Concern about the operation of the schools had developed soon after the industrial school experiment began in 1883, and over the years that anxiety deepened into opposition. Several factors combined to sow doubt about the wisdom and efficacy of residential schooling at the very time that the system was growing dramatically.

    Although the federal government was legally responsible for the education of status Indian children, in fact many other parties were involved. Charged constitutionally with jurisdiction over 'Indians and lands reserved for the Indians' by the Canada Act (1867), Ottawa in the 1880s and 1890s developed an administrative team to discharge this duty. The responsible minister, the superintendent general of Indian affairs, was as an elected member of cabinet, but the bureaucratic side of operations was overseen by the deputy superintendent general of Indian affairs. The deputy minister was assisted by a small Ottawa staff of clerks until the creation of a superintendent of education in 1909. More numerous were the 'outside staff,' whose job it was to carry out all aspects of Indian affairs policy. These officials included agents, inspectors, and commissioners, and by far the greatest concentration of such officers was found in British Columbia and the prairies. Theoretically these officers were to collect and forward to Ottawa information and, occasionally, recommendations on which policy could be formulated. Then they were responsible for executing the policy and assessing its results. For all aspects of policy - but especially in the case of education - the reality on the ground was much messier and unpredictable than the lines on an organization chart. When it came to developing, carrying out, and reporting on policy for both day and residential schools, a bewildering number of additional figures entered the picture. These included local schoolteachers and other staff, church officials and lay people, and simple citizens and their elected representatives in parliament or the territorial legislature. All these people could and did stimulate, alter and sometimes thwart Ottawa's policy for Native education.