To Educate American Indians

From 1900 to 1909, Indian school educators gathered at annual meetings of the National Educational Association's Department of Indian Education. The papers they delivered were later published in the Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association, but strict guidelines often meant they were heavily edited before publication. In this second volume of Department of Indian Education papers, Larry C. Skogen presents selected complete papers from the years 1905 to 1909 and provides historical context.

During this period educators promoted the belief that Natives could never be fully integrated into white society and argued instead for vocational and practical education near or on reservations, a clear break from earlier years, when prominent Indian school administrators advocated education far removed from Native communities. Indian school educators at these annual meetings also shared their methods with other educational thinkers and practitioners, who were seeking alternative pedagogies as new immigrants arrived in U.S. cities and challenges arose from new island territories. These selected writings reveal how the NEA influenced Indian school educators and how those educators, in turn, affected mainstream educational thinking.