226 EDUCATION. 



white, belonged to their creed. Their influence was the 

 chief (I had almost said the only) civilizing and Christianizing 

 influence at work on the lower orders of their own coloured 

 people. They knew, none so well, how much the Negro 

 required, not merely to be instructed, but to be reclaimed 

 from gross and ruinous vices. It was not a question in Port 

 of Spain, any more than it is in Martinique, of whether 

 the Negros should be able to read and write, but of whether 

 they should exist on the earth at all for a few generations 

 longer. I say this openly and deliberately; and clergy- 

 men and police magistrates know but too well what I mean. 

 The Priesthood were, and are, doing their best to save 

 the Negro ; and they naturally wished to do their work, on 

 behalf of society and of the colony, in their own way ; and 

 to subordinate all teaching to that of Eeligion, which includes, 

 with them, morality and decency. They therefore opposed the 

 Government schools ; because they tended, it was thought, to 

 withdraw the Negro from his Priest's influence. 



I am not likely, I presume, to be suspected of any leaning 

 toward Piomanism. But I think a Pioman Catholic priest 

 would have a right to a fair and respectful hearing, if he 

 said : 



"You have set these peo^jle free, without letting them go 

 through that intermediate stage of feudalism, by which, and by 

 which alone, the white races of Europe were educated into 



