The missionaries on the spot claimed that their greater familiarity and experience persuaded them that residential schools were still required, and would be for some time to come. By 1908 these forces had fought Blake and his allies to a standstill.

    The deeply ingrained doubt in the Department of Indian Affairs about the schools' effectiveness in bringing Indians to self-sufficiency was reinforced by the revelations about appalling health conditions that stemmed from Dr. Bryce's reports. Underlying all these quite legitimate anxieties was the point that the department's analyst had made in 1897 about the fact that Indians were 'not decreasing in numbers. They are here to stay and the question naturally arises, what are we to do with them'?

    The answer to these questions came in an agreement between government and missionary organizations that was concluded in November 1910 and embodied in a series of contracts governing residential schools in 1911. Additional funding would be provided for industrial and boarding schools, the living conditions of the schools would be improved, and the entire arrangement would be subject in future to greater government inspection and enforcement. Not only would varied per capita rates of support be provided in different parts of the country, but even within one region schools of different calibre and quality would receive different grants. The idea behind dividing the schools into categories according to the quality of their facilities, and adjusting their grants accordingly, was to induce the churches to invest more in developing and maintaining first-class, healthy schools. The 1910 --11 arrangements also included requirements that schools provide medical facilities that would allow infectious student to be isolated, and standards for air space in both classrooms and sleeping areas were specified as well. It seemed that Dr. Bryce's revelations had not gone completely unnoticed.