the greatest charm of a child's face, but which we rarely see in children over two or three years old. Boys of eleven or twelve were there, with shoulders broader than the average of our boys at sixteen, and yet with the pure childlike look on their faces. Girls of ten or eleven were there, who looked almost like women,--that is, like ideal women,--simply because they looked so calm and undisturbed.... Out of them all there was but one child who looked sickly. He had evidently met with some accident, and was lame. Afterward, as the congregation assembled, I watched the fathers and _mothers_ of these children. They, too, were broad-shouldered, tall, and straight, _especially the women_. Even old women were straight, like the negroes one sees at the South walking with burdens on their heads. "Five days later I saw, in Halifax, the celebration of the anniversary of the settlement of the Province. The children of the city and of some of the neighboring towns marched in 'Bands of Hope,' and processions such as we see in the cities of the States on the Fourth of July. This was just the opportunity I wanted. It was the same here as in the country. I counted, on that day, just eleven sickly-looking children; no more! Such brilliant cheeks, such merry eyes, such evident strength,--it was a scene to kindle the dullest soul! There were scores of little ones there, whose droll, fat legs would have drawn a crowd in Central Park; and they all had that same quiet, composed, well-balanced expression of countenance of which I spoke before, and of which it would be hard to find an instance in all Central Park. "Climate, undoubtedly, has something to do with this. The air is moist; and the mercury rarely rises above 80 deg., or falls below 10 deg.. Also the comparative quiet of their lives helps to make them so beautiful and strong. But the most significant fact to my mind is, that, until the past year, there have been in Nova Scotia no public schools, comparatively few private ones; and in these there is no severe pressure brought to bear on the pupils.... 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.... In Massachusetts, the mortality from diseases of the brain and nervous system is eleven per cent. In Nova Scotia it is only eight per cent."[36]