The rationale for choosing cultural rather than physical genocide was often economic. Carl Schurz concluded that it would cost a million dollars to kill an Indian in warfare, whereas it cost only $1,200 to school an Indian child for eight years. Likewise, the Secretary of the Interior, Henry Teller, argued that it would cost $22 million to wage war against Indians over a ten-year period, but would cost less than a quarter of that amount to educate 30,000 children for a year. Consequently, these schools were administered as inexpensively as possible.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The rationale for choosing cultural rather than physical genocide was often economic. Carl Schurz concluded that it would cost a million dollars to kill an Indian in warfare, whereas it cost only $1,200 to school an Indian child for eight years. Likewise, the Secretary of the Interior, Henry Teller, argued that it would cost $22 million to wage war against Indians over a ten-year period, but would cost less than a quarter of that amount to educate 30,000 children for a year. Consequently, these schools were administered as inexpensively as possible." in the context of "Andrea Smith, "English Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Eighth session New York, 18 - 29 May 2009 Indigenous Peoples and Boarding Schools: A Comparative Study", prepared for the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, p.6" to mean that wisdom is timeless.