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truetrini

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The Education of the Young Colonials
« on: February 11, 2012, 10:53:24 PM »
CHAPTER 14 of Eric Williams' History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago

The Education of the Young Colonials

Four centuries of colonialism, from 1498 to 1897, had made of Trinidad and Tobago a great workshop rather than a miniature state. A race had been freed, but a society had not yet been formed.

The people were denied all representative institutions and were considered unfit even to operate a Municipal Council in their capital. The Crown Colony system was considered the only suitable form of Government, in 1903 as in 1810, when the decision was taken on the two grounds that the majority of the free persons were non-white.

In such a colony, both in order to form a society and develop a spirit of community and in order to train the people for self-government, education would have an important role to play. The importance of education was enhanced by Chacon's emphasis on racial disunity and national divisions in 1796, both of which were necessarily intensified by the introduction after emancipation of thousands of workers from all parts of the world, the large majority from India.

The question of education was taken up by the Governor, Sir Henry MacLeod, in a dispatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on October 13, 184L The Governor wrote:

'. . . There is perhaps no British Colony, where, from the mixed nature of its inhabitants, which I have before stated, the necessity of some general plan of Education is more required than in Trinidad.

The number of Immigrants we are receiving renders the demand of an extension of the means of Education of greater consequence every day, and while there appears a willingness and readiness on all
sides to aid in this desirable object, yet the differences of languages and religion make it more imperative that the system to be adopted should be one under the control of the Government, not only with a
view to make it accessible to all parties and creeds, but to cause the language spoken to be that of the Country to which this Colony belongs.

'Your Lordship will not fail to think this most essential when I tell you that two thirds of the natives still speak exclusively either Spanish or French, and I conceive it absolutely necessary that people
living under British rule and claiming the benefit of British subjects should be able to read the laws by which they are governed.*


The Secretary of State, Lord Stanley, replied at length on January 8, 1842. His reply raised issues fundamental to education in Trinidad over the past century and a quarter, and is therefore reproduced in its entirety:

*. . . The question of Education, embarrassing enough in any of the Colonies, is surrounded in Trinidad by peculiar difficulties, arising out of the differences of language and of Religion; the majority of the population being foreign in language and Roman Catholic in religion, the bulk of property being English and Protestant.

As to the former point of difference, I think it quite clear that it should be a leading object with the Government to encourage by every means in their power the diffusion of the English language; and it would not appear unreasonable to require that instruction in the language should be made a sine qua nan in every school applying for aid from public funds.

Difference of Religion presents a more formidable obstacle; and some regulations appear obviously desirable to prevent the establishment of three or four schools, set up for the mere purpose of rivalry, by different denominations, all claiming and all receiving the aid of Government, in a district the population of which would be abundantly supplied by a single school.

On the other hand I much doubt the possibility of laying down and adhering to a rule, in such a society, of withholding aid from all schools which shall not be conducted according to a single scheme laid down by the Government.

The system introduced into Ireland was founded upon the necessity arising out of circumstances in some degree analogous to those which you describe; and was intended to communicate to Children of all
denominations a religious education without shocking the prejudice of those who dissented from the Church of England, or introducing doctrines at variance with the opinions of that Church.

But, although Schools upon this principle have rapidly multiplied in Ireland, the system has met with a very decided opposition from various quarters, and especially from the Clergy of the Church of England: and I fear it must be admitted that in few instances has it effected that combined Education which was one of its main objects, but the different Schools, taking their colour from their respective local Superintendents have become for the most part exclusively Roman Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Church of England, the latter being comparatively a very small number.

Now this is not the effect which I am desirous of producing in Trinidad; and although I am of opinion that if a Board could be constituted in which the various religious denominations were fairly represented and if the system were taken up in a spirit of cordiality and mutual good understanding by their respective Clergy, such a system might be productive of great good in Trinidad, I am afraid that it would hardly be justifiable to calculate upon such a contingency.

The refusal of the Clergy generally of any one denomination, especially of the Established Church, to co-operate in such a system would be a serious obstacle to its introduction; and still more so to the exclusion from the benefit of public aid, of all schools not conducted under it. In conformity however with your wish expressed in your Despatch to my Predecessor of the 1st May 1840, 1 have given directions for supplying you with the principal rules and regulations under which the Irish system is at present carried on, and a copy of the Scriptural books which have been prepared for general use in their schools, under the united sanction of the Government Board:

You will endeavour to ascertain by private and personal enquiry how far the Clergy of the various denominations might be expected to co-operate in such a scheme; and I shall await with much anxiety your report upon this interesting question.

Should the result be such as I am afraid must be anticipated, it will be necessary to take steps for restricting within reasonable limits the liability of the Government to be called upon to aid in the establishment of schools of an exclusive character; and perhaps no better course could be pursued than that which has been adopted in this Country of taking an annual grant to a limited amount in aid of Education, and receiving, through certain authorised channels, applications for participation in the grant, delegating to a Committee of the Privy Council the examination separately of the merits of each particular application, and laying down at the same time certain indispensable conditions with reference to the amount of local contribution, the number of scholars anticipated, the right of Government inspection, and other points to which it is unnecessary now to avert.

In the absence of any general system under the superintendence of the Government, I see no other mode likely to be productive of equal advantages with that which I have thus generally indicated, respecting which, if necessary, I shall have pleasure in furnishing you more particular details.'


truetrini

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Re: The Education of the Young Colonials
« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2012, 11:03:26 PM »
The 1851 population of 69,609 included 10,812 persons born in other British colonies; 8,097 born in Africa; 4,915 born in foreign colonies; 4,169 born in India; 729 citizens of the United Kingdom.
Roman Catholics predominated - 43,605; followed by adherents of the Church of England -16,246. Other denominations included Wesleyans, 2,508; Presbyterians, 1,071; Baptists, 448; Hindus, 2,649;
Moslems, 1,016. French was the dominant language, and services in the Roman Catholic cathedral in Port-of -Spain and in other Catholic Churches were normally preached in either French or Spanish.


The Catholic children normally learned their catechism in French or Spanish. There were in the colony 19 French interpreters, 9 Spanish, one German and one Hindustani.

The next few years saw the establishment, under this system, of 30 ward schools, a model school for boys and one for girls as well as a normal school for training of teachers in Port-of -Spain. Of the 30
ward schools, thirteen were the property of the wards - in Laventille, Arima, La Brea, Cedros, Icacos, Mayaro, St Joseph, Couva, Naparima, lere Village, Indian Walk, Guapo and Arouca.


The others together with the model schools in Port-of-Spain were operated in rented buildings in Maraval, Santa Cruz, Maracas, Tacarigua, Victoria Village, Carenage, Diego Martin, San Juan, Caura, Chaguanas,
Savonetta, Pointe-a-Pierre, St Madeleine, Canaan Village, Oropouche and Erin.

On February 10, 1869, the Governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, appointed Patrick Keenan to make a diligent and full inquiry into the state of public education, whether secular or religious, in Trinidad. Mr Keenan's report is a devastating criticism of the state of education under the Crown Colony system.

Eighteen years after the establishment of the Board of Education, only thirteen school buildings, as has been indicated, were publicly owned. Mr Keenan described 17 of the ward schools as buildings *which would bring discredit upon any country that recognises civilisation as a principle of Government.*

Generally speaking, the design of the school buildings had no reference whatever to school purposes.

Sanitary facilities were primitive where they were provided at all; some schools were entirely destitute of them. The school furniture was of the rudest kind. Keenan found a total lack of *everything
that gives character and tone to a well-worked school in Great Britain or Ireland.* Attendance was poor; not more than one pupil in four attended school for 100 days a year.


On the general suitability of the school books in use in Trinidad Keenan commented as follows:

*The books which I found in use were chiefly the publications of the Irish National Board. For elegance of style; for correctness of information; for acquaintance with the best prose and poetical com-
positions of the English language; for a general course of useful and interesting knowledge; for the high, manly, and moral tone of the selections; and for the didactic skill exhibited in the arrangement of
the lessons, no set of primary school books ever previously published in the English language could surpass, or even equal them. But not withstanding their recognized excellence and reputation, I should
desire to see them superseded by a set of books whose lessons would be racy of the colony -descriptive of its history, of its resources, of its trade, of its natural phenomena, of its trees, plants, flowers, fruits,
birds, fishes,etc.

The pitch lake and the mud volcanoes, for instance, would supply materials for an attractive series of lessons. So would the growth, manufacture, value, and uses of sugar. And so, again, would the cacao, the bois immortelle, the cocoa-nut, the coffee plant, the cotton plant, the cannon-ball tree, the mora, the pine-apple, the mango, the star-apple, the sapodilla, the orange, the shaddock, the cashew, the guava, the plantain, the different varieties of palms, etc. objects all familiar to the Creole.

Interspersed amongst a number of such chapters there might be selections from the prose and poetical
extracts in the Irish National school books -local matter forming, say, one-half, and general literature the other half, of each volume of the new series.

The books would then possess the same general characteristics as the revised edition of the Irish series. As the Irish element preponderates in the Irish books, so the Trinidad element ought to preponderate in the Trinidad books, which would then be as popular with the Trinidadians as the Irish books are with the people of Ireland.

Lord Harris evidently contemplated such a series of books, for in his original instructions to the Board of Education he said- "Stiil it is my opinion that, on some subjects, books might be written especially adapted to the children of this island." No attempt, I regret to say, has hitherto been made to carry out Lord Harris' views. So far as I have been able to ascertain, the only publication of a local

character that has emanated from the Board, or from any of its staff, is a little volume descriptive of the geography of the island, by Mr Fortune, master of the Eastern Market Borough school.
'
« Last Edit: February 11, 2012, 11:05:12 PM by truetrini SC »

 

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