These are chosen, as a rule, by preference from those who have passed the most stringent and successful collegiate examination.

Martial parents are not prolific, and the mortality in our public nurseries is very large.
I impute it to moral influences, since the chief cause of death is low vitality, marked nervous depression and want of animal spirits, such as the total absence of personal tenderness and sympathy must produce in children.

It is popularly ascribed to the over-cultivation of the race, as plants and animals highly civilised--that is, greatly modified and bred to an artificial excellence by human agency--are certainly delicate, unprolific, and especially difficult to rear.
There is little disease in the nurseries, but there is little health and a deficiency of nervous energy.

One fact is significant, however interpreted, and bears directly on your last question.

Since the wide extension of polygamy, female births are to male about as seven to six; but the deaths in public nurseries between the first and tenth years are twenty-nine in twelve dozen admissions in the stronger sex, and only about ten in the weaker.