Nicholas Flood Davin was a remarkable and brilliant man, who’s legacy will live on. He was distinguished by his erratic behavior through his newspaper, Regina Leader, and his years as a member of the House of Commons.1 After the years of Confederation, he was drawn to the brilliant and merciless life in the Western prairies, where he changed the way of life forever.2 Nicholas Flood Davin’s work to create the Regina Leader, and his research about Residential schools helped to change the future of education, and lives of the citizens of Regina.
Born in Ireland in 1839, Davin moved to Toronto when he was 33 years old on an assignment from the Pall Mall Gazette of London, but ended up becoming a freelance writer for the Globe in Toronto.3 In 1882,
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On January 28th, 1879, Davin was appointed from the new Conservative government to solely investigate the commission on American industrial schools for native children.8 His report submitted on March 14th, 1879, suggested that day schools were ineffective due to the influence of wigwam overpowered the influence of the school.9 It states, “Little can be done with [adult Native People]. [They] can be taught to do little at farming, and at stock-raising, and to dress in a more civilized manner, but that is all.”10 The perception was that Native American adults had a limited ability to learn new skills and concepts. Later in the report, it is expressed that children learn little at day school, causing their “tastes to be fashioned at home, and [their] inherited aversion to toil is in no way combated.”11 Davin recommended that similar industrial boarding schools should be built in Canada, which would attempt to assimilate Native children into the European culture.12 Nicholas Flood Davin’s research and advances about the industrial schools in America, was important in the creation and developing of the Residential school system in