Van Deventer’s appraisal was more articulate than most and more de- tailed than many, but his basic premises were widely shared. The notion that children should be sent to the Netherlands, not just to learn a craft or trade, but to change the social environments in which they lived, to change “their thoughts about the world,” was based on a common con- tention: that the colony’s economic and political viability were contingent upon educating the hearts and minds of those who were a danger to it, on managing their aspirations in the Indies world.

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 720