THE CARLISLE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL
At midnight on October 7, 1879, a great crowd gathered at Gettysburg Junction, just east of the town of Carlisle Pennsylvania. In a few minutes the train arrived, bringing Indians from the West--the first group that would grow in a few years to number a thousand or more. When the passengers were discharged, the waiting townspeople had their first glimpse of real Indian boys and girls, with long hair and painted faces. They were wrapped in blankets trimmed with beads and other ornaments, and everything they saw about them was unfamiliar to them as they were to the staring crowd. The Indians had never seen a train before this one on which they had come from the West. They were in a strange part of the country and knew nothing of the language or the people. The only tongue they could speak was their own native one.
The Indians were now wards of the government under the Supervision of Lt. R. H. Pratt, who believed that love and kindness, rather than physical force, would subdue the Redskin and make him a useful citizen. Many oppositionists cried, "You can't teach an Indian."
Lieutenant Pratt had dreamed of this moment. Many years of Indian service and a naturally compassionate nature combined to fill him with hopes and faith in his dream. He had at one time learned that the Indian worked well and even begged for a chance to be educated like his white brother. This was substantiated by the success that Pratt had with the few Indians who were sent from the St. Augustine prison in Florida to Hampton Institute for training. These were known as good students. The young lieutenant believed Indian boys and girls to be like all others if given the same opportunities.
After many anxious years, Lieutenant Pratt received permission from the United States War Department to use the abandoned barracks at Carlisle. This was just what he wanted, and he immediately went to work to establish what is believed to be the first Indian school among white people. When the first students arrived, Lieutenant Pratt was happy but by no means satisfied. Now his job was to get the school in good running order.
The Indian School at Carlisle believed in the right of every Indian in our nation to freedom of religion, of property and of education. It believed the "Indian nature is human nature bound in red." It had faith, based on experience, that the Redman would work if given a chance and through training, because for many generations he had inherited natural dexterity that fitted him to become an expert worker.
The school worked on the plan that the way to educate the Indian was to begin at once by giving every child the same practical, common-sense education that was provided in the public schools and colleges for whites. A most remarkable feature was the permanent detachment of the Indian from savagery and exclusiveness.
It was on these principles that the school was founded. The first party came from the Sioux Reservation and the second from the Kiowa, Cheyenne and Pawnee tribes. The Carlisle School came into existence at a time when it was absolutely necessary to have separate schools for Indians. For one thing, they could not get into public schools because of the white's misconception of them; furthermore, the Indians would not attend public schools because of the whites.
It was not all study at the school, for Lieutenant Pratt believed that the Indian should be given the same opportunity for activity that he had experienced as a child on the plains. Running, jumping, individual skills and physical prowess exhibitions were natural with the Indians, and Pratt aimed to foster what came naturally to them. Consequently, the Indian was taught the white man's games and from the very first excelled in them, especially football. The years to follow saw the Redmen fulfilling the promise they showed from the start, for they became the finest players in the land. They met all the major teams in the East one year--a feat that no other team would attempt.
The location of the school was a most fortunate one. For years there had been a barracks at Carlisle occupied by cavalry troops. It was abandoned by the military department in the early 1870's and was donated to the Department of the Interior in 1879 for the purpose of beginning an educational institution for Indians. It was the first school to be opened by the government for that purpose and the first to receive congressional recognition and appropriation.
As a matter of necessity, in its beginning its activities were confined to elementary training. The students, who were very primitive, were taught certain simple trades and given the most rudimentary formal academic training. As the school developed, its influence extended, its work broadened and it raised its standards and improved its curriculum requirements. Actually, it developed into a finishing school for Redmen and was unique in its day. From year to year new departments of higher learning, it gradually grew to a point where it was recognized as the training school of the Indian Service.
The Carlisle Indian School had a plant consisting of forty-nine buildings and the campus, together with two school farms, comprising a total of 331 acres. The buildings were splendidly adapted to the work of education and training for which they were intended. The equipment for purposes of instruction was both modern and complete, and the site was developed into one of the most picturesque spots in Pennsylvania.
The academic work was carefully graded, and additional courses were initiated as needed. Agriculture, teaching, stenography, business practice, telegraphy, and industrial art were all a part of the curriculum. The industrial training ranked with the finest in the United States. A department of native art under the direction of trained artist Angel DeCora, a Winnebago Indian, actually demonstrated the existence of a distinctive native art which was, in general, of vital interest and importance in the development of art in this country.
Probably the most important feature of the Carlisle Indian School training was the outing system, which threw Indian boys and girls into personal contact with the finest white people in Pennsylvania and neighboring states and permitted them to absorb civilization by actually living with it. The outing system provided spendid practical training for the Indians. Many boys went out to farms, where they were not only protected in their private lives and carefully looked after, but where they had an opportunity to work side by side with successful farmers as paid farm hands. They learned the real meaning of a full day's work and the art of economical farming in such a wholesome and positive way as no school, however efficient, could ever teach them.
Various trades were taught and practical experience in the field of industry was also fostered through the outing system. The Indian boys worked with skilled mechanics who demostrated methods right on the job. Every Indian worker was paid according to the amount of work he accomplished.
The Carlisle Indian School had a record of achievement that very few schools could surpass. During its brief existence it had a wide influence on educational practices in the United States. The school did its share in arousing the public and educators to the need for a more adequate educational system. The records tell a story that no amount of generlization could do. Education of the right kind given American Indians was not lost or wasted. It paid well and brought results.
From Mr. John S. Steckbeck's book, "Fabulous Redmen". 1951
The First Sioux Girls
The First Sioux Boys; Luther Standing Bear is believed to have been the first of the group to step foot on the property. His little brother Henry is with him. Nearly 10,000 students, from close to 80 Tribes would be represented over time, including students from Alaska, the Philippines, and Porto Rico, as they spelled it back then.