Colonial schooling debates centered age to form artisan-class inclinations

Evidence

As so often was the case in colonial deliberations over the cultivation of new kinds of moral selves and political subjects, age was key. Whether children should begin attending the industrial school at 10, 12, or 14 years of age was only nominally about the physical stamina such work required. Of more concern was the age at which such institutions could “awaken the inclination to become an artisan class [ambachtstand].” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 701

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the scholarship on colonial childhood and the making of disciplined native classes.