ONE SYSTEM OB TWO? 225 



reciuires not only first-rate workmen, but first-rate material to 

 work on ; an intelligent and liigh-mincled populace, who can 

 and will think for themselves upon religious questions ; and 

 who have, moreover, a thirst for truth and knowledge of every 

 kind. With such a populace, secular and religious education 

 can be safely parted. But can they be safely parted in the 

 case of a populace either degraded or still savage ; given up 

 to the " lusts of the flesh ;" with no desire for improvement, and 

 ignorant of that " moral ideal," without the influence of wliich, 

 as my friend Professor Huxley well says, there can be no true 

 education ? It is well if such a people can be made to submit 

 to one system of education. Is it wise to try to burden 

 them with two at once ? But if one system is to give way 

 to the other, which is most important : to teach them the 

 elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic ; or the elements 

 of duty and morals ? And how these latter can be taught 

 without religion is a problem as yet unsolved. 



So argued some of the Protestant, and the whole of the 

 Eoman Catholic clergy of Trinidad, and withdrew their 

 support from the Government schools, to such an extent that 

 at least three-fourths of the children, I understand, went to 

 no school at all. 



The Eoman Catholic clergy had, certainly, much to urge 

 on their own behalf. The great majority of the coloured 

 jjopulation of the island, besides a large picpoiticn of the 



VOL. II. Q 



