Education in British Guiana. 117 
In 1877 effect was given to these recommendations by four Ordinances of 
1876 :— 
(i) An Ordinance to enforce Elementary Education in the Colony. 
(ti) An Ordinance to establish a more representative Board of Education. — 
(ui) An Ordinance to establish and regulate an Institution for the Training 
of Teachers. 
(iv) An Ordinance to vest in the Colony Queen’s College and Bishop’s 
College. 
Attendance at school was made compulsory, and the first District Educational 
Officers were appointed to enforce the law by prosecuting parents and guardians 
of children who did not attend school before the Magistrate, whose duty it was 
to make an order, in the first instance, that each child attend school named in the 
order, and afterwards to inflict penalties of fine or imprisonment for non-compli- 
ance with the order. The employment of children under nine years of age was 
prohibited, and that of older children was regulated, requiring their attendance 
at school for 24 hours each day. 
Provision was made for the establishment of ‘‘ Colonial Schools ” by the 
Board of Education, the Combined Court to be asked for the necessary money 
for any Education District without adequate school accommodation within two 
years of the coming into operation of the Ordinance. Plantations in cultivation 
were required to provide and maintain schools for the children on them. 
Religious instruction, which the clergy had got made a sine qua non in 1855 for 
a grant-in-aid, wa: now made optional. The payment of school fees was made 
compulsory. 
The salaries attached to Teachers’ Certificates were set down thus : 
Ist class Certificate .. 28 ..  § 480a year. 
2nd class ie ab Vv ae: 300 
3rd class ie a rah ag 120 . 
To those fixed salaries were added portions of the grants earned by the schools 
as allotted by the managers with the approval of the Board. The grants were 
thus earned : Tw» dollars for each child passing in only one of the three R's; 
four dollars for each child passing in any two of the three R’s ; seven dollars for 
each child passing in all three R’s; one dollar additional for gach child who 
in addition to passing in all three R’s passed also in Grammar, Geography, 
Needlework or the special subject approved by the Board. 
These useful measures were adopted to make the schools efficient as regards 
regular attendance and the payment of the teachers for carefully instructing the 
pupils ; and this system, known as the Longden system, has been undoubtedly 
the best the colony has had up to the present time, if we judge by the results and 
compare those who taught and were taught under it with the teachers and the 
scholars turned out under changes of thissystem. The status of the teachers was 
