The New York Times reports that “Mexico’s public health authorities have concluded that the girls at the Children’s Village School are suffering from a mass psychogenic disorder. In layman’s language, they have a collective hysteria.” The school was founded in 1990 by a Catholic order, the Sisters of Mary. The students are girls from “some of Mexico’s poorest regions.” The girls are “tightly disciplined and very isolated.” The school’s director, Sister Margie Cheong, says: “Yes, the girls miss their families. But here we form character. A girl here is no longer an Indian girl from the mountains. She knows how to express herself, she knows how to smile. They have confidence.”

Does this sound familiar? It is a contemporary manifestation of the principle enunciated by Capt. Richard C. Pratt, who founded the U.S. Training and Industrial School at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, in 1879: “Kill the Indian … and save the man.” This was the intention behind the whole system of American Indian boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada. Take the child away from family community and “save” it for “civilization.”

Boarding school horror stories abound. A few students were happy with this “salvation.” One useful comprehensive resource on the subject is David Wallace Adams’, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928 (University of Kansas, 1995).

Is it a surprise that the girls in the Children’s Village School are hysterical? I don’t think so.