Black robes alla Frontiera. Radici e modelli del catholic schooling americano

The first century of American history after the Independence has forged the structures and tenets of its educational culture, both with a distinctive WASP flavour. Catholicism, striving for a role in the cultural conquest of the Frontier, found some Jesuits were the right people in the right place. The activity of Father John De Smet and his fellows in the Indian Territories focused of rituals, objects, eloquence and music, purposely avoiding the written word (especially English language as linked to Reformation and urban culture), and blending Native and Catholic-baroque gestures in a new educational language.