Residential School Saint: The Life, Death, and Turbulent Afterlife of Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 (3) ◽  
pp. 592-632
Author(s):  
Emma Anderson

Rose Prince was a young Indigenous woman who lived during the first half of the twentieth century, spending most of her short life in a Catholic residential school near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, Canada. Shy and retiring in life, Rose's venerators believe that her understated devotion was rewarded by a postmortem miracle generally reserved only for God's greatest saints: incorruption. The Catholic hierarchy and Rose's Carrier people, though at odds on much else, are unanimous that the Lejac Indian Residential School unwittingly hosted a saint between its opening in 1922 and Prince's death in 1949, and the two groups seek together to honor her with an annual pilgrimage to her gravesite. But this fragile unanimity exists in dynamic tension with the two groups’ divergent interpretations of Prince's holiness, particularly as it pertains to the legacy of residential schools. For some within the Catholic hierarchy, Rose's sanctity provides a powerful justification for the much-critiqued assimilative educational system. For many Carrier, however, Prince is its starkest repudiation. For them, Rose was—and is—the heart of a heartless world, incarnating gentle compassion in a system that, while it trumpeted these Christian virtues, itself was notably lacking in them.

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stafford

R. A. Butler has been one of the outstanding figures in twentieth-century British politics. After his death The Times described him as ‘the creator of the modern educational system, the key-figure in the revival of post-war Conservatism, arguably the most successful chancellor since the war and un-questionably a Home Secretary of reforming zeal’. His record of achievement was unequalled by his rivals in the contests for the party leadership in 1957 and in 1963, but on both occasions the leadership eluded him. How and why this happened was understandably of the greatest interest to those who reviewed Rab's memoirs, The art of the possible, which were published in 1971. These memoirs won unanimous praise for their literary excellence, but otherwise met with a rather mixed reception. Enoch Powell, one of Rab's supporters in 1963, described them as ‘a work of astonishing self-revelation [belonging] with the classic Confessions. Augustine and Rousseau were not more unsparing of themselves than Rab…’ The ‘large episodes’ of Rab's career, Powell went on, ‘are treated with a generous vision (including, it need not be added, a generosity to Rab) which leaves the reader with improved understanding and perspective’. Powell's comments were echoed by others on the Right, but the Left was more critical. Anthony Howard noted that ‘what tend…to get wholly left out are the mistakes and blunders’ – the now infamous Villacoublay meeting during the Suez crisis; and Rab's astonishing admission to the journalist George Gale during the 1964 campaign that the election was slipping Labour's way. Harold Wilson, who had offered Rab the mastership of Trinity, was perhaps the least charitable of all. He found The art of the possible disappointing because, he claimed, Rab underwrote the great occasions. Rab's reticence about Suez, however, upset Wilson less than the description of his tribulations at the hands of Labour MPs as government spokesman for the policy of non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War. Here was an issue which could excite the older soldiers of the British Left, and if Wilson was alone among Rab's reviewers in making more than passing reference to Rab's association with appeasement this was why.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
P M Rejimon ◽  
R Smitha

There are about forty lakh scheduled caste people in Kerala. Most of them are poor and daily wage workers. The socio-economic backwardness of scheduled caste people is a historically determined outcome of a caste system in India. Education is the only way for them to get out of this historical whirlwind of economic deprivation, denial of rights and social exclusion. The Government of India passed The Right to Education Act in 2010 and it ensures “free and compulsory education” for all children aged 6 to 14. The government of Kerala has introduced many innovative programs to provide education for scheduled caste pupils in the state. “Model Residential School” owned and managed by the Scheduled Caste Development Department of The Government of Kerala, is one of such successful initiatives. Model Residential Schools take special care to cater to the educational needs of the underprivileged children and help them to attain quality education. In this article, the investigators explore the role played by the model residential schools in the educational development of scheduled caste pupils in Kerala and particularly in solving the burning issue of a high rate of dropouts among scheduled caste pupils.


2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 831
Author(s):  
Emily Snyder

In this article I provide a review of two connected events.  The first is the conference "Prairie Perspectives on Indian Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation," which was held in June 2010 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  This conference was just one of many concurrent events taking place at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's first national event.  Specific themes and aspects of the conference are covered here.  Secondly, I parallel my discussion of the conference to my experiences with the national event - experiences can be complex and do not happen in isolation from the broader context around them. Overall, I argue that while the conference and the national event made some meaningful contributions to ongoing dialogue about reconciliation in Canada, it is clear that understanding how to deal with and discuss the conflict that arises from discussions of residential school, "race relations," and reconciliation more broadly is an ongoing learning experience.  I offer some recommendations concerning how conflict could be better dealt with at future conferences and national events.  Reconciliation processes can be more effective if there is not only space for dissent but, most importantly, that mechanisms are in place for encouraging productive discussions about the conflict that arises and that will continue to arise.


2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-444
Author(s):  
Greg Bak

ABSTRACT Helen Samuels sought to document institutions in society by adding to official archives counterweights of private records and archivist-created records such as oral histories. In this way, she recognized and sought to mitigate biases that arise from institution-centric application of archival functionalism. Samuels's thinking emerged from a late-twentieth-century consensus on the social license for archival appraisal, which formed around the work of West German archivist Hans Booms, who wrote, “If there is indeed anything or anyone qualified to lend legitimacy to archival appraisal, it is society itself.” Today, archivists require renewed social license in light of acknowledgment that North American governments and institutions sought to open lands for settlement and for exploitation of natural resources by removing or eliminating Indigenous peoples. Can a society be said to “lend legitimacy” to archival appraisal when it has grossly violated human, civil, and Indigenous rights? Starting from the question of how to create an adequate archives of Canada's Indigenous residential school system, the author locates Samuels's work amid other late-twentieth-century work on appraisal and asks how far her thinking can take us in pursuit of archival decolonization.


Author(s):  
Rosemary Nagy ◽  
Robinder Kaur Sehdev

“Home” to more than 150,000 children from the 1870s until 1996, the residential school system was aimed at “killing the Indian in the child” and assimilating First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children into white settler society. It was, in short, a genocidal policy, operated jointly by the federal government of Canada and the Catholic, Anglican, United, and Presbyterian Churches. Children as young as four years old were torn from their families and placed in institutions that were chronically underfunded; mismanaged; inadequately staffed; and rife with disease, malnutrition, poor ventilation, poor heating, neglect, and death. Sexual, emotional, and physical abuse was pervasive, and it was consistent policy to deny children their languages, their cultures, their families, and even their given names. While some children may have had positive experiences, many former students have found themselves caught between two worlds: deprived of their languages and traditions, they were left on their own to handle the trauma of their school experience and to try to readapt to the traditional way of life that they had been conditioned to reject. Life after residential school has been marred for many by alcohol and substance abuse, cycles of violence, suicide, anger, hopelessness, isolation, shame, guilt, and an inability to parent.First Nations leader Phil Fontaine catalysed the struggle for redress in 1990 when he stunned Canada by speaking about his residential-school experience. The second major catalyst was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) of 1991–1996, which broadly exposed the horrors of residential schools to Canadians and called for a public inquiry.


Author(s):  
S. Ashwini Kumari ◽  
Saritha Devi ◽  
K. Mayuri

<div><p>The study compares the effects of family factors contributing to the High Academic Achievement of Private Residential School Children and Rural Government School Children. Children studying in selected private residential schools and rural government schools in IX and X classes with highest ranks (first 3-4 ranks) in the previous year were selected. Total sample comprised 240 children, 120 from each setting, 60 from IX class and 60 from X class. An Interview schedule was developed by the investigator for the children to know their perceptions about family contributing factors. The study concluded that children of Private Residential Schools and Rural Government Schools were average and similar in their perceptions regarding parental contributions for their Academic Achievement. High Parental Aspirations Expectations helped in high achievement in both groups but comparatively high in Private Residential School children. Whereas contribution of Siblings Relationship and Assistance of others was high in Rural Government School children and average in Private Residential School children. Coming to the gender and age variations in family contributing factors, there was significantly high parental contributions for Academic Achievement of boys than girls in private Residential schools and higher age group children of Rural Government schools have significantly more parental contribution for their Academic Achievement than lower age group children. Achievement in English was highly positively correlated with family’s Economic status in Private Residential schools. There was significant positive correlation between achievement in mathematics and parental contribution, achievement in science and Parental Aspirations in Rural Government School children.</p></div>


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