The French tried and failed to create a system of European residential schooling for a small minority of the indigenous people in New France. The effort failed because the Indians rejected it and became the missionaries came to the conclusion that it was not essential to evangelization. Merchants, along with the military, did not favor the sort of assimilative campaign of which residential schooling was, or might have been, a part. The crown, for its part, quickly gave up an initial enthusiasm for assimilation, miscegenation, and social integration in the face of indigenous resistance, the indifference of missionaries and merchants, and the imperatives of military requirements.