Within the last year a system of free public schools has been introduced,
"and the people are grumbling terribly about it," said my informant.
"Why?" I asked; "because they do not wish to have their children
educated?" "Oh, no," said he; "because they do not like to pay the taxes!"
"Alas!" I thought, "if it were only their silver which would be taxed!"
I must not be understood to argue from the health of the children of Nova
Scotia, as contrasted with the lack of health among our children, that it
is best to have no public schools; only that it is better to have no
public schools than to have such public schools as are now killing off our
children.
The registration system of Nova Scotia is as yet imperfectly carried out.
It is almost impossible to obtain exact returns from all parts of so
thinly settled a country. But such statistics as have been already
established give sufficient food for reflection in this connection. In
Massachusetts more than two-fifths of all the children born die before
they are twelve years old.
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