Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The history • 61it. Competition for converts meant that churches sought to establish schools in thesame locations as their rivals, leading to internal divisions within communities andexpensive duplication of services.The model for these residential schools for Aboriginal children, both in Canada andthe United States, did not come from the private boarding schools to which membersof the economic elites in Britain and Canada sent their children. Instead, the modelcame from the reformatories and industrial schools that were being constructed inEurope and North America for the children of the urban poor. The British parliamentadopted the Reformatory Schools Act in 1854 and the Industrial Schools Act in 1857. 110By 1882, over 17,000 children were in Britain’s industrial schools. 111 Under Ontario’s1880 Act for the Protection and Reformation of Neglected Children, a judge couldsend children under the age of fourteen to an industrial school, where they might berequired to stay until they turned eighteen. 112 Such schools could be dangerous andviolent places. At the Halifax Boys Industrial School, first offenders were strapped, andrepeat offenders were placed in cells on a bread-and-water ration. From there, theymight be sent to the penitentiary. 113 The Canadian government also drew inspirationfrom the United States. There, the first in a series of large-scale, government-operated,boarding schools for Native Americans opened in 1879 in a former army barracks inCarlisle, Pennsylvania. 114On the basis of Davin’s report and developments in the United States, the federalgovernment decided to open three industrial schools. The first one opened inBattleford in what is now Saskatchewan in 1883. It was placed under the administrationof an Anglican minister. The following year, two more industrial schools opened:one at Qu’Appelle in what is now Saskatchewan, and one at High River in what is nowAlberta. Both these schools were administered by principals nominated by the RomanCatholic Oblate order. The federal government not only built these schools, but it alsoassumed all the costs of operating them. Recruiting students for these schools wasdifficult. According to the Indian Affairs annual report, in 1884, there were only twenty-sevenstudents at the three schools. 115Unlike the church-run boarding schools, which provided a limited education witha heavy emphasis on religious instruction, the industrial schools were intended to prepareFirst Nations people for integration into Canadian society by teaching them basictrades, particularly farming. Generally, industrial schools were larger than boardingschools, were located in urban areas, and, although church-managed, usuallyrequired federal approval prior to construction. The boarding schools were smallerinstitutions, were located on or near reserves, and provided a more limited education.The differences between the industrial schools and the boarding schools eroded overtime. By the 1920s, the federal government ceased to make any distinction betweenthem, referring to them simply as “residential schools.”