It was a very liberal idea in its time: educating 'savages' to become equal members of society. Elsewhere at the time, aboriginals were enslaved or simply killed. Today, leftists demonize the entire system because of current values and, of course, horrible problems with execution over the centuries. Having values of our era, I think they were a bad idea. However, any alternative would have resulted in equal problems.

The leftist approach of 'helping' people by teaching them that they are victims and encouraging hatred is a very bad idea.