2. Missions

Perhaps no phase of Indian education has received more attention in the literature than that of the efforts of the missionaries. Nor is that surprising, for throughout the first three centuries of Indian-white contact, the major responsibility for education fell upon the churches.

First came the Jesuits and Franciscans. These two orders not only worked in different parts of the United States, but their educational philosophies and approaches were quite different.

A few Jesuits were in Florida in the 1500's, and for a time they worked in the Southwest, but their principal activities in the present United States covered the period from 1611 to the end of the 1700's. They were mostly of French extraction, they entered the continent by way of the St. Lawrence River, and their activities centered around the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi and its tributaries. Among their missions were those to the Abnaki in Maine, the Huron in Michigan and Ohio, the Iroquois in New York, the Ottawa in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Illinois, and the Louisiana tribes.

In addition to converting them to Christianity, Frenchification of the Indians was the Jesuits' goal. Louis XIV, who gave them considerable financial support, repeatedly gave orders that all possible efforts should be made to "educate the children of the Indians in the French manner." Layman (351:25 ff). maintains that it was their policy to remove the children from their families and tribes, to stress French language and customs, and to emphasize the traditional academic subjects. Gibson (212), while agreeing that the Jesuits' goal was to "Galicize and sedentarize" them, insists that the curriculum included reading, writing, singing, agriculture, carpentry, and handicrafts.

The literature on the missionary activities of the Jesuits is, of course, abundant, but only a limited portion of it treats their contributions to the education of the Indian. A general treatment of their educational work is furnished by Layman (361), while Gibson (212) concentrates upon their early activities in New France. Jacobsen (309) does the same for their work in New Spain, chiefly Mexico, while Dunne (164) touches upon their efforts in the United States, and Stander (598) has written of their work in the colony of New York. The Franciscans, on the other hand, were mainly of Spanish origin, and they entered the country from the south. Five of them accompanied Coronado, and three remained behind when his expedition returned. Their principal work was in the Southwest, including what is now Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California. Father Englehardt's monumental work (170) is the most comprehensive account, but a good, readable description of life in the missions is to be found in Webb (666).

Layman (361) contrasts their approach to the education of the Indian with that of the Jesuits. It was their policy to gather their Indians into native villages surrounding the mission, thus keeping families intact, and to instruct them in the arts and crafts which they could use in making a living. They taught them how to clear the land, build irrigation ditches, plough, harvest the crops, and thresh the wheat and barley. Instruction included carpentry, blacksmithing, masonry, spinning and weaving, and the making of clothing, soap, and candles. Academic subjects were of lesser importance, and there was no

conscious effort to make Europeans of them. The educational activities of the Franciscans among Indians of the United States has received some attention from thesis writers. Barth (34) presents a wealth of facts, but an ethnocentric viewpoint, Van Well (641), includes some revelant material, North (455) and McHugh (415) describe the work in California, and McCarrell (405) treats some of the early Franciscan schools.

Some religious orders in addition to the Jesuits and Franciscans were engaged in educational work with Indians, and both of these orders often called upon the various sisterhoods for assistance. Frietsch (202) has studied the work of the Sisters of St. Francis among the Montana Crow, and McDonald (411) has written on the contributions of the Dominican Sisters to the education of Indians in New Mexico. Among other studies of the educational activities of Catholic missionaries might be mentioned Zens (699) on South Dakota, Cardinal (101) on work with the Ottawa and Menominee, Bollig (69) and Bordenkircher (72) on the Kansas missions, and White (680) on the efforts of the Jesuits to establish schools in Montana.

Protestants were also bent upon Christianizing and civilizing the Indians, and the Virginia colonists began thinking along those lines as soon as they had won a secure foothold. King James I, on March 24, 1617, called upon the Anglican clergy to collect money "for the erecting of some churches and schools for ye education of ye children of these Barbarians in Virginia." The following year the Virginia Co. directed the Governor of the colony to choose a convenient place for the building of "a College for the children of the Infidels," and 10,000 acres of land were set aside for that purpose. The House of Burgesses decreed that a certain number of Indian boys should be educated "in true religion and civile course of life." A considerable sum of money was raised in the colony and in England for the erection of a college, but a revolt of the Indians in 1622 brought a change of attitude, and it was not until 1691 that the College of William and Mary was finally chartered. Many Indian students were brought there in the succeeding years. In 1723 a house was built on the campus for Indian students, and this handsome structure known as Brafferton Building, still stands. Robinson (529) is the best source for the Virginia story, but it is also treated by Layman (361) and Allegrezza (11).

In most of the colonies there was no great enthusiasm for the education of the Indians, but it was otherwise in Massachusetts. While the charter of the Bay Co. declared that the main object of the company was the conversion of the natives, nothing was done until the time of John Eliot. He was born in England and came to America in 1631. Always interested in education, the year after his arrival he established a school in Roxbury, where he was the minister. Five years later, when a few captives from the Pequot war were brought to Roxbury, Eliot began to study their language and customs. Winning their confidence, he began to instruct them in habits of industry and thrift. He developed the plan of bringing the Indians together in self-governing towns, where they could be taught, along with their letters and Christian ethics, the various arts and crafts. Nor did he neglect Latin and Greek for those he hoped would become teachers and missionaries. After 30 years of this effort, Eliot had succeeded in establishing 14 towns of "praying Indians," as they were called, with a total population

of 497. Much has been written on the life and work of John Eliot, and a good, readable biography, including a complete bibliography, has recently been published by Winslow (688).

Eliot's work with Indians was carried forward by the Reverend John Sergeant, who established at Stockbridge, Mass., a day school, a boarding school, and an experimental "outing system," whereby Indian pupils were placed in Puritan homes during the vacation periods. General Pratt, founder of the Carlisle School, is often credited with the inauguration of the "outing system," but the practice was much older than he. Another of Eliot's successors was the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, who founded a training school for Indians at his home in Lebanon, Conn. His philosophy involved the removal of the Indians from their natural environment, surrounding them with the influences of the Puritan home, and teaching them the rudiments of secular and religious knowledge and "husbandry." Later he moved his school to Hanover, N.H., where it was named Moor's Charity School, and later became Dartmouth College.

The literature on the missionary work of the various Protestant churches is extensive, but rarely has it been analyzed and evaluated from an educational viewpoint. Gordon (218) and Baptist (31) have studied the schools established among the various Oklahoma tribes, Buck (90) has looked into the work of the Presbyterians among the Pueblos, Bowlby (74) has sketched the careers of some of the missionary educators in the Oregon country, and the contributions of the Quakers has been studied by Dunlap (162), Mendenhall (425), and Farrell (178).

Evaluation, apparently a major concern of modern educators, has always engaged the minds of some people. Long ago William Byrd

wrote:

Many of the children of our neighboring Indians have been brought up in the College of William and Mary. They have been taught to read and write, and have been carefully instructed in the Principles of the Christian Religion until they came to be men. Yet after they return'd home, instead of civilizing and converting the rest, they have immediately Relapt into Infidelity and Barbarism themselves.

Similar expressions of disillusionment are found throughout the literature on Indian education. Layman (361: 26) refers to the "almost complete failure of the Jesuits to attain their educational purpose,' and White (680), after studying six mission schools in Montana, says, "The tangible results of this missionary activity among the Indians were not particularly noteworthy." More recently there have been two serious efforts to evaluate the missionary enterprise among the Indians. Berkhofer (51) has sought to analyze the consequences of missionary endeavor from a historical and anthropological standpoint rather than from the value position of the missionary, and Harrod (245) has compared the Catholic and Protestant approaches to the Black feet, and contrasted the impact which each had upon the Indians' culture and personality.

3. Institutional histories

The colonists, never doubting that formal education offered the best means for civilizing the Indian, set about creating schools for them. The charter of Harvard College stated the purpose of the institution to be the "education of the English and Indian youth of this country in

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knowledge," and Dartmouth's charter declared its purpose to be "the education and instruction of youth of Indian tribes of this land in reading, writing, and all parts of learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing children of pagans, as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youth and any others." William and Mary and Princeton also professed a concern for Indian education.

There are other institutions, however, which are more closely identified with the education of Indians, some of which have caught the historian's attention. The number of them is very great, and Adam (6) mentions many of them by name. Moor's Charity School has been referred to above, and two volumes by McCallum (403, 404) tell its story. Following the Revolutionary War, and down to the time of the Civil War, hundreds of schools and academies for Indians were established. Adams (6:35-40) makes a threefold classification of these: (1) the manual labor school, located in the Indian community, teaching "letters, labor and mechanic arts, and morals and Christianity"; (2) the mission school, patterned after the day schools of the whites; and (3) the tribal school, wholly or largely under tribal supervision, and maintained usually by tribal funds. These various institutions are mentioned repeatedly in the literature, but few of them have been subjected to thorough study. An exception is the famous Choctaw Academy which flourished from 1825 until 1842. This institution was conceived and supported by the Indians themselves, located far from their own country near the present Georgetown, Ky., hopefully to provide their children with training in the ways of the white man. Fox (198) has written a good account of this school, and Layman (361) devotes a chapter to it, giving a somewhat less generous evaluation of it than does Fox. The story is also told in a series of articles by Foreman (197). While Indian education for the most part was a responsibility of the churches, financed and controlled by them, and staffed by missionaries and their spouses, the secular governments were not entirely indifferent. As early as 1775 the Continental Congress appropriated $500 for the education of Indians at Dartmouth, and this was increased to $5,000 5 years later. In 1794 a treaty was made with the Oneida, Tuscarora, and Stockbridge Indians-the first Indian treaty in which education was mentioned-which provided that teachers would be hired to "instruct some young men of the three nations in the arts of the miller and the sawer." The second treaty mentioning education was concluded in 1803 with the Kaskaskia, whereby the United States agreed to contribute $100 annually for 7 years toward the support of a priest who would "instruct as many of their children as possible in the rudiments of literature." Then, in 1819, under President Monroe, the sum of $10,000 was appropriated by Congress, thus inaugurating a period of modest governmental support for Indian education. These funds were distributed to the various mission groups, enabling them to expand their educational prgorams.

The Civil War marks a turning point in the history of Indian education. During the war relations between the races deteriorated, but immediately following there arose a great concern for the welfare of the Indians, and the Federal Government began to assume a larger role in their education. Mardock (397), in an interesting dissertation, explores the rise of this humanitarian movement and its involvement

with Indians. A committee of the Congress published a report in 1868 revealing the deplorable status of the Indian, and the humanitarians began immediately to call for reform. To be sure, they grossly misunderstood the Indian problem, and their program called for education, Christianization, and civilization. At any rate, the two major consequences of this reform movement were (1) increased responsibility for education by the Federal Government, and (2) the off-reservation boarding school.

In 1870 Congress appropriated $100,000 for the operation of Federal industrial schools; in 1879 the first off-reservation boarding school was established at Carlisle, Pa.; in 1882 legislation was passed to convert army forts into Indian schools; in 1890 appropriations were made to cover costs of tuition for Indians attending public schools; and in 1917 all subsidies to religious groups were ended.

The off-reservation boarding school, exemplified at Carlisle, dominated the approach to Indian education for 50 years. Its philosophy included the removal of the students from their homes, strict military discipline, a work and study program, an "outing system," and emphasis upon industrial arts The history of Carlisle has been written by Brunhouse (87) and Fitz (189), and Meyer (428) has traced the development of technical education there. The colorful founder of the school, Gen. R. H. Pratt, is the subject of a splendid biography by Eastman (167), and more recently Pratt's autobiography has been published by the Yale University Press (501). A devastating criticism of the boarding school was made by Meriam (427).

Several other Indian schools have been the subjects of historical studies. Two theses have dealt with the history of Haskell-Granzer (223) and Goddard (214). The Indian school at Albuquerque has been historically treated by McKinney (416), and received some attention in Shamberger's (567) educational history of that city. The history of the school at Chemwa, Oreg., one of the oldest nonreservation institutions, has been done by Lemmon (368); and the development of the Kashena Boarding School, on the Menominee Reservation near Green Bay, Wis., has been traced by Spring (596). Four Indian schools in South Dakota have been treated historically-the one at Flandreau by Kizer (338), St. Mary's school at Springfield by Powell (499), the Pipestone school by Reynolds (519), and St. Paul's school at Marty by Suttmiller (603). Vassar (642) has written about the nonreservation boarding school at Fort Bidwell, Calif., which flourished for 32 years; and Hall (234) has given an account of the Bloomfield school, the first missionary school for Chickasaw girls, founded in Oklahoma in 1852.

4. Tribal histories

Quite a few students have turned their attention to the writing of educational histories of various tribal groups. Most illuminating is that of the Five Civilized Tribes, and especially the Cherokee. It is a mistake to think that formal education is entirely a device which the white man has sought to impose upon the Indian. As early as 1791 the Senecas were begging General Washington for teachers so that their men might be taught to farm and build houses, their women to spin and weave, and their children to read and write. The Cherokees quickly perceived that knowledge and education were useful, and they set about to build their own school system, controlled by themselves and