Within the half-day system of academic learning and vocational training there was always a 'buckskin ceiling' over the heads of the Native students. From the beginning it was clear that the department's emphasis was on practical, vocationally oriented instruction. For example, the deputy minister in 1891 agreed with Commissioner Hayter Reed 'that a thorough instruction in industries is of much more value to the ordinary Indian than in literary subjects'.

       In keeping with the European doctrine of 'separate spheres' for women, training for girls emphasized domestic skills almost exclusively. If all students had a buckskin ceiling above them, the girls' was fringed ad tasseled.

       There were exceptional cases of residential school students who proceeded to higher education and sometimes to professional life. Church and government publications tended to trumpet news of this minority at every opportunity. Hayter Reed and Father Hugonnard were very proud when Dan Kennedy, the young Assiniboine who at twelve 'was lassoed, roped and taken to the Government School at Lebret,' went on to complete his education at St Boniface College. They were less thrilled when Kennedy used his new-found knowledge to carry the Plains Indian campaign against government attempts to suppress traditional summer dance ceremonials to the officials themselves.