Conceptions of morality as reason or passion decided colonial education spending

Evidence

The making of the moral and the ambiguities over which sensibilities it required were at the center of political debates on colonial ground. Whether morality was taken as a matter of rational judgment, affective disposition, or some combination of both determined whether state funds would be devoted to formal schooling (onderwijs) of European children, to their earlier upbringing (opvoeding) in nurseries and kindergartens, or to their earlier rearing in the home. Opponents of the former two options opined that better schools would confer few benefits if European children remained in the care of native servants and if children of mixed parentage were exposed and attached to the sensibilities of their native mothers. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 420

Categorization

• XREF: Directly instantiates the reader’s theme of colonial common sense: how abstract epistemic commitments (reason vs. sentiment) translate into material policy — school funding, home vs. institution rearing.
• DEFINE: Pairs onderwijs (formal schooling) and opvoeding (early upbringing/rearing) as distinct Dutch concepts whose policy stakes Stoler lays out.