To Educate American Indians

Selected Writings from the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education, 1900–1904

Edited and with an introduction by Larry C. Skogen
Foreword by David Wallace Adams

Indigenous Education Series

406 pages
6 photographs, 1 illustration, 1 table, index

Hardcover

February 2024

978-1-4962-3676-0

$75.00 Pre-order

about author bio praise table of contents media awards

About the Book

To Educate American Indians presents the most complete versions of papers presented at the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education meetings during a time when the debate about how best to “civilize” Indigenous populations dominated discussions. During this time two philosophies drove the conversation. The first, an Enlightenment era–influenced universalism, held that through an educational alchemy American Indians would become productive, Christianized Americans, distinguishable from their white neighbors only by the color of their skin. Directly confronting the assimilationists’ universalism were the progressive educators who, strongly influenced by the era’s scientific racism, held the notion that American Indians could never become fully assimilated. Despite these differing views, a frightening ethnocentrism and an honor-bound dedication to “gifting” civilization to Native students dominated the writings of educators from the NEA’s Department of Indian Education.

For a decade educators gathered at annual meetings and presented papers on how best to educate Native students. Though the NEA Proceedings published these papers, strict guidelines often meant they were heavily edited before publication. In this volume Larry C. Skogen presents many of these unedited papers and gives them historical context for the years 1900 to 1904.

Author Bio

Larry C. Skogen is president emeritus of Bismarck State College, an independent historian, and a retired member of the U.S. Air Force. He is the author of Indian Depredation Claims, 1796–1920. David Wallace Adams is a professor emeritus of education at Cleveland State University and the author of Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928.

Praise

“The National Education Association is a voice for education professionals and dedicated to preparing students for success in a diverse and interdependent world. That doesn’t mean, however, that the NEA hasn’t made mistakes and missteps along the way. With this important work, Larry Skogen provides a window into a time when the federal government forced a curriculum upon Native American students that subjugated them into a marginalized role in our country. The papers of the NEA Department of Indian Education (1900–1904) reveal the association’s role in advancing this harm. This critical study is a reality check for all Americans to learn our true history so that we better understand the mistakes of our past, can be a part of repairing harm, and can be agents of change to make a better future for all of our students and communities.”—Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association

“As our nation struggles with the realities of the Indian boarding school experience, it is important that we understand the motives and educational philosophies of those who administered and worked at those schools. In this groundbreaking work, Larry Skogen provides us with the story of the Indian service educators when they were part of the National Educational Association. Through these selected papers, we get a firsthand account of their efforts to assimilate Native students forcibly into white society. One cannot read these papers without feeling a sense of shame at the educators’ attitudes toward their own Native students. But it is important history that we need to acknowledge.”—Byron L. Dorgan, former U.S. Senator and chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, author of The Girl in the Photograph

“This is important work to enhance the body of knowledge on behalf of Indian Country and our future generations.”—Leander “Russ” McDonald (Dakota/Arikara), president of United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota

“Where historians have used the tools of social history to examine the lives of employees in the Indian schools, Skogen’s work uses an intellectual lens to demonstrate how these workers drove important changes in curriculum and policy. This detailed and nuanced work helps to untangle the genocidal roots of boarding school systems and to see more clearly the challenges that Native people faced in moving their communities and cultures through the difficult years of the early twentieth century.”—Kevin Whalen, author of Native Students at Work: American Indian Labor and Sherman Institute’s Outing Program 1900–1945

“These NEA Indian Department presentations, which Larry Skogen does a masterful job of editing, provide an important window into how many people in the United States thought about American Indians and American Indian education in the beginning of the twentieth century. Skogen has done a remarkable job providing the reader with background information, both in his introduction to each document and in the extensive notes and references he provides.”—Jon A. Reyhner, author of American Indian Education: A History

List of Illustrations

Foreword, by David Wallace Adams
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Note on Editorial Style, Citations, and Names
List of Abbreviations

Part 1. Charleston, South Carolina, July 7–13, 1900
1. What Is the Relation of the Indian of the Present Decade to the Indian of the Future?
H. B. Frissell, Principal, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
2. The Indian Problem
H. B. Frissell, Principal, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
3. The Proper Relation between Literary and Industrial Education in Indian Schools
A. J. Standing, Assistant Superintendent, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
4. The Training of Teachers for Indian Schools
Charles Bartlett Dyke, Director of the Normal Department, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
5. Teaching Trades to Indians
Frank K. Rogers, Director, Armstrong-Slater Memorial Trade School, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
6. The Training of the Indian Girl as the Uplifter of the Home
Josephine E. Richards, Head of the Indian Department, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
7. Practical Methods of Indian Education
John Seger, Superintendent, Seger Colony School, Colony, Oklahoma
Part 2. Detroit, Michigan, July 8–12, 1901
8. President’s Address: Learning by Doing
H. B. Frissell, Principal, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
9. Civilization and Higher Education
William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, Washington DC
10. The Reservation Day School Should Be the Prime Factor in Indian Education
C. C. Covey, Teacher, Pine Ridge Indian School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota
11. The Unification of Industrial and Academic Features of the Indian School
O. H. Bakeless, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
12. What Shall Be Taught in an Indian School?
Calvin M. Woodward, Director, Manual Training School of Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
13. An All-Around Mechanical Training for Indians
Frank K. Rogers, Director, Armstrong-Slater Memorial Trade School, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
14. Practical Methods in Indian Education
Joseph W. Evans, Teacher, Chilocco Indian School, Chilocco, Oklahoma
15. Character Building among Indian Children
Cora M. Folsom, Teacher and Indian Corresponding Secretary, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
16. The Day School: The Gradual Uplifter of the Tribe
Macaria Murphy, Teacher, Odanah Day School, Odanah, Wisconsin
17. The Necessity for a Large Agricultural School in the Indian Service
C. W. Goodman, Superintendent, Chilocco Indian School, Chilocco, Oklahoma
Part 3. Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 7–11, 1902
18. President’s Address
S. M. McCowan, Superintendent, Chilocco Indian School, Chilocco, Oklahoma
19. The Value of an Agricultural School in the Indian Service
S. M. McCowan, Superintendent, Chilocco Indian School, Chilocco, Oklahoma
20. The Value of the Outing System for Girls
Laura Jackson, Girls’ Manager, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
21. What Is Our Aim?
E. A. Allen, Assistant Superintendent, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
22. Needed Changes in Indian Schools
A. O. Wright, Supervisor of Indian Schools, Washington DC
23. The Value of Day Schools
James J. Duncan, Day School Inspector, Pine Ridge, South Dakota
24. Newspapers in Indian Schools
W. T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, Washington DC
Part 4. Boston, Massachusetts, July 6–10, 1903
25. President’s Address: Our Work, Its Progress and Needs
H. B. Peairs, Superintendent, Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas
26. To What Degree Has the Present System of Indian Schools Been Successful in Qualifying for Citizenship?
H. B. Frissell, Principal, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia
27. An Alaskan Start toward Citizenship
Sheldon Jackson, General Agent of Education in Alaska, Washington DC
28. The White Man’s Burden versus Indigenous Development for the Lower Races
G. Stanley Hall, President, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts
29. Heart Culture in Indian Education
Charles F. Meserve, President, Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina
30. Tenure in the Civil Service
John T. Doyle, Secretary of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Washington DC
Part 5. St. Louis, Missouri, June 27–July 1, 1904
31. Efficiency in the Indian Service
John T. Doyle, Secretary of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Washington DC
32. Indian Music and Indian Education
Natalie Curtis, New York, New York
33. What’s in a Name?
Emily S. Cook, Office of Indian Affairs, Washington DC
34. Indian Names
Alice C. Fletcher, Ex-President of the Anthropological Society, Washington DC

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

To Educate American Indians

Selected Writings from the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education, 1900–1904

About the Book

Author Bio

Praise

Table of Contents

Also of Interest

This Benevolent Experiment

Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607-1783

American Indians, the Irish, and Government Schooling

Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press

Boarding School Voices

Without Destroying Ourselves