Home Social Landscape Featured Articles Reverend Mr. John Nelson: Missionary with an Impossible Mission

Reverend Mr. John Nelson: Missionary with an Impossible Mission

by Uta H. Fox

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The resources of the Methodist Church were overextended, but such factors as Biblical criticism, Darwinism and the emphasis on rational explanation that greatly influenced Methodist theology also contributed to a decline of enthusiasm for First Peoples evangelization. Methodism became a denomination that appealed to the urban middle-class and well-to-do farmers. The Church thus lost much of its evangelical heritage to the forces of secularization. Perhaps the demands on their resources and the diminishing intensity of Indian mission work help explain the friction between the Church and the federal government. The Methodists, ostensibly, disregarded procedures in filing and responding to reports. Historian William Brooks maintains that the conflict between the federal government and the Methodist Missionary Society was based on a "clash of rival bureaucracies" over issues of "administration and jurisdiction."⁶

Another area of conflict between the Church and the government, and a cause of great frustration for Nelson, was the change in government funding for industrial education. Initially, Ottawa paid all the expenses for an industrial education, but costs escalated, and just as the Red Deer School was ready for occupancy, the federal government instituted a system of per-capita grants as the basis for funding. These grants ensured not only denominational competition but also competition with both day and boarding schools. Maximum attendance became not only a goal, but a necessity, as the churches had to secure a constant source of recruits. Clearly, with the implementation of per-capita grants industrial schools became more utilitarian and business oriented. The grant for the Red Deer School was set at $130 per student. From that amount the school was responsible for such items as food, clothing, repairs, salaries, medicine and transporting students. The Indian Department paid for the land and buildings, some repairs, and school supplies. Yet the Methodist Church considered itself financially disadvantaged, particularly since other denominations had received full funding until 1894, when the austerity measures were implemented. According to Hayter Reed, the Indian Commissioner, if the School was unable to survive on its grant, then the fault must be "... attributed to lack of proper management." The financial plight at the Methodist-operated schools in Canada so exasperated Dr. Sutherland that he reported to the government in 1897 that the Methodists were spending more than $40,000 per year over and above what they received from federal grants on their Indian Missions.⁷

Lack of funding affected the size of the Red Deer institution. Originally, two buildings housing 80 students were to be erected at Red Deer, but that was reduced to one structure 64 feet by 65 feet with walls two feet thick throughout, a shingled roof, and a bell turret over the principal entrance, accommodating just 50 students. Not only did this building house the 50 male and female students together, but the principal, his family of six, and some of the staff all lived and worked under the same roof. In attempting to gain an additional building Sutherland pointed out: "With the limited accommodation it is next to impossible to secure the separation of the sexes which is so important for the character and efficiency of such an institution." A new building for the boys and a separate dwelling for the principal and his family were finally completed late in 1897, not because of the overcrowding at the Red Deer School but because the Methodist Church closed its day school on the Louis Bull reserve at Hobbema in June 1896 and moved the students to Red Deer.⁸

The government's penchant for economy extended to the daily operation of the school. No detail seemed too trivial for the attention of the Indian Department. To encourage thriftiness, the department, for instance, demanded that if the school ordered thick shawls instead of cloaks, the shawls were to last for four years. Straw hats should first be made at the school, and if that were not possible, only cheap ones could be purchased.⁹

In addition to funding shortages. Reverend Mr. John Nelson faced other problems with the school. For example, structural problems surfaced almost immediately after the building was completed in 1893. Nelson claimed that defective drainage from the boy's lavatory contaminated the well water, and that the school experienced difficulty maintaining an adequate supply of water from their well: "[The well was] pumped dry about three times a day. We have also two large tanks to catch water from the roof. Our supply being so small, water has to be drawn from the river in a tank, causing great labour and loss of time." Fire, through natural or unnatural causes, remained a constant danger. Indian Commissioner Reed recommended that the School have buckets and axes, wooden fire escapes and water-filled barrels located in convenient locations. When Reed was informed that the water supply was insufficient even to meet the daily needs of the school, he advised the school to haul its water from the nearby Red Deer River, ensuring that an abundant supply was kept on hand to combat a fire, if one should break out.¹⁰

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