The Meriam: The Failure Of Indian Education

Indian education is a change in point of view.” While the idea of assimilation is at its core an incredibly racist and terrible policy. Lewis Meriam at the very least improved the overall quality of the schools so that they could attempt to fulfill their given purpose. Fortunately the policy of assimilation would be abandoned in the later part of the 20th century but the schools no longer contributed to the gross poverty or physical and social decay of the reservations youth.
The most long lasting effect and consequence of the Meriam Report was of its criticism of the Dawes Act and analysis of its failings, named after its creator (Bolt, Amerisscan Indian Policy and American Reform, 109), Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts. The Dawes Act
The secondary goal was to transfer valuable lands under Indian control to white American settlers. The transference of Tribally owned land to Individual household ownership of land was seen as an essential step to americanize these “savages”. Anything classified as "excess" after allotments, would be taken and sold on the open market, opening the door to new settlement by non-natives on what was once tribal land. The effects were immediate as the allotments occurred, the total amount of land owned by individual households dwindled as allotments became smaller and smaller, rendering many households incapable of farming on the Euro-American model due to insufficient land. The break of of the tribal social unit also impacted the mental and social health of many individuals. And with the incredible lack of revenue many schools were underfunded as a
After pointing out these issues the report lead to an immediate slowdown in the dispensing of allotments. In the first four fiscal years alone before the start of the study, roughly 10,000 Native Americans were split into households across over 3 million acres taken from tribal territory. In comparison, during the 4 years immediately following the recording of 'The Problem of Indian Administration,' a little over 2,800 Native Americans were allotted less than 500,000 acres.(Holm, The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs, 187). In the 5 years after that the process of allotment was abandoned completely with President Roosevelt beginning a complete overhaul of the allotment process. The culmination of that was when FDR signed the Indian Reorganization Act into law. A law which gave the power back to the tribes and enabled the to govern their own territories. Fast forward to the 21st century and Native Americans still number among some of the most impoverished minority groups in America today. However the increased number of college graduates from Native American communities as well as the continued reformation of reservation schools make it a far cry from the state that they were in some 100 years ago. The