How did he propose to achieve it?
Instructions to Indian Agents and Superintendents of Indian Schools (1889) The great purpose which the Government has in view in providing an am- ple system of common school education for all Indian youth of school age, is the preparation of them for American citizenship. The Indians are destined to become absorbed into the national life, not as Indians, but as Americans. They are to share with their fellow-citizens in all the rights and privileges and are likewise to be called upon to bear fully their share of all the duties and responsibilities involved in American citizenship.
It is in the highest degree important, therefore, that special attention should be paid, particularly in the higher grades of the schools, to the in- struction of Indian youth in the elements of American history, acquainting them especially with the leading facts in the lives of the most notable and worthy historical characters. While in such study the wrongs of their an- cestors cannot be ignored, the injustice which their race has suffered can be contrasted with the larger future open to them, and their duties and opportunities rather than their wrongs will most profitably engage their attention.
Source: Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the “Friends of the Indian,” 1880–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 257–259; origi- nally from “Instructions to Indian Agents in Regard to Inculcation of Patriotism in Indian Schools,” in House Executive Document No. 1, part 5, vol. II, 51st Cong., 2nd sess, serial 2841, p. clxvii.
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Chapter 3 Evaluating Primary Sources66
Pupils should also be made acquainted with the elementary principles of the Government under which they live, and with their duties and privileges as citizens. To this end, regular instructions should be given them in the form of familiar talks, or by means of the use of some elementary text-book in civics. Debating societies should be organized in which may be learned the practical rules of procedure which govern public assemblies. Some simple manual of rules of order should be put into the hands of the more advanced students, and they should be carefully instructed in its use.
On the campus of all the more important schools there should be erected a flagstaff, from which should float constantly, in suitable weather, the Ameri- can flag. In all schools of whatever size and character, supported wholly or in part by the Government, the “Stars and Stripes” should be a familiar ob- ject, and students should be taught to reverence the flag as a symbol of their nation’s power and protection.
Patriotic songs should be taught to the pupils, and they should sing them frequently until they acquire complete familiarity with them. Patriotic selec- tions should be committed and recited publicly, and should constitute a por- tion of the reading exercises.
National holidays—Washington’s birthday, Decoration Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas—should be observed with appropriate exercises in all Indian schools. It will also be well to observe the anniver- sary of the day upon which the “Dawes bill” for giving to Indians allotments of land in severalty became a law, viz, February 8, 1887, and to use that occasion to impress upon Indian youth the enlarged scope and opportunity given them by this law and the new obligations which it imposes.
In all proper ways, teachers in Indian schools should endeavor to appeal to the highest elements of manhood and womanhood in their pupils, ex- citing in them an ambition after excellence in character and dignity of sur- roundings, and they should carefully avoid any unnecessary reference to the fact that they are Indians.
They should point out to their pupils the provisions which the Govern- ment has made for their education, and the opportunities which it affords them for earning a livelihood, and for achieving for themselves honorable places in life, and should endeavor to awaken reverence for the nation’s power, gratitude for its beneficence, pride in its history, and a laudable am- bition to contribute to its prosperity.
Agents and school superintendents are specially charged with the duty of putting these suggestions into practical operation.
9 Captain Richard Henry Pratt was an Army officer who fought the Indians on the Southern plains and then devoted many years to Indian education. After supervising an experiment in the education of Indian
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Sources 67
prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida, Pratt established a school for Native American students in some old army barracks at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1879 and served as its superintendent until 1904. A vocational training school, Carlisle was considered a model institution by many Indian reformers. What parallels does Pratt see between Indians and African Americans? What is his argument for educating Indian students off the reservation?