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.' G-. l'. 1 COLONIALISM, INDIGENOUS SOCIETY, AND SCHOOL PRACTICES: FRENCH WEST AFRICA AND INDOCHINA, 1918-1938 Gail P. Kelly The literature on colonial schooling has provided a wealth of information about educational policy. school structures. enrollment patterns, and, to a lesser extent, social background characteristics of students, the demands on education made by the colonized and the long-term effect of colonial schools on societal structures.! Little research has focused on what was taught in schools. Scholars have long supposed that the knowledge distrib- uted by the schools represented some diluted version of metropolitan educa- tion and that any variation in school practices could be attributed to differences in the European power that instituted the schools. Thus, we are led to believe that variation in educational content would be expected only between, say, British or French colonies and that educational forms and practices were divorced almost entirely from the society and cultures in which the schools were placed. Some research has implied that such a view may not be warranted, for the practices of different colonia1 powers in a similar context Seem to converge-as Asiwaju found in Western land-and those of a single colonia! power, as Ashby noted in the case of universities in Africa and India, diverged. 2 Why this is the case, however) is yet to be explained. This chapter focuses on. school practices in two French colonial federa- tions-French West Africa and French Indochina-in the period 1918-38. Although it compares educational structures and enrollment patterns, the major emphasis will be on what schools taught. I will show how education in Africa and Indochina differed at the level of practice and will argue that such divergences are attributable to the complex interaction between France and the sociopolitical organization of indigeneous society. (French weSt Africa [l'Afrique Occidentale frangaise or AOFjas a federation con- 9
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Page 1: Kelly

.' G-. l'.

1 COLONIALISM, INDIGENOUS SOCIETY,

AND SCHOOL PRACTICES: FRENCH WEST AFRICA AND INDOCHINA, 1918-1938

Gail P. Kelly

The literature on colonial schooling has provided a wealth of information about educational policy. school structures. enrollment patterns, and, to a lesser extent, social background characteristics of students, the demands on education made by the colonized and the long-term effect of colonial schools on societal structures.! Little research has focused on what was taught in schools. Scholars have long supposed that the knowledge distrib­uted by the schools represented some diluted version of metropolitan educa­tion and that any variation in school practices could be attributed to differences in the European power that instituted the schools. Thus, we are led to believe that variation in educational content would be expected only between, say, British or French colonies and that educational forms and practices were divorced almost entirely from the society and cultures in which the schools were placed. Some research has implied that such a view may not be warranted, for the practices of different colonia1 powers in a similar context Seem to converge-as Asiwaju found in Western Yoraba~ land-and those of a single colonia! power, as Ashby noted in the case of universities in Africa and India, diverged.2 Why this is the case, however) is yet to be explained.

This chapter focuses on. school practices in two French colonial federa­tions-French West Africa and French Indochina-in the period 1918-38. Although it compares educational structures and enrollment patterns, the major emphasis will be on what schools taught. I will show how education in We~t Africa and Indochina differed at the level of practice and will argue that such divergences are attributable to the complex interaction between France and the sociopolitical organization of indigeneous society. (French weSt Africa [l'Afrique Occidentale frangaise or AOFjas a federation con-

9

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10 Education and the Colonial Experience

sisted of eight colonies: Senegal, Soudan [contemporary Mali], Dahomey, Upper Yalta, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger, Dakar and dependencies, and Mauritania. Indochina consisted of five pays: Annam, Cochinchina, Ton­kiD, Cambodia, and Laos. In AOF and Indochina, direction of education tended to be vested centrally.) . '

The discussion that follows is based on government reports as well as a comprehensive analysis of texts in use in the schools, curricular guides, and student class notebooks.

EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURES

The colonial school systems of French West Africa and Indochina were put in place by 1918, although they underwent some minor reforms in the 1920s. The ways in which the schools were organized were quite different in the two areas. In Indochina, the 1918 Code of Public Instruction provid­ed for the full gamut of elementary through university education.' Elemen­tary education was a three-year course consisting of the COUTS enfantin. the eours pre para loire, and the eours e/emenlaire. It was followed by a \hree­year primary cycle (cours moyen 1, COUTS moyen 2, COUl'S superieur). Post­primary education was also part of the system and consisted of a four-year primary superior course followed by three years of secondary education that led to the "Indochinese" baccalaureat. A university, consisting through the time period of anywhere between three and eight faculties, crowned the system. Promotion to each level, from elementary through u!liversity edu­cation, was contingent on successful passage of competitive degree examina­tions administered by, in the caSe of elementary and primary education, each pays, and for all post-primary education, by the Indochina-wide Office of Public Instruction in Hanoi. The different levels of education were pro­vided in a multitude of different kinds of schools, based in part on met­ropolitan models. The elementary cycle was given in, three-year elementary schools, full primary schools that included the primary cycle, and in colleges and lyeees.that offered post-primary education as well.

The organization of education in West Mrica sharply contrasts with that of Indochina.4 Until the mid-I92Os, it consisted of three levels of primary education: a three-year preparatory course (equivalent to Indochina's one­year cours preparatoire) given in a village school; a four-year elementary school that repeated the preparatory couse of the village school and the eours e!ementaire; and a four-year regional school that offered the eours moyen. After 1924 this system was streamlined and rationalized. The village schools were to .offer in three years the preparatory course and send their best students who were the sons of chiefs or notables to the four- to six-year regional school that would teach the elementary course, the cours moyen.

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 11

and in some cases (although not always) the cours superieur. In each colony after 1924 a primary-superior course, admitting only those under the age of 17, was established with three sections: one emphasizing general studies (required for sons of chiefs), another that prepared only the brightest for entry into Ecole William Ponty, and a third section that emphasized voca­tional training and, apprenticeShip programs.

At the apex of the educational system were the federal schools that specialized in vocational preparation. These schools included training for midwives and medical assistants, teacher preparation, and training in river piloting and mechanics. Until the 1920s they recruited their students direct­ly from regional schools. After 1920, students for the teacher-training school (Ecole William Panty) were required to have attended primary­superior school before taking an entry examination, and medical and veteri­nary students were expected to complete a preparatory course of three years at the Ecole William Panty before admission to the program.

In West Africa no secondary education for Africans was developed outside the Lycee Faidherbe in St. Louis and the secondary course at Dakar. These two programs were attached to metropolitan schools and open only to French citizens and the originaires of the four communes in Senegal who had access to French primary education. The government did consider opening secondary education for Africans for a brief period. In 1919 a lycee was opened in St. Louis only to be shut down two or three years later in favor of the development of primary-superior schooling.s Compared to Indochina or to France, the school system of West Africa lacked objective criteria for student selection. No centralized degree examinations existed. Students were recruited into schools solely on the basis of ascriptive criteria. Political authorities insisted that the schools serve almost exclusively the sons of chiefs and notables, and school authorities were called upon to sustain this elite through the years of primary education.6 Educational judgments based on objective criteria like grades or performance on degree examinations were somewhat alien to the system and reluctantly intro­duced. Most degrees, in fac~ were school-specific. Several colonies did institute primary certificate examinations, but possession of such degrees was not mandatory for gaining entrance to a primary-superior school or to the federal schools. (The federal schools did run their own entry examina­tions, but they also recruited by quota from each colonie. ) Unlike education in Indochina, or for that matter in France, education in West Africa lacked centralization, nor was it bureaucraticized or particularly based on meritoc­racy.

Not only were there differences in the organization of the schools in French West Africa and Indochina, even more striking were differences in the numbers of students the schools in each area served. In Indochina,

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12 Educaiion and the Colonial Experience

especially in the three pays that had comprised the pre-colonial nation-state of Vi etnam-Ann am, Tonkin, and Cochinchina-education reached one in every .10 school-aged children; in West Africa, the schools accommo~ated. 4.7 in every 1,000 children according to the most optimistic French esti­mates.' By 1938 in the Vietnamese states of Tonkin, Cochinchina, and Annam, 287,037 students were enrolled in g6vermnent schools. Of these, 150,812 attended elementary schools; another 129,020 were in primary school. But 4,552 attended primary-superior schools; another 400 were in the secondary coorse. Post-primary vocational schools took in another 2,253 students. In 1937, the university population stood at 631.9 In West Africa, 25,595 attended village schools, 21,996 were in regional schools, and­another 7,944 in urban schools. More precisely, 56,135 atterided elementru:y and primary schools. The eight primary-superior schools took in 717 stu­dents; the Ecole William Panty had a student body of 220. Another SOl attended technical schools.!o

WHAT TIlE SCHOOLS TAUGHT

\

It was never the intent of colonial schoolmen to teach Asians or Africans to be French, although a sizable number of Asians and Africans demanded that they be provided French education. Colonial pedagogues in both areas sounded very much alike, waxing eloquent about the futility of teaching metropolitan curricula. Georges Hardy, the most influential of West. Africa's inspectors of primary education, b1untly stated his doubts about the educability of Africans. In his 1917 book, Une Conquete morale, he insisted that education draw from the African milieu and its wealth of songs, folklore, and dance. lI Any curriculum that stressed abstract knowledge, as far as he· was concerned, was too complicated for Africans to grasp, was a waste of time, and, worse, might cause major problems. Hardy's basic conception of tea,hing Africans to be Africans, although they were still to be fluent in practical French and loyal to France, pervaded curriculum development and pedagogical thought through the interwar years. "Scien­tific" studies of the mental capacities of children of a multitude of African peoples-the Gourondsi, MaHnke, and so on-conducted in the 1930s and published in the federation's pedagogical journal, confirmed in less explo­sive language Hardy's allegations. 12 The 1924 curricular reforms echoed such thought as did various manuals for newly arrived metropolitan teach­ers posted to West Africa's schools.13

The pitfalls of teaching metropolitan curricula that educators in West Africa articulated so clearly were stated as bluntly in. Indochina, especially when it came to teaching Vietnamese. Colonial politicians and pedagogues perceived Vietnamese as "big children/' prone to excesses and troublemak-

. Colonialisrn, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 13

ing. Their mental capacities were deemed limited, but in ways different from those of Africans. French pedagogues believed Vietnamese tended to convo­lute everything. Metropolitan education was sure to be misconstrued by plotting, devious, glib Vietnamese. I4

Although colonial educators in both areas shared a general conception that education should depart from that of the metropole, the way in which it did so was quite different in Indochina and West Africa. Table 1 presents instructional time allotted to teaching school· subjects for elementary and primary education in both interwar Indochina and West Africa. On out­ward appearances, the schools in both areas seem to have emphasized similar skills-in particular, language arts. In West Africa, at least on paper, the school day was longer than in Indochina (30 hours a week versus 27 hours a week). In addition, the schools in Africa seemingly placed greater emphasis on French language skills and mathematics and slightly less on science •. IDoral education, manual labor, and physical education. The time spent teaching school subjects, however, does not reflect differences in what was taught or the levels of work demanded of students.

One of the most striking. curricular differences between French wes~ Africa and Indochina was in the language of instruction. In West Africa, all education was given in French. In Indochina, the first three years of education were given in the mother tongue, regardless of whether it was Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, Rhade~ or Meo. .

Vietnamese, Khmer, and Lao were written languages; their scripts tradi­tionally, however, were not based on the Latin alphabet. The French invest­ed a great deal of time and money reforming Vietnamese. The language had been written in the Chinese characters; the French used a version transliterated into the Latin alphabet in the schools. They spent much time and money standardizing the writing system and developing a literature as well as sets of textbooks. No such effort was put into Khmer and Lao-the schools taught in the traditional script. Rhade and Mea, which were lan­guages of minorities, had no prior writing system; but the French, having embraced the notion of instruction in mother tongues, developed one, which they diffused through the few schools for the~e minorities.

Although the mother tongue was the language of instruction for the first three years of education, all post-elementary education was given in French. In the three Vietnamese states, the Vietnamese language was taught in the primary and primary-superior schools as a school subject. In addition, primary-superior and secondary education offered the student options of studying Far Eastern c1assicallanguages, among which were Chinese, Pali, and Sanskrit. For a period of time in the 1920s, the law school of the Indochinese University was converted into a School of Indochinese Studies that emphasized the teaching of local languages and their literature.

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Colonia1ism, Indigenolls Society, and School Practices 15

Although education in Indochina encouraged instruction in the mother tongue as well as.in French, in West Africa, the possibility of education in mother tongues was never entertained, hot because most mother tongues lacked a writing system (although this may well have been a reason thought of after the faet), but rather because the mission of the schools was con­ceived in a way entirely different from that of the schools of Indochina. Education in Indochina was perceived of in terms of mass education. ,In the words of Albert Sarraut, governor general as well as architect of the inter­war schools, education was meant to provide Vietnamese with a "simple education, reduced to essentials, permitting the child to learn all that will be useful to him to know in his humble career of farmer or artisan to ameliorate the natural and social conditions of his existence."lS The train­ing of an elite was not aradoxically, ·ven the broad range of edUCatiOn ava e, t e major concern. In French West Africa, on' the other hand, education was not directed at the masses. The schools taught in French because the primary mission of the schools was to diffuse spoken French among those who were, by birth, destined to become an elite.'" No one spoke of education as providing any useful skill exce t the ability to speak Frenc un I the depth of t e depressIon In the 1930s. Elementary and j;riDlaiY education was for local elites that would assist the French in ruling West Africa. All these elites really needed to know was how to communi­cate with Frenchmen. African languages were forbidden in the schools. Except in two specialized medrasas(schools), no attempt was made to teach a "classical" language in use in the region. Arabic never had the status of Chinese, Sanskrit, or Pali.

The schools of Indochina and West Africa could indeed be distinguished by their language of instruction and the place of indigeneous language in the curriculum, but they were worlds apart when it came to educational standards imposed by the French colonial government. In Indochina the schools stressed literacy, despite the seeming lesser amouots of school time devoted to literacy training. In West Africa, the emphasis was on spoken French, and literacy skills were considerably downplayed. Reading and writing, Davesne, an inspector of primary education and author of a good many school texts written especially for West Africa, maintained in the introduction to one of his language primers, were secondary to oral skills and were to be taught only to break the monotomy of continuous instruc­tion in conversational French. 17 In village schools few students were ex­pected to learn to read or write in their long stay. Village school books were ~'syllabaires. "The students who got through them were expected to read at most 13 lines of simple French relating only to everyday life. These primers were full of readings on the necessity of bathing oneself and of descriptions of markets, clothes, and the like in extremely simply sentences.l8 Many a

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16 Education and the Colonial Experience

student who reached regional school was illiterate, simply because the schools did not teach literacy. An exemplary student. Paida'Moussa, in the second year of regional school at Kaya could barely write a five-sentence French composition. In 1929) his teacher singled him Qut for praise for the following composition:·

What I do at school. I come [misspelled] to school to learn to become instructed. I learn [misspelled] to read, to write. to count. 1 work well. I apply [misspelled] myself.l9

Paida was an exceptional student: he could write an intelligible six-· sentence essay in French with only three mistakes, and he was o~ly 10 years old. Most students matriculating into regional schools were sponsored by virtue of their father's status and were between 12 and 14 years old.'o They may have been able to do as the schools taught them-speak and under­stand spoken French, but they could not write the language.' First-year students at the regional school at Ouagadougou could not compose sen­tences. nor were they required to.2lln West Africa, there was little educa­tional rigor and the schools did not attempt to teach students very much beyond spoken French. .

Although in Indochina elementary education might have been taught in the mother tongue, students entering the primary grades could read and write French and do it well. By the .second year of elementary school, Vietnamese students kept notebooks and wrote long, somewhat insipid essays." In primary school their French writing skills were far superior to those of their African peers. For example, Hoang-Khai-Mac, in a school in Bac Kan Province in Tonkin, which was in a provincial center like the school at Kaya, wrote a two-page French essay on why he attended school. Part of his essay follows:

I must work at school: 1) to please my parents. My parents send me to school because they believe I will work arduously there. They make many sacrifiCeS to keep me in school. If! waste my time in class I will abuse [misspelled] their confidence; 2) in order to respond to the sacrifices my country and the French protectorate had made [for me]. In effect our country has created many high quality schools. France has sent us professors to train knowledgeable .teach­ers. These two countries have spent much money . .. . 3) to respond to the efforts of OUf teacher .... 4) to respond to my own self interest which is to have the means to earn easily a living. For these reasons, it is necessary to attend school regularly. I will work assiduously.2J

Hoang was 11 years old and in the second year of primary studies. In short, although schools in West Africa devoted more time to teaching

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 17

language arts, particularly French, they de-emphasized literacy skills. Viet­namese students, with less exposure to the language, learned at least to read and write, and a much higher level of work was demanded of them.

Not only were there differences in school emphasis on literacy, even in mathematics the schools of West Africa taught little to their students. In West Africa, students entering the cours moyen in regional schools were taught addition and subtraction and were just beginning to receive instruc­tion in multiplication. By the courseliimenlaire in Indochina students had mastered all four operations and did complex word problems. By the cours moyen in IndocWna students were expected to do algebra and geometry.24

It is somewhat doubtful whether tho. differences in acadeinic standards in the two colonial possessions can be attributed to differences in the mental abilities of students in the two areas. The differences, as daily instructional logs available for the two areas for the 1929-30 school year indicate, were very much a function of what schools chose to teach. In West Africa, for example, math instruction never attempted t6 progress in the primary grades regardless of whether a student had mastered the material. At the school at Kaya, for example, students in the cours moyen did the same math problems as those two years behind them . .8oriba Laroara, a second year student in the preparatory course, did the same math problems, with as much accuracy as William Wilson in the second year of primary studies at the regional school at Conakry.2S In Indochina, the schools taught more and demanded more, perhaps with an eye to making school an uncomfort­able place and discouraging a sizable proportion of the student body.

Although differences in academic expectations and rigor are evident, curricular content in the two areas diverged in what was taught about indigenous society and culture and the role that those who succeeded in school would be called upon to play in their society.

CURRICULAR MESSAGES: TEXTS

Colonial pedagogues, as was pointed out earlier, were unanimous thatl the schools should not focus their teachings on France. but rather on the i society and culture of those who went to school. The history and geography I to pe taught was local. School texts and curricular materials in both areas were specifically designed to teach students about their own societies. Lan­guage primers in both colonies were fllied with readings depicting every­thing from houses to clothes to markets, rituals, and folkways of the colonized. The texts in use in Indochina and West Africa followed similar formulas in terms of grouping instruction, regardless of grade level for which they were intended, around centers of interest-the school, the human body, families, housing, villages, trades, and. ending the year,

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18 Educ~tion and the Colonial Experience

France. This progression was mirrored, in the weekly curriculum gUides published in Indochina's pedagogical journals, as well as in countless texts in Vietnamese and French.

'\ School texts, especially at the primary level, in both colonies stressed the differences between colonizer and colonized but did so in different ways in West Africa and in Indochina. In West Africa, the differences we(e pre­sented in racial terms and, while paternalistic in tenor, were minimized. Typical is the following, excerpted from a 1934 text, Mon Ami Kolli. which, like all other primers, dealt with blacks and whites, taking care to suggest that race was not terribly important;

We are born in Africa. Our skin is black, our hair curly, our lips thic~.

We very much love our country, o~r grand sunlight, our huts, 'our markets, and OUf festivals.

We know how to do many things. We cultivate QUr fields. tend our flocks, weave cloth. We make pots. we work leathert we know how to dye it.

Other men are born far away from our country. Their skin is white. their hair is straight, their lips are thin.

They very much love their country. but they also love ours ..•.

They know how to do more things than us. We buy from them beautiful cloth, soap, basins and lanterns ....

There are whites. there are blacks. but there are things other than color which are important.

Black skin, white skin, it's nothing.

What counts is our qualities. As everyone says: the blacks have many good qualities.

Be honest and work hard, never lie. These qualities are more beautiful than the color of our face.26

Similarly the text noted differences in dress, housing, and food preparation between the two races. But texts always observed that whereas whites were different from blacks, through education and years of patient help, these differences could be overcome.

It is interesting to note that when the texts in West Africa compared whites and blacks, they avoided discussion of cultnral or national contexts. When the texts compared the two races, they discussed whites in Africa and rarely touched on French culture or society. This was not the case in school texts in Indochina, which did not discuss differences between the yellow and

Colonialism, Indigenous'Society, and Scbool Practices 19

white races, but rather the differences between Vietnamese culture, society, and nationhood and those of France, often heightening these differences as if to a~ack Vietnamese society at every turn. Vietnamese houses Were compared to French chateaux, and reading after reading pOinted out their flawed construction and the "routinized," "Chinese" mentality that led to such "miserable, n "crude" dwellings.27 Vietnamese cities were compared to French cities, as in the following excerpt-and judged unhealthy.

What distinguishes at first sight French towns from Vietnamese is the width of the streets. Whereas native towns have only windin& narrow, dingy streets, French towns are crossed by a number of very large and straight streets, boarded by sidewalks, often planted with trees. These are avenues and boule-vards. .

The Vietnamese alleys are badly paved, flooded in the least bit of rain. and inserted between low, dirty houses. rrhe houses] are pressed against one another [and] dark and unhealthy with poor ventilation. In French towns, on the other hand, the houses are well planned, large, tall with several stories. [They have] many windows which allow air and light to enter the rooms.28

Vietnarnese,traditional schools were compared to French schools, and pre­colonial government and its administrators were held up for derision. Their knowledge and skill were "childlike"; they were "devious," and in "total infancy about anything that is remotely close to the most elementary eco­nomic question."'9 The following, which appeared frequently in curricular guides, is typical. It describes why France was forced to save Vietnamese from their own political elite and their unfortunate propensities.

Through a well trained police force that does not harass the local population and the deployment ·of an anny sufficient to maintain order everywhere. France has put an end to thefts and acts of piracy which had desolated Vietnam in the past. Every person can now devote himself to his work without fear of being plundered by scoundrels, especially the government. ... France wants all the natives to be knowledgeable of their rights and duties and no longer be at the mercy of all the parasites who tonnented them in the past. France wishes especially to protect the people from themselves and their Own

'·shortcomings such as gambling, excessive superstitions of all sorts and their love of chicanery which ruins bo~h their savings and their health.30

The texts were one long litany against the Vietnamese elite and the Viet­namese personality.

In West Africa, the school texts avoided head-on assaults on Africans or their leadership, past or present. While the texts nccasionally alluded to the unfortunate precolonial pas~ they were also quick to point out that the misfortunes that had befallen the black man were not his fault.3!

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20 Education and the Colonial Experience

Not all primary-level texts in West Africa and Indochina focused on the differences between colonizer and colonized; such allusions were relatively muted in West Africa as compared to Indochina, where they accounted for the cantent of over half of all instructional materials.32 A sizable part of the texts, more so in West Africa than in Indochina, were confined to descrip­tion supposedly of students and their milieu. In West Africa such materials often took care not to comment adversely On what they portrayed. The texts abounded with descriptions of villages, feasts, music, wild life, and the like. Often they touched on practices most Frenchmen viewed as at best primi­tive, at worst, abhorent-like polygamy. But the texts presented them neutrally, albeit sometimes through the cold eye of the anthropologist. In Indochina, although inany such anthropologically inspired materials ap­peared, they invariably pointed out that the aspects of society they described were primitve, decadent, or archaic. The differences in the depiction of everyday life in school curriculum become apparent in the two excerpts below. The fIrst, from West Africa, describes markets and is part of the curriculum for the last year of regional school:

On the streets and all through the town there is extraordinary activity and nothing is more exciting than to walk several moments ttu:ough the num,erous m,ark~ts which are held from morning to nightfall in different parts of the town.

The women are there, squatting, crowded very close to.one another, ~aving in front of them their merchandise displayed in a basket or On a mat. Tlle buyer moves with difficulty through this crowd" Everybody talks, shouts, ,and it makes a deafening din. One finds everything there: food products, trumpery goods, and food dishes that have been prepared in outdoor kitchens)l

A reading on a similar topic, for the last year of primary school in Indo­china, used derogatory language and stressed not the activity of the market or the goods for sale, but rather superstitious Vietnamese women.

Vietnamese women often turn to the world above, especially those who spend their days running from one market to another to buy there and resell else­where and earn often a supplement to feed a brood [the tenn used is nichee, referring usually to a brood of mice or puppies] of children. A noise, an unexpected cry of a rooster, a rat, or a crow, the fall of a spider are for them manifest signs of the intervention of spirits and their devotion isn't quickly

. shown ... }4

School texts at the primary level in West Africa and Indochina not only focused on description of jndigeneous society, they also taught about occu~ pations and roles students would play a~ adults. In what was ironically a

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 21

more rigorous and general academic program than in West. Africa, in Indochina the texts were monolithic in orienting students toward agricul~ ture or unskilled manual labor. Reading after reading glorifIed the peasant and his water buffalo and inveighed against the evils of the city. One such poem called upon the reader not to heed "the voice that will tell you about the city and its wonders,;' which "give less than they promise.'! Many caned on students to take up·a trade; still more urged students to return to the

plow."· ··1 What is striking in the primary curriculull?- in Indochina as compared

to tha~ of West Mrica is the·co~plete and total absence of textual mat.erials orienting students toward white-collar work. If one looks at curncuIar guides for the period 1925-38, but two of the 360 selections commended for classroom use ever alluded to white-collar 'occupations; the two that did were· scarcely flat!ering-one was about how poets starved.l6 In West Africa, the texts actually promoted white-collar work, often associating schooHng with it. Monod's, widely used primer, Deuxieme Livret de l'ecolier nair, intended for the last year of village school, contained the following:

I go to a village school. When r learn to speak, read and write French and to count well, my teacher will send me to the regional school. There I wiU continue to work and learn. I will prepare for my primary certificate in order to enter the Groupe Central [primary-superior school]. When I am 16 or 17 years old I will sit for the entrance examination for normal school so I can become' a teacher. My classmate Ali likes machines. He wants to become a mechanic. He will go to a vocational school and much later become a good worker. Here Blacks who want to work hard have every opportunity to become educated. There are schools which prepare them to become teachers, school aides, doctors, nurses, telegraphists, interpreters, typists, carpenters, smithies. farmers, etc.l7

Later in the same text, careers in administration are discussed. While they are inevitably presented as subordinate to a French administrator, they are nonetheless portrayed as being powerful. "Native" administrators., Mo­nod's tex~ comments> '"are intelligent Black M~n":

Most have gone to schoo1. Scribes and typists write in offices. The interpreter knows several languages. The kadi renders justice. '. ~ and pronounces judg­ments}8

This view contrasts sharply with the images of native administrators in Indochina, who were presented invariably as backward, superstitious, self­seeking, "hostile to aU progress," and as parasites, "despots," and the like.39

Although the primary texts in West Africa presented a broader array of occupations that the educated African could assume, several tests did orient

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22 Education and the Colonial Experience

students toward manual labor and agriculture, although in a less monolithic way than in Indochina, and this choice was proffered only to those who decided voluntarily not to continue their studies. Imbert's 1934 text, Mon Ami Koffi, written in the height of the depression, presents a boy who is good but has no intention of continuing his studies. He searches about for an occupation knowing "well . . . that ·he, will never be an author or a teacher. He must work with his ten fmgers." Koffi then explores a range of jobs, including tailoring, masonry, potting, and weaving. He rejects them for farming because he likes "healthy work. He can live outdoors, he can start work when he wishes, he can finish it when he wants to. "40

It would be misleading to state that primary-school texts invariably opened a wide range of options for their students. In a few rare instances the texts were ambivalent about Africans who dressed like Europeans and wished to aSSume roles reserved for the ruling French, outside of traditional society. The text~ Moussa et Gi-gla, in theory a self-contained course for the last year of regional school, displayed such a tendency. It contained two passages that made it clear that Africans, outside of local society, were to be subservient to the Freuch. Moussa and Gi-gla's wanderings around French West Africa form the subject of the text These two characters are primary-school graduates who take jobs as "boys," serving a European trader and subsequently a French army' officer. As they travel the federa­tion, they see the diversity of the peoples and economic life. At one point in the book, they reach Dakar. There Moussa meets his former school teacher, Mr. Gilbert, who is delighted to see Moussa and is eveu more overjoyed to learn that Mo,,"sa has accepted employmeut as a "boy."

This really pleases me, said M. Gilbert, for it is impossible not to love the man who becomes a servant when he is deserving of praise. The differences be­tween the races is of little importance. Goodwill has no color. There is, on the contrary. an advantage for a Black ,to be in the service of a White man because White men are more educated, more advanced in civilization than Black men and Black men, thanks to Whites, can make the most rapid progress, learn better and morc quicly know morc things and become ODe day truly useful men. On their part, Black men render services to Whites by helping them with their muscles to execute projects" of al1 kinds the Whites have undertaken, in CUltivating fields which sustain COmmerce and also in fighting for France in the ranks of the native troups. Thus, the two races associate with each other and work in common for the prosperity and well being of aU.41

By the end of the text, their travels over, Moussa becomes a farmer and Gi-gla joins the army.

While this particular text hardly encouraged Africans in the way that others in use in the schools did, it is significant to note that the passage cited

ColOnialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 23

above is the sale one of its kind in the texts in use at the time. In West Africa, the primary-school curriculum did not promote farming and the trades as monolithically Or with as great an intensity as in Indochina.

CURRICULUM AND THE COLONIAL CONTEXT

The differences in school practices in West Africa and Indochina under French rule are striking. Iu Indochina a comprehensive school system was established that reached broader segments of the population than the schools of West Africa did, imposed rigorous academic standards and was highly selective. In West Africa, education was, if not labeled ;8 such, a system of elementary and primary education. The full range of post-primary education, not to mention higher education, never evolved or was foreseen in th~ interwar years. The schools reached ,a very small population, sys­temaltcally downplayed literacy skills, imposed few standards, and refused to apply meritocratic criteria 'in student selection. . ~lthough th.e school curriculum in both areas focused on teaching about mdlgenous SOCIety, they were worlds apart in how and what they taught about them. In West Africa, the schools were careful to present indigenous society in the most glowing terms possible and.assiduously avoided charac­terization of Africans as primitive or basically flawed and in constant need of being saved from themselves or their leaders. In fact, the schools took care not to cast aspersions on the African traditional elite and presented that elite as Uintelligent" and "responsible" regardless of whether they had attended school. In Indochina the curriculum presented almost diametrical­ly opposed images of the society and its leadership. School texts mounted a full-fledged attack on the Vietnamese nation. Never did they attempt, as curricula of a similar level in West Africa did, to state, "The difference between the races is of little importance." Rather, in the texts in Indochina, the spotlight was on every conceivable flaw in both the society and the individuals in it. If the texts are to be believed, Vietnamese could not even make good pareuts. Education alone could not save Vietnamese from them­selves. The curriculum went out of its way to discredit the Vietnamese elite I and Vietnamese autonomous institutions. The texts made no bones aboutl it: the country was primiti:~. the Vietnamese elite decadent despots, and the people backward, superstlt1Ous, and prone to chicanery. In Indochina the schools, unlike those in West Africa, discouraged students from expecting their education to articulate with the power and status in the colonial order. Students were monolithically oriented toward manual labor and farming; they never were led to believe that schools would prepare them to be teachers, doctors, assistants to French administrators, judges. or the like, as the texts in West Africa did.

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24 Education and the Colonial Experienoo

The differences in school practices cannot be explained idiosyncratically. They were not a function of what educators or politicians perceived as the state of culture of those they ruled. French administrators drew many comparisons between the colonized in both areas, for a sizable number in their careers served in both places and openly marveled at the accomplish­ments of pre-colonial Vietnam. In the same breath one such administrator pointed to perceived corruption and ignorance of the African elite.42 Such attitudes seemed reversed in the school texts.

Purely economic needs also cannot fully explain the differences in school practices. The economy of Indochina was no more healthy than that of West Africa. The metropole consistently floated loans to keep the colony and its schools solvent and did so in the midst of burgeoning expansion of all levels of education. In indochina, unemployment among school gradu­ates at all levels became a concern as early as 1920; and the government continued to double and triple school places. In West Africa there was a chronic shortage of trained personnel, yet the government made few at-tempts to stimulate the growth of schooling.43 · .

One way that the differences in French school practices in Indochina and West Africa might be explained is in reference to the differences in mean­ings that education had traditionally conveyed in the societies in which the schools were placed. It was no accident that schooling in Indochina wa.s most widespread in the Vietnamese states and that the schools focused on teaching about Vietnamese and their nation in such negative terms. In Indochina, a prime motivation for establishing colonial schools was related to establishing French control over oppositional culture to colonialism. In Vietnam that oppositional culture in large part had its locus in pre-colonial scbools, which persisted despite French harassment through the interwar years. (In 1924 alone, over 1,800 of these schools were forcibly shut down.)44 Prior to the French conquest, Vietnam had a national school system that reached the vast majority of the population. The schools were secular, taught Vietnamese written in Chinese characters and basic Confu­cian ethics, and legitimated a unified Vietnamese state and its monarchy. They also functioned to select an elite. Success in schooling and on national examinations led to positions of real power and authority in state service.­Pre-colonial schools not only served to integrate the nation, spread the ideology of meritocracy, and associate education with the right to rule; they also had a history of mobilizing the peasantry against the state when it became oppressive beyond bounds or for the state when it was threatened by foreign incursions. These'prewcolonial schools teaching Vietnamese writ­ten in Chinese characters-and their teachers-had been the mainstay of the military resistance to the French.

French political authorities were well aware of the political significance

I I j

I I

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 25

of Vietnamese indigenous schools. The many meetings of the Council for the Improvement of Native Education that spanned 1908 to 1913 consist­ently debated·the need to eliminate these schools not only because they were backward, but because of their tendency to meddle in politics.45 In Cam­bodia and Laos, where indigeneous education was religious, focusing only on the other world and seemingly unrelated to the nation-state, the French neither outlawed such schools nor were particularly active in promoting the spread of the colonial schools.

The way the schools in the Vietnamese states of Indochina evolved can be considered a French response to Vietnamese society and the meanings education held for a broad cross-section of the population. It was not feasible politically to withhold mass education from a society that had had such a system in place for hundreds of years. If the French wished to transform the meanings associated with schooling, they had to provide schools to do so. Where colonial schools were not established, traditional schools tended to re-form, according to a 1934 report, "uncontrolled and uncontrollable, teaching anything .... "46

The French not only extended their schools in order to counteract effec­tively Vietnamese traditional schooling, the medium and content of educa- .,'. tion reflected similar considerations. The language of instruction in the first three years was Vietnamese for political reasons. Early deliberations about the language of instruction were clear on this point. French educators· argued often that the Vietnamese language was illogical, incapable of con­veying science, imprecise, and underdeveloped. Yet the schools were called upon to teach in it, and the g~vernment poured resources into standardizing its transliteration into the Latin alphabet and developing texts in it. The reasons were political: if the schools were to reorient Viemamese society to anew pohhcal order;-students had to be able to understand what the schools would teach. Education was to be "useful" and to orient students to their localities, not to the nation-state of the past or to power within a new French-fabricated Indochina.

Although the French opted to teach in Vietnamese, the Vietnamese the colonial schools taught was not the written language indigenous schools had . taught. The reformed script, while no doubt an efficient means of teaching literacy in the language, as the only Vietnamese taught, cut future genera· tions off from their own national literature, which was written in Chinese characters, as well as from the thousand years or so of Chinese influence.

While the fact of indigenous schools and the role they had played in Vietnamese society hnpelled French policymakers to develop mass educa­tion in the mother tongue, it also affected deeply the content and rigor of education. Although it was easier to get into school in Vietnam than in West Africa, school was rarely a pleasant place, and it was relatively hard for

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26 Educat1ion and the Colonial Experience

students to remain in school. A rigorous curriculum was deliberately put in place, with highly competitive degree examinations to discourage large

! numbers of students. Those who were lucky enough to stay in school after the elementary grades were continually bombarded with a curriculum that sought to detach students from affective ties with their nation and V,et­namese leadershipj and the curriculum sought to dissociate education from national service and from social mobility. In short, the curriculum was directed toward undermining the very reasons Vietnamese demanded edu-cation. These schools provided the upper levels of education, even a univer­sity, as Vietnamese, in reaction to the education offered them, described by many as one designed to produce "ya-yas" and "underling clerks," attempt­ed to enter French schools both in the colony and in the metropole in order to make new educational forms play traditional functions in terms of access to power, wealth, and leadership in their society.47

In West Africa. French school practices were no less politically driven. but given the societies that composed the colonial federation, and the mean­ings traditionally associated with education. the French did not feel com­pelled either to build a mass education system or to use the schools to break down potential or real oppositional political culture. In West Africa. the locus of olitical culture was never vested in schoolin nor-was the opposi­tional culture to French rule. Although t ere were educational forms pre­dating the French intrusion into West Africa, they were not associated with temporal affairs, the integration of a nation-state, or the recruitment of leadership. The Koranic schools that were functioning through the north­ern and central parts of French West Africa were considered by the Fr,mch backward. but benign. institutions. No attempt was made to supplant them. In other parts of the colonial federation, where Koranic schools were nonexistent, indigenous education was not formalized, was highly localized, and was unrelated either to elite recruitment or to a state. In no part of West Africa was there a national school system predating the French. Colonial schools were never intended to substitute for indigenous ones; they were intended merely to supplement indigenous schools to train local elites.

Unlike Indochina. where a large nation-state had a relatively stable existence in a territory comprising one-half to two-thirds of the colonial federation. French West Africa was characterized by a multitude of rela­tively small-scale societies. often in competition with one another. Many of these societies were hierachically organized solely on ascriptive criteria. The

._ ideology of meritocracy was not well entrenched, especially in relation to --' education. The colonial administration in West Africa based itself on the

traditional African elite and did what it could to bolster their status. School­ing was designed for them alone and was offered almost as a reassurance that no competing groups would challenge their lluthority if they cooper-

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 27

ated with the colonial system. School populations were for the most part heterogeneous, recruited from local elites. Care was taken not to admit the masses or to in any way conjure up fears that the indigeneous elites would have to compete to maintain their position within local society. The SChOOISl thus deliberately restricted enrollments to a narrowly targeted population, refused to introduce cOID.petitive examinations that would sort out individu- ~ als on the basis of merit. and relaxed curricular standards to make the elite's first-hand contacts with colonial institutions a pleasant, stress~free experi-ence. The relaxation of standards may have been designed to gain loyalty or keep it from eroding. The schools attempted to prevent the development of oppositional cultures among those it served. not only by making school a pleasant place. but also by refraining from adverse commentary on stu­dents' culture and society. The curriculum found little but praise for the African and downplayed the significance of the obvious differences between colonizer and colonized. It implied that with education all differences would disappear and Africans would have every opportunity to participate fully in the colonial order. The schools wooed the African elite and prepared them for local leadership. Those the schools trained did not expect educa-tion to prepare them for leadership in French West Africa, a colonial fabrication.

This chapter has argued that colonial educational practices were strongly influenced by the societies in which the schools were placed. It has shown that the interplay between the French and the political cultures of African and Asian societies was important in determining the medium, content, and distribution of education. And it has suggested that where schooling had traditionally played a role in integrating a nation-state, as in Vietnam. education initiated by a colonial power took a fonn dislinct from that instigated by the colonizer in societies in which indigenous forms were tied to religious rather than secular functions and divorced from the mainte­nance of a nation. Further research that attends to education at the level of practice is necessary before such a generalization can be shown adequate in explaining the variation in the educational heritages left by colonial rule throughout the Third World.

NOTES

Note: The following abbreviations have been used in the notes below:

AOM: BEAOF; BGlP .. JOAOF;

Archives Nationales de France, Section Outre-Mer Bulletin de l'ElIseigneme1Zt de I'A/rique Occidentale Francaise Bulletin General de l'lnstructi01l Publique (lndochille) Journal 0fficiel de rAftique Occidentale Franfaise

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. .

28 Edu~ation and the Colonial Experience

JOIF: Journal Officiel de L 'Indochine Fran~aise

1. See e.g. Philip Foster, Education and Social Chl!nge in Ghana (Chicago: Uni­versity of Chicago Press, 1965); Apama Basu, The Growth of Education and Political Development in India, 1878-1920 (Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1974); Philip Loh. Seeds of Separatism: Educatioll Policy in Malaysia, 1874-1940 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975); Denise Bouche, L 'En­seignemeJtt dans les territoiresfram;ais de l'AJrique Occidentale de 1817-1920 (Paris: Champion, 1975); R6mi Clignet and Philip Foster. "French and British Colonial Education in Africa," Comparative Education Review, 8 (Oct. 1964); 191·98.

2. Prosser Gifford and Timothy Weiskel, HAfrican Education in a Colonial Con­text: French and British Styles," in France and Brita~n in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule, ed. Prosser Gifford and William Roger Louis (New

. Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). pp. 663~711j A. J. Asiwaju. "FonnaL Education in Western Yurobaland, 1889-1960: A Comparison of the French and British Colonial Systems," Comparative Education Review. 19 (Oct. 1975): 434-50; Eric Ashby and Mary Anderson, Universities: British, Indian, African (Cambridgej Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).

3. Gouvemement General de l'Indochine Franr;aise, Direction Generale de l'In~ struction Publique, Code de l'Instruction Publique. 21 die. 1917(Hanoi: Im~ primerie d'Extreme~Oricnt, 1918); see also Blanchard de la Brosse, Une Annie de rejormes dans I'enseignement en Indochine, 1924-25 (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Extreme-Orient, 1925).

4. This discussion of the schools of French West Africa is based on Exposition Colonia]e Internationale de Paris, Commissariat de ]' Afrique Occidentale Franl(aise, L 'Enseignement en Afrique Occidentale FranfOlSe (Paris: Librairie Larose, 1931); Gouvernement General de l'Afrique Occidentale Franr;aise, Service de l'Enseignement, Textes portant reorganisation de l'er,zseignement en Afrique Occidentale Fran~aise, ler ma; 1924(Gor6e: Editions du BEAOF, No. S7, 1924)j 31 dec. 1923, Circulaire du Gouverneur General sur I'Enseignement (signe Carde), JOAOF, 2oeAnnee, No. 1008 (26janv. 1924), pp. 69-71; 1 mai 1924, Circulaire sur la reorganisation de l'enseignement. JOAOF. 20e Ann&:, No. 1024 (10 mai 1924), pp. 309·16.

5. See 1 nov. 1918, Arrete fixant l'organisation generale de l'enseignement en Afrique Occidentale Fran",",e, JOAOF, 14e Annee, No. 728 (16 nov. 1918), pp. 572-7; 20 juin 1919, Decret porlant creation d'un lycee a Saint-Louis (Senegal) (Arrele de promulgation du 18juiUeI1919), JOAOF, 15e Annee, No. 764 (26 juiUet 1919), pp. 469·72; 1 avril 1921, Arrete ",organisant I'Eeole William Ponty, JOAOF, 17eAnnec, No. 860 (30 avri11921), pp. 319·22; 1 mai 1924, Circulaire sur la reorganisation de l'enseigiIement, JOAOF. 20 e Annee, No. 1024 (10 mai 1924), pp. 309·16.

6. This was stated continuously. See esp. 5 oct. 1917, Circulaireau sujet d'un plan d'action scolaire (signe Van Vollenhoven), JOAOF, Be Anm!e, No. 670 (6 oct. 1917), pp. 531~34; Assomption (Inspecteur des Ecoles). Circulaire sur l'ap~ plication de l'arrete du ler mai 1924, BEAOF, 13e Annee, No. 61 Guillet-dec. 1925), pp. 77~79; Assomption, "Conseil aux ma1tres: Circulaire au sujet du recrutement," BEAOF, 120 Annee, No. 55 Ganv .• jujn 1924), pp. 59-61.

7. See e.g. "Rapport statistique d'ensemble pour l'annee scolaire, 1934-35/'

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 29

L 'Education A/n'caine, 25e Ann6e, No. 93 Ganv.~mars 1935), pp. 63~74; Gou~ vernement General de l'AOF, Amtualre Statistique de 1~OF(1938), p. 29.

8. Gouvernement General de I'Indochine Frangaise, Rapports au Grand Conseil des inlerelS €coJlomiques etfinanciers et au COllseil de Gouvernement, deuxierne partie: Fonclionnement des diverS services indochino;s, Session Ordinaire de ]938 (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Exlreme-Orient, 1938), Table 5.

9 •. Ibid., 1937, Table 9. 10. Gouvemement General de l'AOF, Annuaire Statistique de /:AOF(1933·38),

ch. 3, p. 29. 11. Georges Hardy, Une Conquete morale: l'ellseignement en AOF(Paris: Armand

Colin, 1917). 12. See e.g.lssa Kane, "L'Enfant toucouleur," BEAOp,·21e Annee, No. 79 (avril­

juin 1932), pp. 91-98; G. Cyrille, "Enquete sur l'enfant noir en l'AOP: Ie petit dahomeen," BEAOF, 21e Annee, No. 79 (avri1·juin 1932), pp. 79·90; R . Lamye, "Enquete sur l'enfant nair en Afrique noire: renfant agro," REAOE. 21e Annee, No. 80 Guillet.dec. 1932), pp. 199·210; P. Blanluet, "Enquete sur l'enfant nair de l'AOF: l'enfant gourounsi," READE 21e Annee, No. 78 (janv.~mars 1931), pp. 8~19; Fity Dabo Sissoko, UEnquete de l'enfant nair de l'AOF: l'eofant bambara," BEAOF, 20e Annee, No. 76 Guil1et.sept. 1931), pp. 3-24; Y. Imbert, "Enquete sur I'enfant nair en Afrique Occidentale Fran~aise: l'enfilDt malinke," BEAOF, 20e Annee, No. 75 (avril·juin 1931), pp. 3-12; Benjamin Gbaguidi. "Enquete sur l'education dans la societe indigene," L'Education Africai"" 260 Anne., No. 96 Ganv .• juin 1937), pp. 48·57.

13. Gouvernement General de l' Afrique Occidentale Franc;aise, Service de l'En­seignement, Textes porlant reorganisation de I'Enseignement en Afrique Oc­cidentale Fran~ise, ier mai i924 (Goree: Editions du BEAOF, No. 57,1924); L. Sonolet and A. Peres. Le Livre du maitre africain a l'usage des €coles de village, 2e ed. (paris: Armand Colin, 1923); J. L. Monod, Instructions au personnel enseignant qui debute dans les ecoles de I'A/rique Occidentale Fran­faise. Editions du Bulletin de l'Enseignement de r AOF (Goree: Imprimerie du Gouvernement General7 1921).

14. See e.g. Henri Gourdon, L'Enseignemenl des indigenes en Indochille (paris: Societe Generate d'Imprimerie et d'Edition Uve, 1910); Mat Gi6i (Crayssac), "Lettre de Mat Gi6i/' L'Avellir du Tonkin. 30e Annee, No. 5438 (6 mars 1913), p. Ij H. Simard, Le Livre des illstitutcurs annamites (paris: Ch. Dela­grave, c. 1920); J. Pandolfi and Nguyen~Van~Hao, Notions de pedagogie aux instituteufs et aux instflutrides indl'genes.(Saigon: Imprimerie J. Viet. 1925): J. A. Bertrand, "Etude psychologique de l'enfant de I'Indochine: l'intelligence," BGIP, partie generale. 18e Annee, No. 10 (juin-aout 1938).

15. Sarraut is quoted in "LaVille: ouverture de la 4e session du Conseil de perfec­tionnement de l'enseignement indigene," L 'Avenir du Tonkin, 30e Annee, No. 5466 (9 avri11913), p. 3; He repeated this over and over again. See Compte rendu sommaire de la session ordinaire de 1917 du Conseil de Gouvemement de ['Indochine, seance du 13 novembre 1917, JOIP. 30e Annee, No. 79bis (2 oct. 1918), pp. ii~cxxviii, esp. pp. xii-xiii; and "Uue Circulaire de M. Albert Sarraut sur Ie developpement de l'enseignement indigene." L.'Asje Fran~aise. 21e Annee, No. 188 Ganv. 1921), pp. 23·25.

16. See e.g. 5 oct. 1917, Circulaire as sujet d'un plan d'action scolaire (signe Van Vollenhoven), JOAOF, 13eAlUlee, No. 670 (6 oct. 1917), pp. 531-34; Assomp-

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30 Education and the Colonial Experience

tion, "Conseil aux maitres: Circulaire au sujet de recruternent," BEAO£, 12e Annee, No. 55 Ganv.-juin 1924), pp. 59-61.

17. A. Davesne~ Nouveau syllabaire de Mamadou et Bineta a ['usage des €coles africaines(Paris and Strasbourg: Istra, 1934). See also J. L. Monad, Instruc­tions au personnel ellseigllont qui debute dans /es koles de l'Afrique Occidentale Fran~aise (Goree: Gouvernement General de l' Afrique Occidentale Fran<;aise, Service de l'Enseignement~ Editions du Bulletin de l'Enseignement de l'AOF. 1921); J. L. Monad. PremIer Livret de !'ecolzer noir: lecture-ecriture-Iangage correspondant au programme des eco/es de village de l'AOF(Paris: Ch. Dela­grave. 1929). pp. iii-iv.

18. Examples of these primers are Davesne; Monad; Louis Sonolet and A. Ped:s, Methode de lecture et d'ecn"ture de l'eeolier afri'cain (Paris: Armand Colin, 1915); J. L. Monod. Deuxieme Livret de J'ecolier noir: longage et lecture (carre. spondant au programme de langage des €co/es de vii/age de l'Afrique Frall~aise de 1'0uesl) (Paris: Ch. De1agrave, 1926): R. Imbert, Mon Ami Koffi (livre de lecture caurante a l'usage des eco/es a/ricaines, cours ~l€menlaire (paris: Ferdi­nand Nathan~ 1934); A. Davesne, Mamadou etBineta lisent etecriventcouram­ment (Paris: Istra, 1931).

19. Cahicr de Devoirs, Patida Moussa. Ecole RCgionale de Kaya. entry of 14 oct. 1930. AOM, 46 PA, carton 4, dossier 19.

20. See e.g. Cahier de Devoirs. Tinnoago Eguire. Ecole Regionale de Gar<;ons de Conakry. AOM 46 PA. carton 4. dossier 18bis; Dcyoirs Journaliers. Nakro Valoulau, Ecole de Koudougou. annee scolaire 1930-31, ADM. 46 FA, carton 4. dossier 20; Cahier de Routement. Ecole Regionale de Ouagadougou, annee scolaire 1930-31, cours elementaire,lere annee, AOM, 46 PA, carton 4. dossier 20. In these notebooks students listed their ages. which were far older than government age-specific requirements provided ror.

21. Cahier de Roulement. Ecole Regionale de Ouagadougou, annee scolaire 1930-31, cours elementaire. lere annee. AOM. 46 PA, carton 4. The Cahier de Roulement was a class notebook. "Each day the teacher gave a different student the book and required him/her to write the day's assignments in it. School inspectors often used the Roulement to check teachers' work-what they were teaching and how they graded their students-and wrote comments on the teachers' comments to their students. There is an excellent collection of both the Roulement and the individual student notebooks for each grade level for the school years 1929-30 and 1930-31 for a series of schools in West Africa and in Indochina in the French Overseas Archives in the series 46 PA consist­ing of approximately nine cartons.

22. See e.g. Cahier de Roulement. Ecole de Plein Exercisede Hai Hau. Nam Dinh. cours preparatoire, anm!escolaire 1928-29. AOM. 46 PA, cartOn 9, dossier 93; Cahier de Routement. Ecole de Lang-Van (Tonkin). annee scolaire 1929-30, cours preparatoire, AOM. 46 FA. carton 9, dossier 92; Cahier de Devoirs Mensuels, annee scolaire 1920-30, Ecole de Plein Exercise de Gan;ons, Prov­ence de Bac Kan. COUTS 61ementaire et preparatoire. AOM, 46 PA. carton 9, dossier 85;· Cahier de Compositions Hebdomadaires, Nguyen-Giae, Ecole de Plein Exercise de Gar<;ons de Bac-Ninh (Tonkin), cours preparatoire B., 7, Sept. 1929-29 mars 1930, AOM, 46 PA, carton 9, dossier 86.

23. Cahier de Devoirs MensueJs, Hoang-Khai-Mac, Ecole de Plein Exercise de Gar'tons. annee scolaire 1929-30; AOM. 46 PA, carton 9. dossier 85.

24. Cahier de Devoirs. cours 6lementaire. 2e annee, Ecole R6gionale de Gar'tons

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 31

de Conakry, William Wilson. annee scolaire 1930-31. AOM,45 PA, carton 4. dossier 18bis. (An entry in September presents the following math problems: 8-3 = • 9-3 = , 3+6 =.) See also Cahier de Roulement. Ecole Regionale de Ouagadougou. cours moyen 2k. annee scolaire 1930-31. AOM, 46 PA. carton 4. dossier 20. These should be compared to the mathematics instruction in Vietnam. Le-The-Den in the cours enfantin did the following math problem on 29 sept 1929: 31 + 23 = . Cahiers mensuels, 1929-30, cours enfantin, Ecole Brieux it Hanoi. AOM) 46 PA. carton 9, dossier 88j multiplication was done in the cours preparatoire, see Cahier de Devoirs Mensuels. annee scolaire 1929-30, Dao Thinh Duyet, 11 mars 1929, Ecole de Plein Exercise de Gar~ns, cOurs elementaire et preparatoire. AOM, 46 PA. carton 9, dossier 85; for geometry problems in the cones moyen, 2e annee, see Cahier de Devoirs. No. 2. annee scolaire 1929-30, (student) Nguyen-Kinh-Phoung, No. Mie 1547. 39 ocl 1929-21 dec. 1929, Ecole Fran~o-Indigene de Sinh Tu, AOM, 46 PA, carton 9, dossier 91. See Cabier de Devoirs. cours preparatoirc. 2e annee, Ecole Regionale de Gar<;ons de Conakry, (student) Soriba Lamara, annee scolaire 1930-31, AOM, 46 PA. carton 4. dossier 18bis; Cabier de Devoirs. cours elementaire, 2e annee, Ecole Regionale de Gar<;ons de Conakry, (student) William Wilson. anm!"e scolaire 1930-31, AOM, 46 PA, carton 4, dossier 18bis. RObert Imbert, Mon Ami Koffi (livre de lecture a /"usage des ecoles a/ncaines) . (Paris: Ferdinand Nathan, 1934), pp. 32-33. See "Enseignement primaire," BGIP. partie scolaire. 13e Annee, No.2 (oct. 1933), pp. 90-105; ibid., 4eAnnee, No.6 (fev. 1925), p. 330; ibid., lleAnnee, N? 8 (avril 1932), p. 626; ibid., 4e Annee, No.6 (fev. 1925), p. 330; NgO-Duc­Kinh and Nguyen-Huy-Hoang, Le Frall~ais au eours preparatoire (Hanoi: Imprimerie Trung-Bac-Tan-Van, 1936). "Enseignement du ler degre: coues moyen et cours superieur. programme du 6e mois," BGIP, partie seo/aire, 3e Annee, No.6 (fev. 1924). p. 288. UEnseignement primaire," BGlp, partie seo/aire. 7e Annre. No~· 7 (mars 1929). p. 423. See also ibid., 60 Anne., Nos. 5-6 Ganv.-fev. 1927), p. 223. "Enseignement primaire." BGlp, partie scolaire. 4e Annre, No.5 Ganv. 1925). p.276. See e.g. "Textes et lectures." BEAOF. 1ge Annee, No. 72 (avril-juin 1930), p. 10. For a complete analysis of curricular guides in Indochina, see Gail P. Kelly. "Colonial Schools in Vietnam: Policy and Practice," in Education and Colo­nialism, ed .. P. G. AItbach and G. P. Kelly (New York: Longmans, 1978), pp. 96-121. Te.tes et lectures, BEAOF, 13e Aune., No. 60 Ganv.-juin 1925), pp. 74-75. "Enseignement primaire." BGIP. partie seolaire. 12e Annee. No. I (sept 1932), p.34. See e.g. "Enseignemcnt primaire," BQIP, partie seolaire, 8e Annee. No.5 Ganv. 1929), p. 306; ibid., 10e Annee, No.2 (oct. 1930), pp. 145; ibid., 8eAnnee, No. 6 (fev. 1929); IIEnseigncment du premier dcgre ... • BGIP. partie seolaire. 4e Annee, No.6 (fev. 1924), p. 81. See Kelly. Mondd, Deuxieme Livret de l'6eolier noir: lallgage et lecture (eorrespondant au programme de langage des ecoles de village de l'Afrique de tOuest) (Paris: Ch. Delagrave, 1926), p. 20.

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32 Education and the Colonial Experience

38. Ibid., p. 92. 39. See "Enseignement primaire," BGIp, partie scolaire, 4e Annee, No.6 (fev.

1925), p. 330; ibid., 7. Anne, No.5 Ganv. 1928), p. 292; ibid., 8e Annee, No. 5 Ganv. 1929), p. 305.

40. Robert Imbert, Mon Ami Kofji (livre de lecture d ['usage des ecoles africaines) (paris: Ferdinand Nathan, 1934), pp. 14142. '

41. L. Sonalet and A. Peres, Moussa et Gi-gla; histoire de deux petits Noirs: livre de lecture courante (collrs complet de I'enseignement d /'usage des ecoles de l'Afrique Occidentale FranfOise) (paris: Armand Colin, 1926). p. 83.

42. See Monguillot,le Gouverneur G6nernt p.i. de l'Indochine, Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur, a M Ie Ministre des Colonies, 17 juillet 1928, AOM, Fonds du Gouvemement General de l'Indochine Fran~aise (rux) 51.173.

43. See Charles Robequain, The Economic Development of French Indochina (Lon­don: Oxford University Press, 1941); Virginia Thompso!1, French Indochina (New York: Macmillan, 1937) Virginia M. Thompson and Richard Adloff, French West A/rica (palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1957).

44. This discussion of in digeneous schools is based on Milton Osborne. The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response, 1858-1903 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969); for a discussion of precolonial schools see Nguyen-Khac-Vien, "Marxism and Confucianism in Vietnam," in Tradi­tion and Revolution in Vietnam. ed. Nguyen~K.hac-Vien (Berkeley: Indochina Resource Center. 1974),"pp. 15-75; Alexander Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975); David Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975). For school-closing figures for 1924 see Gouvemement General del'Indochine Frant;aise, Rapports au Conseil de Gouvernement. Session Ordinaire. deuxfeme partie: Fonctionllement des divers services indochinois (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Extreme-Orient, 1925), Table "Enseignement prive en Indochine," n.p.

45. See Kelly, "Colonial Schools in Vietnam: Policy and Practice." 46. Pham Quynh, Rapport lu en Conseil des Ministres. Ie 18 janvier 1934 (sur

l'organisation de l'enseignement rural en Annam). ADM, NF 259·2226. 47. These tenns are taken from Ngu-Binh-Thanh, "Nouvelles de l' Annam: encore

du poison," La Jeune Indochine. 2e Annee, No.9 (5 janv. 1929). pp. 1-2; '"Revue de la presse; l'universite indochinoise," L 'Ecolier annamite. lere An­nee, No.1 (8 rnai 1924), p, 3.

I I

2 COLONIALISM AND SCHOOLING IN

THE PHILIPPINES, 1898·1970

Douglas Foley

Philippine educational development h.s been generally characterized as a progressive policy that promoted political democracy and social equality. This study argues th.t the policy of developing an educational system is so intimately related to the larger historical pattern of Western economic and cultural imperialism that mass education is ultimately and essentially a part of that exploitation. The colonial records suggest how the American coloni­als, collaborating with the Filipino ruling class, conceived of education as a "human resource development" plan for a dependent agricultural colony. Ultimately, these early leaders created a politically dominated, highly cen· tralized public education.l system run by a Western-oriented; relatively powerless professional group to serve this end. This interpretation oftwen­tieth·century Philippine educational development wili first describe the sociopolitical context of educational policy, that is, the general American colonial policy and collaboration with the emerging Filipino ruling class. The second section will describe the major ideological and policy orienta­tions of Philippine education during the colonial period from 1898 to 1946. The third section will describe how many of the earlier educational policies continued after independence, and how new foreign aid programs for public education have continued to promote economic, political, and cultural dependency in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

AMERICAN COLONIAL POLICY AND AN EMERGING FILIPINO ELITE

Under Spanish' rule the 'Philippine colony had developed an extensive national legal-bureaucratic system and had the beginnings of a commercial agricultural export economy.l Indeed, nineteenth-century Philippine eeo-

33