West
Indian Colonies, {297a} as a focus of higher education; and a focus,
also, of cultivated public opinion, round which all that is
shrewdest and noblest in the islands shall rally, and find strength
in moral and intellectual union. I earnestly recommend all West
Indians to ponder Mr. Keenan's weighty words on this matter;
believing that, as they do so, even stronger reasons than he has
given for establishing such an institution will suggest themselves
to West Indian minds.

I am not aware, nor would the reader care much to know, what schools
there may be in Port of Spain for Protestant young ladies. I can
only say that, to judge from the young ladies themselves, the
schools must be excellent. But one school in Port of Spain I am
bound in honour, as a clergyman of the Church of England, not to
pass by without earnest approval, namely, 'The Convent,' as it is
usually called. It was established in 1836, under the patronage of
the Roman Catholic Bishop, the Right Rev. Dr. Macdonnel, and was
founded by the ladies of St. Joseph, a religious Sisterhood which
originated in France a few years since, for the special purpose of
diffusing instruction through the colonies. {297b} This
institution, which Dr. De Verteuil says is 'unique in the West
Indies,' besides keeping up two large girls' schools for poor
children, gave in 1857 a higher education to 120 girls of the middle
and upper classes, and the number has much increased since then. It
is impossible to doubt that this Convent has been 'a blessing to the
colony.' At the very time when, just after slavery was abolished,
society throughout the island was in the greatest peril, these good
ladies came to supply a want which, under the peculiar circumstances
of Trinidad, could only have been supplied by the self-sacrifice of
devoted women. The Convent has not only spread instruction and
religion among the wealthier coloured class: but it has done more;
it has been a centre of true civilisation, purity, virtue, where one
was but too much needed; and has preserved, doubtless, hundreds of
young creatures from serious harm; and that without interfering in
any wise, I should think, with their duty to their parents. On the
contrary, many a mother in Port of Spain must have found in the
Convent a protection for her daughters, better than she herself
could give, against influences to which she herself had been but too
much exposed during