"The paper is about White control of Indian education; how Euro-Canadian missionaries and government agents worked hand-in-hand in their relentless attempts to transform Indian people into their own image. The shrill and persistent theme of Euro-Canadians was how best to civilize and Christianize the Indians. Controlled situations in school and in the economy, religious indoctrination and legislation were utilized to facilitate these goals. The pedagogical ends and means of White educators (and other supportive agents) were rooted in their beliefs about 'civilization,' or lack thereof. Thus, the paper begins with a section on the 'ideas of civilization;' then discusses the ethnocentric bases of these ideas, theories and concomitant words which are yet being used by many Canadian scholars. The major portion of the paper surveys the history of White control of Indian education. The survey loosely moves east to west, but spends more time with the west. Chronologically, it spans the entire history of Indian-White contact in Canada, concentrating on the nineteenth century. Under education are sub-sections including Roman Catholic and Anglican efforts, government legislation and how all this affected the Indian people. The paper concludes with the current educational picture, interwoven with examples of Indian resistance to assimilation (Author/ERB)"--abstract.