Where are the Children?

And the fervour continued...

Excerpt: A.E. Forget, Indian Commissioner, 1897

"This branch of the Indian service has ever been recognized as one of the most, if not perhaps the most, important feature of the extensive system which is operating towards the civilization of our native races, having its beginning in small things-the first step being the establishment of reserve day-schools of limited scope and influence, the first forward step was the founding of boarding-schools both on and off the reserves. The beneficent effect of these becoming at once apparent, an impetus was thus given to the movement in the direction of industrial training, which was at once entered upon the establishment of our earlier industrial institutions ... until today the Dominion has had at its command a system which provides for its Indian wards a practical course of industrial training, fitting for useful citizenship the youth of a people who one generation past were practically unrestrained savages."

> A prototype for young Aboriginal girls attending residential schools, the St. Mary's Academy in Ottawa, Ontario,
March 1870
Photographer: William James Topley
Library and Archives Canada, PA-03289

Excerpt: Government Sessional Report
1886, p. 218
E. Claude O.M.L, Acting Principal, REGINA

"The girls are being taught housework, sewing, knitting, and some of them are especially clever at fancy work. The Rev. Father would like a building put up expressly for girls, and also that he be permitted to take in a few white boys. The introduction of the latter has been allowed by the Department; and the erection of a building for girls, is under consideration. I noticed that when the Indian boys were playing, they generally spoke in the Cree language; and, no doubt, the introduction of some white boys, say one to every ten, would help greatly to make them speak in English, and thus become familiar with the language.

With reference to the school for girls, I think this a necessity. The success with the few girls already under instruction is a guarantee of the success of the undertaking; and it is plain that to educate boys only, they would soon go back to old habits, if the girls are not taught to co-operate in house work. I do not think it possible that the girls I saw at the school, with their neat dresses, and tidy way of doing house work, could ever go back to the old habits of the Indian. These will be the future mothers; and it is most important to have them properly trained and educated."

Excerpt: Sessional Papers, Report on the Fort Qu'Appelle Indian Industrial School, Rev. Hugonnard, Principal, vol. XIX, no. 4, 1886, p. 138:

"I feel certain that this school will be a great success, and that it will be a chief means of civilizing the Indian; but to obtain this result, accommodation must be made to take in more pupils, as now we can only take in but one out of each reserve. A school for Indian girls would be of great importance, and I may say, would be absolutely necessary to effect the civilization of the next generation of Indians[;] if the women were educated it would almost be a guarantee that their children would be educated also and brought up Christians, with no danger of their following the awful existence that many of them ignorantly live now. It will be nearly futile to educate the boys and leave the girls uneducated."

< Before and after images of young Thomas Moore, Regina Indian Industrial School, Saskatchewan.
Photographer: Department of Indian Affairs Annual Report, 1897
Library and Archives Canada, C-022474

Official opinions about Aboriginal education, the Davin Report, and the Carlisle boarding school model, all helped to convince many Canadians about the kind of Industrial School System they were willing to support. In this environment, the Regina Industrial School first made its appearance, and Thomas Moore was promoted as its model student.