ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN BRITISH GUIANA. 
By tHE Most Rev. Dr. Gatton, BisHop oF PETENISSUS. 
In the July number of 7imehri there appeared an article on ‘‘ Education in 
British Guiana ” by Mr. A. A. Thorne, which gave a clear account of the history 
of primary education in this colony. The present article is written at the 
request of the President of the R. A. & C. Society who states: “What we 
want is a comprehensive survey of the position from the point of view of those 
who believe in religious education and religions control in the schools.” 
In treating the subject of Education as it is at present carried on in the 
colony, we must at the outset distinguish between the primary or elementary 
education and secondary education. I am here concerned with the former, 
Elementary Education in the Colony is regulated by the Elementary Educa- 
tion Ordinance of 1876. This Ordinance was passed, as the preamble to it 
states, “that the requisite provision should be made for enforcing elementary 
education.” In 1900 several amendments were passed, now embodied in the 
Ordinance as it appears in the “Laws of British Gwana,” to make the 
compulsory clauses effective. 
By this Ordinance two kinds of elementary schools were established, as 
appears in section Z, in which the terms employed in the Ordinance are defined : 
“Elementary School *” means a school or department of a school, at which 
“elementary education is the principal part of the education there given : 
“ Aided School ” means an elementary school, the managers of which receive 
“any grant-in-aid from the Colonial revenues : ‘‘ Colonial School ” means an 
“elementary school established by the Inspector of Schools and maintained 
“from the Colonial revenues : ‘‘ Industrial School” means any elementary 
“school in which theoretic and practical instruction in agriculture or in any 
“trade or trades or in both is given and which is recognised under the regula- 
“tions as an Industrial School.” 
These are the different classes of Elementary Schools recognised under the 
Elementary Education Ordinance 1876, which is still the law of the colony 
regulating such education. 
Putting aside, forthe present the Industrial Schools, which are only ordinary 
elementary schools, which undertake a special branch of instruction in addition 
to the ordinary work of the school, we have two classes of elementary schools 
established under this Ordinance, viz. : the “aided schools and the Colonial 
schools.” Aided schools are those built and equipped in the first instance by a 
private individual, or some body of men, and when satisfactorily established, 
assisted by the Government from the Colonial revenues. 
Taking the state of things at present existing, we find that there are two 
hundred and twenty-four such schools, in the Colony. In the report of the 
Inspector of Schools for the year 1910-1911, which is the latest I have in my 
