As Commissioner of Education, Harris wrote the introduction to then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Thomas Jefferson Morgan's, Bureau of Education Bulletin (No. 1, 1889) on Indian Education. Harris called for the forced and mandatory education of American Indians through a partnership with Christianity in order to promote industry. It was Harris who called for the removal of Native children from their families for up to 10 years of training for the "lower form of civilization" as opposed to the United States government's policy of exterminating them.