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Progressive Education “Era”-r

The Progressive Era was a time in American history when multiple reforms and

organizations pushed to “better” America. The movements that citizens tried to implement were,

in the broadest term, experiments. The government enacted some movements without careful

consideration and denied others without looking at the positive outcomes that may have

happened due to its execution. Some of the experiments that lasted into today’s society are

women’s suffrage and workers’ rights. Those that failed, but were major movements, were

Prohibition and Native American education.

Native American Education Development

When one thinks of education, it more or less is defined by developing and accumulating

knowledge to advance or prepare a student for a future career. This was not the essential aim of

the government when developing these industrial boarding schools. According to T.J. Morgan,

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, explained in his September 5, 1890 report that,

“The general purpose of the Government is the preparation of Indian youth for assimilation into the national life by such a course of training as will prepare them for the duties and privileges of American citizenship. This involves the training of the hand in useful industries; the development of the mind in independent and self-directing power of though; the impartation of useful practical knowledge; the culture of the moral nature, and the formation of character.”1

As Commissioner, his goal of Native American education was to assimilate the children into

American society and erase the Native American culture. He spoke of useful practical

knowledge. He did not say applicable, useful knowledge for higher education and beyond. His

word usage in his statement was definitive in what he wanted to express. Native Americans

1 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume I. New York: Random House, 1973, 487.

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were only to obtain the knowledge that would help them coexist in the English speaking, “white

man” society.

Historian Evelyn Adams described Commissioner Morgan as being “zealous, dynamic,

articulate, courageous, and optimistic” in his efforts for the Native American education.2 Had he

intermingled the Anglo-Saxon ideals with the Native American ideals, could he truly be

considered all of the above. However, he did not. There was no literature showing

Commissioner Morgan had even the slightest belief that Native Americans were worth anything

more than an assimilated people in a Caucasian dominated society. Nowhere did it state that he,

as well as many others, believed the Native Americans could be influential contributors to

society. Many people during the Progressive Era did not believe in the idea that the Native

Americans could someday be taught to be successful doctors, politicians, lawyers, or any other

prestigious occupation.

Had this group of “Progressives” believed the Native Americans could be or train to be

any of the listed professions, then they would have been able to refer to themselves as

progressive. However, this was in no way a step forward for any group of people. The Native

Americans were forced into a lifestyle and education system that was meant for failure. The

failure was not necessarily "not passing" classes; the failure was the lack of support and belief

that the Native Americans could only take on clerical and simple task employment. This group

of people was expected to attend the schools and develop an Anglo-Saxon way of life.

Commissioner Morgan did as the majority believed, and opted for a complete removal of Native

American values.

2 Evelyn C. Adams. American Indian Education: Government Schools and Economic Progress. New York: Arno Press, 1971, 54.

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Arizona State University professor, Eric Margolis attested to the idea of simplistic

education in the attempt to delete Native American heritage. He explained, “the explicit long-

term goal of schooling was, by working through the children, to exterminate the indigenous

culture and replace it with the disciplines, habits, language, religion, and practices of the

dominant one.”3 He believed the Native Americans were expected to give up everything they

knew for life they were expected to follow with no questions asked. In his article, the

photographs he included are all of groups of Native American students “acting” like the “white

man.” He passionately asserted that he “found no photographs celebrating individual

accomplishment, for example ‘the winner of the spelling bee’, or ‘the champion athlete’…the

new identity was adherence to an acceptable social group...following abstract rules, obedience to

authority, and an appreciation for rank.”4 The Native American youths were stripped of

ancestral roots and clothed with the Caucasian American ideals. The Native American children

were changed both physically and mentally through the use of the industrial boarding schools.

The main focus in the education of the Native Americans in the idustrial schools was to

develop a functioning male or female in the American society. The students were not taught

subjects on the level that would be collegate preparation but rather vocational preparation. The

course of study was continued through the summer months in addition to the typical school year.

During the school year, “Industrial work occup[ied] a prominent place in the school [students

focused on] trades of carpenter, blacksmith, wagon-maker, saddler, tinner, shoemaker, tailor,

printer, and baker.”5 It is not that these jobs are a non-essential part of the development and

continuation of the society, however, these jobs do not take a college degree to obtain. These

3 Eric Margolis (2004). "Looking at discipline, looking at labour: photographic representations of Indian boarding schools." Visual Studies, 19 (1), 73. 4 Ibid, 77. 5 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume I. New York: Random House, 1973, 285.

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occupations are developed through apprenticeship. Many, like General Pratt of the Carlisle

Indian

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The students were to learn how to be a productive citizen throughout the entire year. As

stated in the Cato Sells’ Commissioner’s Report of 1918, the ultimate goal of the Native

American education was to develop an “American” citizen. He wrote,

“The development of the all-round efficient citizen is the dominating feature. So we are now teaching the Indian boys and girls to design and make beautiful and useful things with their hands; to study and understand practical application of the laws of nature, and to apply and appreciate art in the cooking and serving of a meal, in the making and fitting of a garment, and in the furnishing and decorating of homes; in designing and making useful tools and furniture, in building convenient, comfortable, and sanitary houses; or peradventure, in making two ears of corn grow where only one grew before.”6

In his explanation, Cato Sells put onto to paper the basic ideology of what Native American

education was meant to be at the culmination. In summation of the passage, the student was only

being educated in the department of home economics and farming. Students were put into the

outing system, what one would call “internships,” where they would be placed into home and do

the domestic work and the field work. Other sorts of firsthand “field experience” students were

able to participate in were bakeshops, tailor shops, and as janitors.7 The Native American

students learned to cook, clean, decorate homes, and cultivate crops. In 1901, Miss Estelle Reel,

at the time the Superintendant of Indian Schools, developed a course of study in which each

subject students were expected to learn was outlined in great detail. Her curriculum

6 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume II. New York: Random House, 1973, 883.

7 Don Talayesva. Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942.

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development for Indian schools became a two hundred seventy six page book. The topics she

goes into great detail with were

“agriculture, arithmetic, bakery, basketry, blacksmithing, carpentry, cooking, dairying, engineering, evening hour, gardening, geography, harness making, history, housekeeping, laundry, music, nature study, outing system, painting, physiology, printing, reading, language, and subprimary work, sewing, shoe making, spelling, tailoring, teachers’ reading course, upholstery, [and] writing.”8

Apparently, these were the necessities to be a useful, functioning part of society. According to

Miss Estelle, “the course is designed to give teachers a definite idea of work that should be done

in the schools to advance the pupils as speedily as possible to usefulness and citizenship.”9

Many during the Progressive Era did not see the usefulness of Native Americans as well as not

seeing them as citizens; how is that possible if they are Native Americans? They never

immigrated to the country. Miss Estelle continued to say, in her description of the curriculum,

“the aim of the course is to give the Indian child a knowledge of the English language, and to

equip him with the ability to become self-supporting as speedily as possible.”10 She keeps

mentioning the word “speedily.” This meant the results needed to as soon as possible and no

later. This makes sense as to why the curriculum was so intensive in the “important” aspects of

the education and the “other stuff” was not as emphasized.

Even further evidence of this teaching method was outlined in the 1914 Commissioner

Report by Cato Sells. He wrote a rather in depth breakdown of the curriculum. More or less,

only twenty five percent of the time spent educating was formal instruction with classes such as

8 Reel, Estelle. The Indian School of the United States: Industrial and Literacy. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901, accessed December 19, 2011, http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013973650, 3.9 Ibid, 5.10 Ibid.

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“English, Writing, Drawing, Numbers, and Arithmetic.”11 Within these groups of classes, there

are even further breakdowns.

For example, English class for a second grader was to be ninety minutes long. Within the

ninety minutes, “conversational and other oral exercises, history, health, reading, nature study,

mechanics of language and written exercises, and spelling” were to be covered.12 That would

average out to be around twelve to thirteen minutes a lesson. Nowhere near adequate for a true

education in the formal meaning. Fast forward to the “fourth year,” in today’s grade system

about tenth grade. The English lesson was forty five minutes with two sections: Reading and

Composition.13 However, in these sections, there were even more studies covered. In the

Reading section, “Study Materials – history of supply, demand, where, Classics, History, and

Health” were demanded for study. In the Composition section, “Written, Mechanics of

language, Spelling, Grammar, and Rhetoric” were covered.14 This made each lesson roughly

about five minutes per topic.

The other seventy five percent was vocational or recreation time. The morning started

with general exercises then the academic classes and the afternoon consisted of breathing

techniques, industrial work and physical training. Each general exercises consisted of twenty

five minute blocks in which there was an alternating assignment. There was either “music,

assembly, manners and right conduct, current events, or civics.”15 Depending on the day, one of

the subjects occupied the full twenty five minutes, not a splitting up like English class goy. The

11 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume II. New York: Random House, 1973, 855 – 863.12 Ibid, 857.13 Ibid, 863. 14 Ibid. 15 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume II. New York: Random House, 1973, 855 – 863.

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industrial work was more and more specific as the grades progressed. Starting with first and

second grade, the industrial work only said “small and young pupils should not be required to

work full time.”16 In fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, the topic demanded “Instruction, 30 minutes.

Production, 210 minutes.”17 Once the student entered post-sixth grade, the first, second, and

third year specify that the students study “Drafting, 2 hours per week. Instruction, 1 ½ hours per

week. Application, 20 ½ hours per week.”18 The only difference in the first, second, and third

year regiment of industrial work compared to that of the fourth year was the deletion of drafting

and the addition of two hours to the application.19 No matter what grade level, more emphasis

was on the industrial work than was on the academic work. As for the physical training, it was

uniform through each grade level; sixty minutes. The only change that occurred was the younger

groups of children had free play and the older students were expected to be involved in

competitive games and be involved in “military and gymnastic drills, two or three times per

week.20

Once again, in Cato Sells’ Commissioner Report of 1918, the validity of having a more

industrial centered curriculum rather than an academic one was expressed. He believed that

leaving out particular pieces of academic information would “make room for more practical and

useful subjects.”21 What was more practical and useful than learning “powers and roots, ratios,

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16 Ibid, 856 – 857. 17 Ibid, 858 – 860. 18 Ibid, 861 – 862. 19 Ibid, 863. 20 Ibid, 858.21 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume II. New York: Random House, 1973, 883.

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Carl Schurz added to Pratt’s idea by stating that Carlisle was an ideal location for setting

up a boarding school because in this area, “the young Indians would no longer be under the

influence of the Indian camp or village, but in immediate contact with towns, farms, and

factories of civilized people, living and working in the atmosphere of civilization.”22 Since

General Pratt was able to rally support, his dream of creating the industrial school became a

reality. Pratt was not going into the education system without any prior knowledge or experience

in education. He used and applied things he learned during his time at the Hampton Institute, an

African American industrial school.

Native American Experiences: During School and After

Before stepping foot onto school grounds, many students recall either being separated

from their parents when they were dropped off at the schools or when the bus took them away.

One student recalls thinking the reason he was put on this bus was because his mother no longer

wanted him. However, when he saw tears fall from her eyes, he realized he was not being

punished. He noticed other parents crying and he realized this was not a decision his mother

made; he was being forced to leave his mother and become the “white man.”23 Other students

who were dropped off at the schools by their parents experienced something different. Jim

Whitewolf explained what happened his first few minutes at the school. Within a few minutes,

his father witnessed him as a Native American and only minutes later, a white man.

“The first thing they did was cut my hair. There were a lot of boys in there having that done. They took off my buckskin and gave me a shirt. They took a scissors and cut the braids off and gave them to my father. They trimmed my hair short all around...the

22 Francis Paul Prucha. Americanizing the American Indians. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973, 19.23 Indian Country Diaries. http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/boarding2.html (accessed December 12, 2011).

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superintendant came in. He said my name was going to be James.”24

As Jim Whitewolf showed, the Native

American students were literally stripped of

everything Native American in culture; hair,

clothing, and name. The first order of business

when students got to the boarding schools was

the external changes they were forced to make.

A student of the Carlisle Institute, Lone Wolf,

explained how long hair was a prized

possession of the Native Americans. Native American students were so attached to their long

locks that when the process of cutting hair upon arrival occurred, the students wept.25 Like Jim

Whitewolf explained, Lone Wolf tells of his stripping experience. As quoted in PBS, “All of the

buckskin clothes had to go and we had to put on the clothes of the White Man.”26 Both men, like

all the other students entering the schools, encountered the process of assimilation from day one.

Once here, the students could not turn back. This was to begin their new, false lives.

A major rule the students had to abide by in the assimilation process was the rule of

language. Students were NOT allowed to speak in their native tongues for any reason. They

were expected to learn English, speak English, and like it. There were NO exceptions. Students

were not allowed to keep anything native and this would include the language. Luther Standing

Bear, as quoted in American Indian Education, believed

24 Jim Whitewolf. The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969, 83.25 Indian Country Diaries. http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/boarding2.html (accessed December 12, 2011).26 Ibid.

Figure 1: Tom Torlino forced to shed his ancestral clothing and appearance for the accepted "American" standards. Source: http://www.californiaindianeducation.org/indian_boarding_schools/

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“The Indian children should have been taught how to translate the Sioux tongue into English properly; but English teachers only taught them the English language, like a bunch of parrots. While they could read all the words placed before them, they did not know the proper use of them; their meaning was a puzzle.”27

Students were expected to recognize the English

language and words. Meanings and associations were

not necessarily the aim of these lessons. Basically the

lessons were to rid the Native Americans of the

“unacceptable” language and replace it with the

common language of the society. An employee of an

industrial school, Albert H. Kneale, quoted in American Indian Education, agreed with Luther

Standing Bear when he says “there seemed to be nothing gained through knowing that ‘c-a-t’

spells cat.”28 Both Luther Standing Bear and Albert H. Kneale, a student and non-student

respectively,

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“[They] busted his head open and blood got all over,’ Wright recalls. ‘I had to take him to the

hospital, and they told me to tell them he ran into the wall and I better not tell them what really

happened.’”29 Students were not permitted to speak the truth of the severe beatings. On the

other hand, if the beating had been this brutal, a student simply running into a wall would not

have caused such abrasions. Therefore, the outside world turned a blind eye to the harsh reality

of what these men were doing to these defenseless, lost students.

27 Jon Reyhner and Jeanne Edar. American Indian Education: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004, 95.28 Ibid, 91.29 Indian Country Diaries. http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/boarding2.html (accessed December 12, 2011)

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Two students recalled personal

discipline from the faculty for failure

to comply with the rules. Don

Talayesva was beaten when he refused

to debate in front of the whole school.

Don recalled his choice to either

debate in front of the class or receive a

thrashing; he chose the latter of the

two because he felt he was not able to do the debate. “[The disciplinarian] led me to the

basement. Two strong boys let down my pants and held me. After about fifteen blows with a

rawhide in a heavy hand, I broke down and cried.”30 This was all because he adamantly refused

to debate in front of an entire school.

However, Jim Whitewolf experienced a different sort of punishment. His punishment

was more of a mentally grueling and physical labor discipline. He was punished on three

separate occasions. Each time called for a different punishment. The first time he ran away

from school because two fellow classmates we able to talk him into leaving. He was absent for

the morning roll call because he was “running away.” However, his conscience got the best of

him and he was present for the night roll call. He was given a choice. “They said I could spend

all day the next day, Saturday, sitting alone in the chapel and that I could only go down to eat.

Or else I could take a whipping on the palm of my hand. I thought the whipping would hurt, so I

decided to sit in the chapel all day long.”31 The second time he ran away he was punished by

30 Don Talayesva. Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942, 130.31 Jim Whitewolf. The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969, 86.

Figure 2: Entire Native American school population at Carlisle Institute. This was more or less the size of the group of students Don was expected to debate in front of before he refused to. Source: http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html

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having laundry duty with the girls for two days.32 It does not sound horrible in today’s standards,

but during this time period, the laundry rooms were steamy and hot. This was not a place one

would want to spend a lot of time in because of the saturated air and the heat. Some could even

view this as a form of torture. His last recount of discipline occurred when he ran away a third

time, he had to serve his punishment by “carrying dirt

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retelling them which room they were expected to migrate to.33 Students were being

taught to accept the way of life they were “expected” to live with NO questions asked. If

students did not know, they needed to find the answer to the questions through watching fellow

classmates. This same thought process, learn by watching, was the reason the outing system was

implemented. The Native Americans needed to learn what it meant to be a “true American” in

the eyes of the WASP, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, government. Once this occurred, the

Native Americans were Americans; well, some of them were.

A few students were thankful for their education because of the opportunities the

education gave them after they graduated from the schools. Others became a lost people. There

was also a group of students who completely rejected to schooling and returned to the camps to

once again partake in the tribal ways of life and the rituals they longed for while being forced to

be something they were not. Three such students grateful for their education were Christine

Louise Kozine, Don Talayesva, and Helen Sekaquaptewa. Christine Louise Kozine enjoyed

school as a whole. What she learned in the boarding school was able to be implemented into the

“real world.” Although the general purpose was to

32 Ibid, 89.33 Jim Whitewolf. The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969, 85.

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assimilate Native Americans, Christine was able to use the basic knowledge she was taught in

order obtain a job in an office.34 As for Don Talayesva, he appreciated the education he was

given because he was able to read. In learning to read, he was able to understand the Word of

God. With his newfound knowledge, both English and religious, he would take it back to the

reservation and teach it to his people so they too could share in his grace.35 In addition to putting

these classes to practical use, like Christine and Don, there were students like Helen

Sekaquaptewa who just genuinely enjoyed her classes and wanted to learn.36

There was also a group of students who completely disregarded, even hated, what it

meant to be a Native American. Polingaysi Qoyawayma was quoted in Philip J. Greenfield’s

article stating that she longer enjoyed sleeping and eating the way she did when she was a young

Native American. She refused to sleep without a bed and would not eat off the floor.37 Also in

this article, Helen Sekaquaptewa acted nearly the same as Polingaysi in the respect that she no

longer felt part of her culture anymore and refused to partake in her tribe’s ways.38 For some

students, like Polingaysi and Helen, the lifestyle completely changed their way of life. However,

some students had a

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There was also a class of people who were not able to accept either identity because neither the

“white man” nor the tribe would accept them. One student recalled a conversation he had with

his grandmother about his own identity.

34 Ibid, 49.35 Don Talayesva. Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942, 116.36 Philip J. Greenfeld. "Escape from Albuquerque: an Apache memorate." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 25, no. 3 (2001): 48.37 Ibid, 49.38 Ibid.

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“‘I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk Indian to her and I said, ‘Grandma, I don't understand you,’ Wright says. ‘She said, ‘Then who are you?’ ‘Wright says he told her his name was Billy.’ ‘Your name’s not Billy. Your name’s ‘TAH-rruhm,’ she told him. ‘And I went, ‘That's not what they told me.’”39

The student was not sure who he was. His grandmother recognized that he was no longer the

grandson she knew. He was now someone else. At the same time, he was not the boy his

grandmother was talking about; he was who the “white man” said he was. Little did he

understand, the “white” society did not accept him for who he truly was because if it had, he

would have been the grandson his grandmother knew. An even sadder story is that of a boy

named Kee. “Kee withdrew from both the White and Navajo worlds as he grew older because he

could not comfortably communicate in either language...By the time he was 16—Kee was an

alcoholic, uneducated, and despondent—without identity.”40 Kee, like many others, were what

many historians call a people between two worlds. They do not fit into the one culture they were

born into and the society they were being forced to become a part of saw no use for them. This

is how they fall into a limbo life with no one and nowhere to turn to for anything. Students like

Kee could not voice their feelings, concerns, issues, emotions, frustrations, nothing. These are

the people who got disregarded and pushed away.

The Native American industrial schools worked for some students and led to a semi-

decent life after. There were extremely rare, if any that I myself could not even find, students

who amounted to anything more than a service job or athletic star. The schooling was not

designed to be like the schooling of the majority of the population with such opportunities as

higher education and job offerings that college graduates were open to. Native American 39 Indian Country Diaries. http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/boarding2.html (accessed December 12, 2011).40 Jon Reyhner and Jeanne Edar. American Indian Education: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004, 5.

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education was just an attempt to rid the Native Americans of everything “savage” and replace

everything with the values and norms of the majority population. The students were forced to

give up their families, names, lives, religion, language, and everything else imaginable.

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