GUPPY — VICTORIA INSTITUTE, ETC. 
177 
Association, though that Institution like every other designed to 
benefit the people had to struggle against the bitter hostility of 
the most influential classes. The Scientific Association did not 
exist for the glorification of its members — fame and glory are of 
little value except to parasites and courtiers and the Scientific 
Association was not composed of such. And if greater results did 
not flow from its work it was not the fault of the Association but 
of those who ought to have seconded and carried out its proposals. 
It is indeed much to be regretted that the improvement designed 
for Port-of-Spain in the laying out of a handsome main thorough- 
fare through the town was utterly ignored — this might then 
have been easily carried out for the Government had then lately 
come into possession of Tranquillity and St. Clair, and Tragarete 
Road might have been made an Avenue of which the town would 
have had cause to be proud. I know not what is meant by 
calling Port-of-Spain a City, but if it is characteristic of a City 
to possess a main thoroughfare like Tragarete Road then the 
sooner we render ourselves unworthy of such an epithet and 
more worthy of our old name of town the better ir will be. 
I may add as a note that an improvement I have advocated 
for nearly forty years, that namely of a footwalk round the 
Savanna, has been for some time past in course of construction 
but upon an extravagant and unnecessarily grand scale which 
must stand in the way of the general execution of such works so 
absolutely necessary to the well being and comfort of a civilized 
community. 
My paper on the Trinidad Public Library was read before 
the Association in 1869. I had been a member of the 
Managing Committee of the Library for some years before that 
and had studied Library economy practically at the British 
Museum Library and at Scientific and other Libraries in London. 
I acquired and studied the work of Edwards on Libraries that 
work was then unknown in Trinidad — and one result of my 
Paper was that the Library obtained a copy of it. My views 
upon the subject of libraries were then the results of study and 
experience, and I am still prepared to adhere with possible small 
modifications to the propositions laid down in my Paper, which 
contemplated the Library as the central scientific and technical 
Institute of the Colony. Some of my propositions have been 
adopted and carried into eflect, and in view of this again can it 
be said that the work of the Association was a dead letter 1 
The Library is now freely open to the public which it was not 
before the appearance of my Paper ; the latter was favourably 
reviewed and supported by the Press, or at least bv the Trinidad 
