pictured above was one of many industrial pursuits offered at Carlisle. From its early days, the school stressed the importance of instruction in vocational trades. Students were instructed in carpentry, shoemaking, harness making, tailoring, sewing, blacksmithing, printing and laundry workshops. As attitudes changed outside of Carlisle’s walls, however, new popular images of the farming Indian became influential. After the Dawes Act of 1887, in which reservations were broken up into individual allotments for Indians to farm (and the remainder to be sold to white farmers), the idea of economic assimilation through agriculture became essential to the Indian education. Although some trades survived the transition, this new focus on farming reveals the extent to which Carlisle was vulnerable to changing public opinion.
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.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:55
“The consistently strong football teams which the Government Indian School at Carlisle, Pa., has turned out for the past ten years, and especially the remarkable record made by the Indians in the last two or three years has caused many to attribute this success to questionable methods of recruiting the team, when as a matter of fact the success of the Indians has been due to the rough, hardy outdoor life that the players have been inured to from the day they were born. In addition to this purely physical explanation, there is a psychological one: the Indians know that people regard them as an inferior race, unable to compete successfully in any line of endeavor with the white men, and as a result they are imbued with a fighting spirit, when pitted against their white brethren, that carries them a long way toward victory.”
The Carlisle Indian School is often remembered for its dynamic football program, led by the legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner. While at Carlisle, Warner coached Jim Thorpe, who went on to win two Olympic titles and play professional and collegiate football. The Carlisle Indians became a football powerhouse, competing with major collegiate football programs. In The Indian Craftsman, the author identifies their strength as a psychological motive: in this interpretation, football becomes a resistance to racial narratives.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:54
“Just as Greek and Egyptian art have been made much of in schools, it is the aim to foster the artistic instincts of the Indian instead of blotting out all his tendencies and civilizing him too completely”
Carlisle educators found American culture to be a useful tool for assimilation. Carlisle students excelled in music and arts, learning American styles to replace their stolen cultures. In The Indian Craftsman, this author argues that Indians should retain just enough of their culture to use it as an artistic advantage. The comparison to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Egypt reflect a larger public opinion that Native American society was ultimately doomed.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:53
“One characteristic of the Indian School is the Outing System, whereby the students are placed in well chosen homes for a period of four months each year. The girls are engaged as house girls or domestics, and the boys are placed on farms and in shops to be taught farming and the trades.”
A vital component to the vocational training each student received was the outing provided by the school. Each student was placed in a home for four months each year and received real job experience in whatever their vocational training was. This enabled them to find jobs outside of the reservation when they were finished with their education. It is important to note the names present on the ledger. To complete the assimilation process, each student went out into the world with the white name they had been given upon arrival, symbolizing the start of a life in white society and the cutting of ties between the student and their ancestry and culture.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:51
Pupils are not sent out until after at least one year in the school. Then the boy or girl who is to go out to work signs an agreement like the following:
“I want to go out into the country.
"If you will send me I promise to obey my employee, to keep all the rules of the school.
“I will attend Sunday school and church regularly.
“I will not absent myself from my farm home without permission of my employer and will not loaf about stores or elsewhere evenings or Sundays.
“I will not make a practice of staying for meals when I visit my friends.
“I will not use tobacco nor any spirituous liquors in any form.
“I will not play cards nor gamble and will save as much money as possible.
“If out for the winter I will attend school regularly and will do my best to advance myself in my studies.
“I will bathe regularly, write my home letter every month and do all that I can to please my employer, improve myself and make the best use of the chance given me."
Students could participate in the distinctive outing system after a minimum of one year of study. These students traveled to live with white families who applied for labor, primarily in the Northeast and Mid-atlantic area. The rules listed above reflect the influence of Christian norms on the Indian students and highlight what Carlisle administrators identify as their Indian ideal.
Published by goldbesa on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 13:45
“Think of the splendid opportunity these girls have to become good housekeepers, for the best house-keepers in the country may be found in these Pennsylvania homes.”
Richard Henry Pratt may have preached equality, but the educational fates of his student reveal how his dreams had fallen short. Carlisle’s reliance on industrial trades and domestic labor ultimately prepared their students to enter only less socially prestigious positions. In particular, the outing system described in the quotation above served to reinforce racial hierarchies.