much housework or other labour, and 'in some cases they have reason to complain,' an experienced missionary thought. The father of pupil number 97 at the Battleford school told the Indian agent that he would not send his son back because he had not been learning there. After five years in attendance, 'he cannot read, speak or write English, nearly all his time having been devoted to herding and caring for cattle instead of learning a trade or being otherwise educated. Such employment he can get at home.'

      Some parents forwarded a litany of complaints, in which excessive work and inadequate instruction were prominent.

      Also revealing were the statistics on students' lack of progress through the grades. Every indicator of academic performance throughout the history of these institutions pointed to the fact that pupils did not advance through the successive levels of elementary schooling. Throughout their history, residential schools reported that students were bunched in the lowest three standards, indicating a student body suffering severely from what is technically termed 'age-grade retardation.'

     Unfortunately, the performance level on the vocational training side was no better. It is accurate to say that there was little evidence that Native children who had attended a residential school experienced markedly greater economic success than their brothers and sisters who had been spared the experience.