French education transformed native chiefly authority from force-based to value-based.

Evidence

Thanks to the security, thanks to the amelioration in the economic conditions of existence, the ancient families of native chiefs naturally began to base their superiority upon new “values,” which the sheer strength of force no longer sufficed to uphold. Even though they have jealously preserved the advantages of certain local traditions, they have evolved under French authority, of which it was only in their best interest to become the auxiliaries. The development of education and the special access that their sons have been given to this institution, have allowed them to assimilate certain modes of thinking and action to which their contact with material progress made them initially receptive, but whose moral aspect is now developing in an ever more marked fashion. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 706

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader French ‘mission civilisatrice’ logic of rule through native elites, relevant to the reader’s goal of understanding republicanism exported to West Africa.