EDUCATION IN BRITISH GUIANA. 
By A. A. THorne, M.A. 
A close study of the history of education in the colony provides much interest 
and is of real value to all who are concerned with the solution of the difficult 
problems in our midst, whether they be concerned as preachers or philan- 
thropists, planters or traders, capitalists or statesmen. Few colonies have 
been more dependent on the education furnished the natives than has our 
colony, with its population separated into groups in villages and districts 
that for decades were left unguided by a government which neglected its 
paternal duties, and indeed seemed to have had no sympathy with its “hewers 
of wood and drawers of water ~ when the masses had not the benefit of 
the examples of well-trained and well-ordered families settled in large numbers 
among them. The British Government had received from the Dutch “a slave 
colony, ~ and consequently there was no State provision for the education of the 
masses. The very title of elementary education as we have it—*‘ Grant-in-Aid 
System of Denominational Education *—reminds us that the philanthropist 
first undertook the difficult but ennobling task of enlightening the slave inhabit- 
ants ; and our records show that the practical effect given to the Right Honour- 
able George Canning’s resolutions in the House of Commons, which were passed 
in 1824 “to ameliorate the condition of the slave population and to prepare 
them for freedom ” in the West Indies and British Guiana, was the establishment 
in Georgetown of two free schools for boys and girls, supported by voluntary 
contributions. After that, in 1830, the first “ grant-in-aid ” of elementary 
education, a contribution of £130, was given by the Government of the colony. 
In 1834, out of the funds of the Lady Mico legacy for the suppression of 
Algerian piracy and the release of Christian slaves, and out of the Parlia- 
mentary grants set aside at the instance of the great philanthropist Buxton for 
the “* promotion of education of the black and coloured population of British 
Guiana and the West Indies,” six wndenominational schools were established 
in different parts of the colony ; but these were eventually handed over to the 
- clergy. 
The emancipation of the slaves led to the establishment of 74 denominational 
schools by 1840, to the carrying on of which the Government of the colony 
contributed £3,159 asa grant-in-aid. The Blue Book for that year contains 
the very interesting statement that the working classes had a strong desire to 
have their children taught to read and write, and the number of children on the 
school registers was 4,919, while their average attendance was 3,609. Just here 
it is but fair to pause and note the golden opportunities that the Colonial Govern- 
ment and the leading colonists had of moulding the characters and shaping 
the destinies of the masses, and of laying the foundations for a thrifty population 
‘and a progressive colony. But could the average slave-owner and master 
be reasonably expected to be converted into a philanthropist in the short time 
it took to turn his slaves into freedmen without his willingness and co-operation ¢ 
