108 Timehri. 
system the Inspector would be in the peculiar position of having to establish 
and maintain a school, and regulate its administration and also to inspect and 
report on the results of his own administration. 
To return then to the present existing state of elementary education in the 
colony. Of the two hundred and twenty-four existing schools for elementary 
education two hundred and eleven belong to various Religious Denominations. 
What has been the action of these bodies and what their motive ? 
In order to establish these schools, they have in the first place, expended a 
considerable amount of money in acquiring the sites and erecting the buildings. 
As things are at present, a school, before any Government aid can be obtained, 
must for six months previous to examination, have been maintained in accord- 
ance with the conditions of the Code. As, however, no payment is made till 
the following financial year, the school will, as a rule, have to be maintained 
entirely at the cost of the denomination for at least a year; and generally 
more, before a Government grant can be obtained. The expenditure of money, 
however, is only a part of the work done by the denominations. The manager 
will have to devote a certain amount of time to the school and this he does 
perfectly gratuitously. He receives not only no salary as manager of a school, 
but derives no emolument whatever from the school. Nor does the denomina- 
tion, as a religious body, derive any pecuniary advantage from the schools 
under its care. 
We come then to the motive, which has impelled the various religious 
denominations to undertake this work. The authorities of all religious 
denominations, which profess and teach the Christian religion under- 
stand the importance of training the young in principles of morality and 
religion, if they are to do any good among the people for whom they are work- 
ing. There is no teacher of the Christian religion, of whatever form it may be, 
who will not admit that morality must be founded on Christian principles. 
Their duty is not only to lay the truths of the Christian religion before their 
adherents, but to train them to direct their lives by those moral principles, 
which are based on the teaching of Christ. Some, however, of the Ministers 
of Christian denominations contend, that the day school education should 
be entirely confined to secular subjects and religion be imparted only on the 
Sunday. They agree with those, who hold, that as the State prescinds from 
all religion, it should not even indixectly help religion in schools, by allowing 
any of the time devoted to elementary education, to religious instruction. On 
the other hand, those who uphold the denominational system of education 
contend, that there can be no true educativn, which is not based on true 
religious principles. Education does not mean simply imparting information 
or knowledge to a child but developing the child’s faculties and among the 
faculties it is to develop, not the intellect but the will should hold the first 
place. The following quotation copied some years ago from an article in the 
“Spectator ” expresses this well ; “The mistake, which the extreme panegyrists 
of popular education, seem to make, consists in this : they narrow and impoverish 
their conception of education by confining the word to the process of acquir- 
ing a certain amount of mere book-learning, or of passing through a certain 
