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A Passage to Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

C. Fasseur
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Extract

A long story could be told about the educational institutions where young Dutchmen were trained for an administrative and legal career in the Indies. This educational process started with the foundation of the Javanese Institute (Instituut voor dejavaanse taal) in Surakarta in 1832. Ten years later this institute was closed and the training of Dutch civil servants was transferred to the city of Delft in the Netherlands. A Royal Academy for Engineers has been established in that town and was subsequently made subservient to this overseas task too. The study of language at an engineering academy reads strangely but was done for reasons of economy. In the words of the Minister of the Colonies (J.C. Baud) who was responsible for this decision: the arid and unpleasant study of Oriental languages could better be accomplished in a cold climate than in the hot climate of Java which was not at all conducive to hard work and study! In 1864 the instruction of civil servants for Indonesia was transferred to a state institution in Leiden (Rijks-instelling van onderwijs in Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde). But the municipal authorities of Delft were unwilling to lose the young hopefuls for the Indies and their wealthy parents, many of them with a colonial background themselves, who, for the sake of the education of their children, had taken domicile in Delft after their retirement. In the same year 1864 the municipal council of Delft established a local Indies Institute (Indische Instelling) of its own that turned out much more successful than the Leiden state institute which soon disappeared. On the other hand, the training of Indies lawyers and judges became a firm monopoly of Leiden University after the passing of a new law on Dutch universities in 1876.

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Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , July 1995, pp. 60 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1995

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References

Notes

1. See for this long story Fasseur, C., De Indologen; Amblenaren voor tie Oosl 1825–1950 (2nd ed.; Amsterdam 1994).Google Scholar.

2 Fasseur, , De Indologen, 75Google Scholar.

3 Potter, David C., ‘Manpower Shortage and the End of Colonialism; the Case of the Indian Civil Service’, Modern Asian Studies 7 (1973) 68–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See for the Cultivation System and these colonial profits: Fasseur, Cornelis, The Politics of Colonial Exploitation; Java, the Dutch and the Cultivation System (2nd ed.; Cornell 1994)Google Scholar.

5 Fasseur, , De Indologen, 450Google Scholar.

6 Jhr. F.E.M. van Alphen: Advice of the Council of State of 20 June 1893 (verbaal 15 July 1893, no. 61), General State Archives The Hague, Archives of the Ministry of the Colonies 1850–1900, No. 4721.

7 Fasseur, , De Indologen, 363Google Scholar.

8 I have clarified this point in Fasseur, C., ‘Colonial Dilemma; Van Vollenhoven and the Struggle between Adat Law and Western Law in Indonesia’ in: Mommsen, W. J. and Moor, J. A. de eds., European Expansion and IMW; the Encounter ofEurofje an and Indigenous IMW in 19th- and 20th-century Africa and Asia (Oxford and New York 1992) 237–256Google Scholar.

9 This complaint was heard already in 1858: Fasseur, , De Indologen, 175Google Scholar.

10 The Gymnasium Willem III in Batavia was a grammar school in name only, and virtually an HBS. Until 1917 HBS graduates had to pass a suplementary exam in Latin and Greek before they could enter the university. It is therefore obvious that the grammar school was seen as the only true gateway to the university. Matriculants from the HBS were considered to embark upon their career without academic training unless they preferred to become a physician. Even then they could not defend a Ph.D. thesis and had to go. abroad for a doctor's degree at a foreign university.

11 See Fasseur, , De Indologen, 260–264,Google Scholar for a survey of the various programs and subjects, ultimately frozen down in the regulation of 1883.

12 See ‘Verslag der Commissie voor het Jaar 1890 Hier te Lande Belast met het Afnemen van het Groot-Ambtenaarsexamen voor den Indischen Dienst, Bedoeld bij Art. 1 van het Koninklijk Bcsluit van 29 Augustus 1883 (Staatsblad no. 133)’, Jaarboekje van de Indologische Vereeniging votrr 1891 (Delft 1891) 114–120Google Scholar.

13 Verslag tier (Commissie, lielust met het Afnemen van hel Examen, lietloelil liij Artihel I van het Koninklijk Besluit van 29 Augustus 1883 No. 25 (Indisch StaatsbUul No. 249), (Batavia 1888) 1–8Google Scholar.

14 These annual publications appeared in Delft between 1884 and 1899. See also Fasseur, C., De Weg naar het Partulijs en Antlere Intlische Geschietlenissen (Amsterdam 1995) 127–138Google Scholar.