94 Timehri. 



And then when things go wrong, this life is a failure, this man acts 

 dishonestly and scurvy acts are seen on every side, we are quick to hear 

 the comment " Our people are no good, they are dissolute, worthless." 

 Are they ? 



If they are, which of us is striving tooth and nail to introduce a new 

 order of things ? How many of our ladies take an interest in the lives 

 and homes of our people ; who cares whether the children have a playing 

 ground attached to the school, and decent sturdy English cricket and 

 football is played there, and played iu the right spirit ? Very few. We 

 can assure those who waste afternoon after afternoon in playing Bridge 

 that a giant's work is waiting to be done at their very doors, and work 

 too of far greater interest than they might imagine. 



We do not refer to namby-pamby district visiting, but to efforts 

 which might be made to introduce material reforms in house-building 

 for the poorer classes, the building up of home influence, the arousing of 

 interest in matters that count in the lives of young men and women, the 

 creation of a straightforward, truthful, honest and upright class of people 

 amongst us. 



<; Find out men's wants and will, 



And meet them there. All worldly joys go less 



To the one joy of doing kindnesses " sung Herbert. 



The writer goes among the people and can claim to know some- 

 thing of the cosmopolitan class (we must remember that even our black 

 population is descended from various tribes of West Africa) that go to 

 make up this colony, or he would sound a note of warning with respect 

 to the future to be played by the masses. 



" Pouvoir sans savoir est fort dangereux." 



" It is not well to teach our democracy to read unless we also teach 

 it to think " to quote Sir Richard Jebb. 



The spiritual portion of their duties attract our priests and doubtless 

 none of these duties is neglected. What we want to see practised is a 

 greater interest in the material life of our people, and it is this interest 

 that we stoutly maintain is almost all together lacking. 



There are, we are well aware, many exceptions, but the truth is the 

 material condition of our people appeals very little to our clergy and to 

 those others who are responsible for their welfare and their future well- 

 being in this world. 



We believe that if we hope to do anything with our children whether 

 they be Black, East Indian, Chinese, Portuguese or Assyrian, we must 

 see to it that provision is made for decent playing grounds where proper 

 manly games may be indulged in. 



The number of petty schools of various denominations we should 

 like to see not only decreased as has lately been the case, but the drastic 



