We demoralize and we
extirpate, but we never really civilize.
Whether the Dutch system
can permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be
possible to compress the work of ten centuries into one; but at
all events it takes nature as a guide, and is therefore, more
deserving of success, and more likely to succeed, than ours.
There is one point connected with this question which I think the
Missionaries might take up with great physical and moral results.
In this beautiful and healthy country, and with abundance of food
and necessaries, the population does not increase as it ought to
do. I can only impute this to one cause. Infant mortality,
produced by neglect while the mothers are working in the
plantations, and by general ignorance of the conditions of health
in infants. Women all work, as they have always been accustomed
to do. It is no hardship to them, but I believe is often a
pleasure and relaxation. They either take their infants with
them, in which case they leave them in some shady spot on the
ground, going at intervals to give them nourishment, or they
leave them at home in the care of other children too young to
work. Under neither of these circumstances can infants be
properly attended to, and great mortality is the result, keeping
the increase of population far below the rate which the
general prosperity of the country and the universality of
marriage would lead us to expect.
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