French colonial adapted education defined African futures only negatively at first

Evidence

On another level, however, the establishment of a standardized curriculum and the publication of textbooks did lead to one important rhetorical innovation in Dakar’s discussions of education and progress in West Africa. Guy’s and Roume’s original directive on schools had left unstated the adult African’s final identity and status. Adapted education in 1903 had emphasized learning the manual arts along with reading, writing, and speaking French, and African “evolution within their own cultures.” The most specific point made about Africans’ future was that they would not become French and should not become declasses. These negative goals were in sharp contrast to metropolitan education, which consciously sought to turn boys into patriotic citizens and girls into good republicaines-both deeply imbued with a sense of the French nation. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 469