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. 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 1879. 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” person. (picture of before and after here) 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
Dickinson College was chartered on September 9, 1783, and the Dickinson School of Law was founded in 1834. 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 involvement from the relatively small faculty shows the close relationship between Dickinson and the CIS. For example, Professor Charles Francis Himes and Professor Joshua Lippincott were often at the Indian school lecturing and delivering sermons. Additionally, McCauley would perform sermons and attend the Indian School commencement proceedings. Dickinson's own student body was in fact relatively small; from the years of 1872-1888, 484 students had attended the college under McCauley's presidency. In comparison, the Indian School at its height had far more students.
By the time McCauley retired in 1888, Dickinson was admitting women, starting in 1884. The faculty had grown to ten. George Edward Reed became the President of Dickinson College in 1889 and held this post until 1911. The size of the school grew monumentally under Reed's presidency; 1,649 students attended Dickinson College during this time. As the student body grew, so did the the faculty; from ten in 1889 to twenty-one in 1911. The relationship continued between Dickinson College and the CIS even though Pratt had departed in 1904. Superintendent Friedman took his place and Reed continued to participate in the CIS commencements.
Sources
Sellers, Charles Coleman. Dickinson College: A History. Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973.
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
Indian School publications and the faculty described Dickinson and its faculty as "Advisers," "Friends," and "Distinguished Neighbors," but historians have left this relationship between these institutions largely untouched. This section specifically focuses on the influence of the Dickinson Faculty on the Carlisle Indian School.
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
On the campus of the Carlisle Indian Industrial Schools, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) provided spiritual services and sought to make young Indian students into strong men with an stronger sense of self, morals, and religious virtures. In addition to strengthening its member’s moral and religious fiber, the YMCA helped the Carlisle Indian School meet its social assimilation goals.
