Richard Pratt's Purpose Of The Carlisle Indian Industrial School

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Various historians, such as Richard Pratt and Ellis B. Childers have very strongly criticized Indians and their beliefs. However, they did not want to continue hating Indians for who they were, so they decided to compromise and open a school to help the Indians be who white people wanted them to be. The stated purpose of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was to help teach the Indians a new way of living, and the New York Herald states this as, “He says the efforts of the government are in the direction of bringing up a class of young men who will be leaders of their people in taking them away from the chase and war as the sole worthy occupation for the hands of men” (New York Herald, 1879.) The New York Herald’s point is that the Indians, …show more content…

Richard Pratt illustrates this as, “As we have taken into our national family seven millions of Negroes, and as we receive foreigners at the rate of more than five hundred thousand a year, and assimilate them, it would seem that the time may have arrived when we can very properly make at least the attempt to assimilate our two hundred and fifty thousand Indians, using this proven potent line, and see if that will not end this vexed question and remove them from public attention, where they occupy so much more space than they are entitled to either by numbers or worth” (Pratt, 1892.) Richard Pratt is explaining that Indians cannot continue to live in tribes, but rather forced to live in American society with other white Americans. Richard Pratt, however, also discloses that not all Indians are by default born as evil people, but rather that they need to move on from their old way of life and like all other white Americans. “Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have” (Pratt, 1892.) Pratt is pointing out that Carlisle is the perfect type of institution to help with this