FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 255 



Roman Catholic Missions at Gnasobil, Senegal, and 

 Gaboon. 



I wonder it has never occurred to the many societies 

 of workmen along that Coast to subscribe together 

 and send some of their younger members to Europe 

 to qualify for any and every work needed there, or 

 to thus remove any ground, if such exist, for being 

 passed over as I have mentioned. Even towards such 

 an end, Governments might, with advantage to them- 

 selves and to the people there, act. 



As regards the natives of West Africa, it is indeed 

 open to question whether there has not been too 

 much time devoted in the past to the exercise of 

 memory, to " parrot " teaching, and too little to a 

 knowledge of their countries and their capabilities, to 

 a more general instruction in ways of industry, and to 

 the gradual and appreciable development of the waj-s 

 and means of their own industries. 



In 1841, Dr. Madden, who had been sent out as 

 Her Majesty's Commissioner of Inquiry on the state 

 of the West African Settlements, advocated the 

 establishment in England of a normal school for the 

 exclusive training and instruction of schoolmasters — 

 natives themselves of Africa— to be destined for 

 schools in West Africa : he supported also the 

 introduction of a Model Farm in each Colony in 

 association with existing schools, to afford masters 

 the facilities of having every child taught some trade 

 or calling in addition to acquiring the rudiments of 



