Oct 1, 2023
“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, And training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”
-Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, speaking in the House of Commons in 1883.
