I'm not trying to make excuses for the programme, but if one reads contemporary literature, it seems the consensus was that the native culture was doomed. The solution, which not recognized for what later generations would view it as, was to prepare the next generation to cope with the "white world." The above may have been kinder to the design of the residential schools programme than they deserve, but we were not the only ones trying it. The Americans also had something like it - see the Indian residential school at Carlisle, PA - and others may also have tried. Bottom line - it was a failed programme that was destructive to a way of life, and the surviving participants deserve compensation.