FIRST THIRTY YEARS OF SCHOOLS, &C. 307 
that in 1840 the Church of England had 42 schools; 
the Church of Scotland 27; the London Missionary 
Society 27; and the Wesleyans 5. Most of the schools 
were so far supported by sums freely voted by the Com- 
bined Court, the vote in 1841 amounting to £3.159,16. 
The first systematic way of administering the grant was 
as follows:—The town schools and a few Mission ones 
received a yearly allowance which seems to have been 
entirely at the Manager’s disposal. St. Andrew’s school, 
for example, got $500 for several years. But it was 
otherwise in the rural distri€éts. Separate parishes 
received grants in proportion to their negro population. 
Later on, the grant in behalf of the country schools was 
administered by a board of Commissioners who held their 
meetings in the Hall of the Court of Policy. To this board 
the country schoolmasters sent their quarterly accounts, 
certified by their respe€tive ministers, and received 50 
cents quarterly and per caput upon the average atten- 
dance. (Miss B. schoolmistress in New Amsterdam, 
reported to the Commissioners that the total number atten- 
ding her school for the quarter has been 34, and the 
average daily attendance is equal thereto, ‘ which,’ the 
Commissioners remark, ‘cannot be the case.’) 
_ The first Board of Commissioners seems to have fallen 
into decay. But a new Commission with power to 
enquire into the state of the schools in the rural 
distri€ts, and to frame a scheme of more effe&tive 
public education, was appointed in the beginning of 
1848, of which Commission the Hon, THOs. PORTER, 
was Chairman, and JOHN LuciE SmiTH, Esqr., was 
Secretary. In some of his despatches, the Secretary 
of State, Earl Grey, deplored that the education of the 
