Obviously forced cultural assimilation is terrible. And I understand the horror experienced by Canadian tribes in finding these graves. However the number of children who died should be compared with a comparable number who lived with their Native families or with the population as a whole. During that time period, child mortality was much greater than it is today. Also Native children were much more vulnerable to measles, mumps, chicken pox, and whooping cough than non-Native children. And all these diseases were killers -- no matter where you lived. The Spanish flu occurred during this time period and took out scores of people. Also TB was rampant and deadly. Would these children have been better off living with their families? Definitely they would. Would they have survived longer? I'm wonder. It would be interesting to compare the health and welfare of these institutionalized children to upper-class English children who were forced to go to prestigious boarding schools -- often at similar ages and during the same time period. How did they fare? How many survived? Most hated it too. And yet it wasn't a question of cultural assimilatioin and ethnic murder but simply the misguided ideas of a former generation.