Insitute to Institute: Dickinson College and Carlisle Indian School
Carlisle Indian School
On October 6, 1879, Carlisle Barracks became home to the first students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The school would be a pioneer in Indian education as its founder, Richard Henry Pratt, would seek a radical education of Indian children by secluding them entirely from their own culture and immersing them in “white” culture and education. From past experiences at Fort Marion(link), Pratt realized that the solution to solve the problem of Indian and U.S. relations was education. Pratt maintained, “to civilize the Indian place him in the midst of civilization; to keep him civilized make him stay”(1). This belief, which would become a motto of the Carlisle Indian School, was put into practice when Pratt secured the use of Carlisle Barracks from the Army in 1979. The Carlisle Barracks served as a good location to initiate Pratt’s plan for the Indians. Far enough away from the reservations of the plains, the school was able to effectively transform the Indian into a “civilized” being. (picture of before and after here) Similar to Hampton, the mornings at Carlisle were devoted to classes while the afternoons were devoted to practicing vocational skills. Pratt’s zeal and constant campaigning for his cause soon turned the rundown Carlisle Barracks into a thriving school.
Footnotes:
- 1. Jacqueline Fear-Segal, “Nineteenth-Century Indian Education: Universalism Versus Evolutionism,” Journal of American Studies 33 (1999): 330.
Dickinson College
Note: Dickinson College was chartered on September 9, 1783, and the Dickinson School of Law was founded in 1834, but the period focus will focus on 1880-1910 to provide the contextual time line between Dickinson and the Carlisle Indian School.
The year that the Carlisle Indian School (CIS) opened in 1879, James Andrew McCauley was the President of Dickinson College. During this time the faculty was small, consisting of about six members. The small faculty shows the close connection of Dickinson College and CIS, shown through the visits of Professor Himes, one of the six, to the Indian school. Additionally McCauley himself, along with other professors, would give sermons to the Indian students. Even by the end of his presidency in 1888, the faculty remained small, but had grown to ten. The size of Dickinson was also relatively small; from the years of 1872-1888, 484 students had attended the college under McCauley's presidency. Of these students, females were only admitted starting in 1884, with the first female graduating in 1887.
After McCauley retired in 1888, George Edward Reed became the President of Dickinson College in 1889 and held this post until 1911. The size of the school grew monumentally since the time of McCauley; from 1888 through 1911, 1,649 students attended Dickinson College under Reed's presidency. Due to the growing student body, the faculty grew too over the years, from ten in 1889 to twenty-one in 1911. The relationship continued between Dickinson College and CIS even though Pratt had departed in 1904, Superintendent Friedman taking his place, with Reed participating in graduation commencements.
End Notes
1. Sellers, Charles Coleman. Dickinson College: A History. Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973.
2. Morgan, James Henry. Dickinson College: The History of One Hundred and Fifty Years, 1783-1933. Carlisle: Dickinson College, 1933.
General Relationships Between Carlisle Indian School and Dickinson College
Influence from the Professors at Dickinson
This section specifically focuses on the influence of the Dickinson Faculty on the Carlisle Indian School. Dickinson and its faculty have been described as "Advisers", "Friends", and "Distinguished Neighbors" by the Indian School papers and the Carlisle faculty, but the relationship between these institutions continues to be largely untouched by historians.
The relationship between Professor Lippincott and Richard Henry Pratt was indicative of the relationship between Dickinson College and the Carlisle Indian School. Professor Lippincott's role and a Dickinson professor and and Indian School chaplain not only reveals the relationship between the two institutes but also the relationship of the two institutes to the greater Carlisle community.
The YMCA at Dickinson College and the Carlisle Indian School
During the time of the Indian Industrial Schools, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) viewed the Indians at these schools in the same light as they viewed American college students. That is, to make young Indian students into strong men and women with an endowed sense of self and connections that will help him succeed in the future. The Associations sought to strengthen its member’s moral and religious fiber and help the Indian Schools meet their educational and social assimilation goals.
