Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

84 • Truth & Reconciliation Commissionschool lost a foot in 1944 after an accident during the operation of a machine used inthe preparation of fodder. 257 Two boys from the Birtle, Manitoba, school were injuredin a truck accident in 1942. From Indian Affairs correspondence, it appears that theaccident involved a truck carrying seventy boys who were being taken from the schoolto the fields to do farm work. Indian Affairs official R. A. Hoey criticized the principalfor allowing the practice to take place, noting that “it is almost unbelievable that theprincipal should permit 70 pupils to be conveyed in a truck.” 258Even though the half-day system was supposedly eliminated in the early 1950s, studentscontinued to be overworked. 259 After Sam Ross ran away from the Birtle school in1959, he told Indian Affairs official J. R. Bell that he wanted to continue his education,but had been forced to work “too hard” at the school. He said that from September toChristmas of the previous year, he had worked in the school barn every day between“6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. and from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. again at recess, from 4:00 p.m. to6:00 p.m. and had had to stoke up the furnace with coal at 10:00 o’clock before retiring.”Ross said that “he liked school but not working like a hired hand.” Bell recommendedthat the amount of student labour being done at the Birtle school be investigated. 260Language and culture: “The Indian language isindeed seldom heard in the institution.”The government’s hostile approach to Aboriginal languages was reiterated innumerous policy directives. In 1883, Indian Commissioner Edgar Dewdney instructedBattleford school principal Thomas Clarke that great attention was to be given “towardsimparting a knowledge of the art of reading, writing and speaking the English languagerather than that of Cree.” 261 In 1889, Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs LawrenceVankoughnet informed Bishop Paul Durieu that in the new Cranbrook, BritishColumbia, school, mealtime conversations were to be “conducted exclusively in theEnglish language.” The principal was also to set a fixed time during which Aboriginallanguages could be spoken. 262 In 1890, Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed proposed,“At the most the native language is only to be used as a vehicle of teaching and shouldbe discontinued as such as soon as practicable.” English was to be the primary languageof instruction, “even where French is taught.” 263 The Indian Affairs “Programmeof Studies for Indian Schools” of 1893 advised, “Every effort must be made to inducepupils to speak English, and to teach them to understand it; unless they do the wholework of the teacher is likely to be wasted.” 264Principals regularly reported on their success in suppressing Aboriginal languages.In 1887, Principal E. Claude boasted that his thirty students at the High River school“all understand English passably well and few are unable to express themselves inEnglish. They talk English in recreation. I scarcely need any coercive means to oblige