French village schools aimed to train Africans as useful labor for colonial resource exploitation.

Evidence

If we are most concerned with placing within the grasp of the natives as quickly as possible the lerons de chases, which they must know in order to be of real use to the European in the rational exploitation of the resources of the country, then we should consider the village school the most efficient instrument for achieving this result immediately … The agents running these schools should thus be invited to make their courses as interesting as possible, either by varying the lerons de chases, or preferably by choosing the most simple notions of hygiene or natural history which could bring their students to understand the utility of these practices introduced by civilization. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 282

Categorization

• DEFINE: Quoted policy reveals the explicitly instrumentalist goal: Africans educated ‘to be of real use to the European in the rational exploitation.’