Withholding state recognition of graduates’ credentials destroyed the school’s viability.

Evidence

The school lacked one crucial ingredient—agreement from the Indies administration that it would honor the school’s diploma and employ students who had earned its degree. Neither was forthcoming. In fact, when former Minister of Colonies Pahud replaced Duymaer van Twist as Governor-General, he confirmed just the opposite: in 1856 his first decree limited state subsidies to the school. Not surprisingly, private donors, following Pahud’s lead, withdrew their support. Students and their parents, who had slowly come around to acknowledge the school director’s insistence that artisanal work could be “honorable” for Europeans, dropped out. Others, disillusioned, did not bother to enroll. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 694