Colonial agricultural colonies recruited toddlers at age three to mold desire

Evidence

The Mettray model responded to the failed industrial vision in other ways. First, the children would be taken up when they were very young, not at 10–12 years of age, as with the craft-school model, but at the more “kneadable” age of 3–4 years. Second, the agricultural colonies would promote modest aspirations, provide only simple clothing, and a spartan lifestyle. Girls were to be outfitted with “nothing more than a blouse (kebaja) and sarong,” with a special outfit for holidays. It was in this context that reformers expressed their chilling vision that begins this chapter, one so radically different from the goals they more commonly professed, “not to create imitation Europeans … just … perfected natives.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 774

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘perfected natives’ framing parallels the modesty-article’s theme of colonial dress politics — minimal kebaja and sarong as deliberate policy.