OBJECTIONS. 233 



Act ; and the only one by Avhicli the lower orders of Trinidad 

 were likely to get any education whatever. It was received, 

 of course, with applause by the Eoman Catholics, and by a 

 great number of the Protestants of the colony. But, as 

 was to be expected, it met with strong expressions of dissent 

 from some of the Protestant gentry and clergy; especially 

 from one gentleman, who attacked the new scheme with an 

 acuteness and liumour which made even those who differed 

 from him regret that such remarkable talents had no wider 

 sphere than a little island of 45 miles by 60. An accession 

 of power to the Roman Catholic clergy was, of course, 

 dreaded ; and all the more because it was known that the 

 scheme met wdth the approval of the Archbisliop; that it was, 

 indeed, a compromise with the requests made in a petition 

 which that prelate had lately sent in to the Governor; a 

 petition which seems to me most rational and temperate. It 

 was argued, too, that though the existing Act that of 1851 

 had more or less failed, it might still succeed, if Lord Harris's 

 plan was fully carried out, and the choice of the ward 

 schoolmaster, the selection of ward school-books, and the 

 direction of the course of instruction, was vested in local 

 committees. Tlie simple answer was, that eighteen years had 

 elapsed, and the colony had done nothing in that direc- 

 tion ; that the great mnjority of children in the island did not 

 go to school at all, wdiile those who did attended most irrcgu- 



