Colonial education aimed to limit indigenous aspirations rather than expand them

Evidence

The notion that children should be sent to the Netherlands, not just to learn a craft or trade, but to change the social environments in which they lived, to change “their thoughts about the world,” was based on a common contention: that the colony’s economic and political viability were contingent upon educating the hearts and minds of those who were a danger to it, on managing their aspirations in the Indies world. … As he so clearly put it, youths sent to the Netherlands “must not [conceive of themselves as] heeren (bosses/masters). They must not be burdened with more skills than they need … but only practical knowhow for the tasks to which they are geared.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 720

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to the reader’s colonial theme interests across the three published articles’ mindset of elite-managed aspiration.
• DEEPTHINKING: Captures the core colonial governance logic: educating hearts and minds specifically to prevent them from aspiring beyond colonial roles.
• XREF: connects to: US colonial education reforms aimed to Americanize Puerto Rican students — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 929; Education’s failure to deliver mobility mirrors the frontier’s broken promise. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 182; Settler schooling functioned deliberately as deculturalization of native peoples — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1197