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Blackboard
Chapter 2: Early School Prototypes
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Exerpt: 1897 Annual report, p. 28 EDUCATION
"The chief advantage of such schools is the removal of the children from home influences, and consequently the more speedy and thorough inculcation of the habits, customs and modes of thought of the white man, but to have all that exists in common between them destroyed, and to have them return to the reserve out of sympathy with their environment, seems to the Indian parent a distinct disadvantage. It is, therefore, only as they can be brought to recognize the greater material advantage to their children in other directions and the necessity of education to enable them to hold their own in the struggle for existence, that their prejudices against education can be overcome and a desire for its benefits aroused."
> Two of the first pupils to attend the Blackfoot Anglican School, Alberta,
ca. 1886
Photographer: A.J. Ross
Glenbow Archives, NA-896-3
Exerpt: E. Dewdney, Indian Commissioner, Sessional Report
"I am confident that the Industrial School now about to be established will be a principal feature in the civilization of the Indian mind. The utility of Industrial Schools has long been acknowledged by our neighbours across the line [in the United States], who have had much to do with the Indian.
In that country, as in this, it is found difficult to make day schools on reserves a success, because the influence of home associations is stronger than that of the schools, and so long as such a state of things exists I fear that the inherited aversion to labour can never be successfully met. By the children being separated from their parents and properly and regularly instructed not only in the rudiments of the English language, but also in trades and agriculture, so that what is taught may not be readily forgotten, I can but assure myself that a great end will be attained for the permanent and lasting benefit of the Indian."
< Jim Abikoki and family in front of the fence surrounding the Anglican Mission on the Blackfoot Reserve,
Alberta, ca. 1900
Glenbow Archives, NC-5-8
> View of Fort Qu'Appelle Indian Industrial School shows students with Principal Father Joseph Hugonnard, staff and Grey Nuns, Lebret, Saskatchewan, 1884Photographer: Otto B. Buell
Library and Archives Canada
PA-118765
The era of the Industrial School System had begun, and by the year 1880, eleven schools were operating in the Dominion of Canada.
