FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   >>  
eething in the breast of the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock-jaw"* stage (at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse legislation, and in spite of the scandalous subservience of certain Governors to the Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with thankfulness and pride to the visible records of their success wherever they have permanently sojourned. Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the West Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the munificent provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the principal islands. Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last thirty-seven years, a more effective bringing together in public schools of various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals at home, at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, they have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between all the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a common training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in enlightened breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed communities thus circumstanced, there is no possibility of maintaining distinctions based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. Froude. The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive as it is weighty:-- "Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed--so denationalized and demoral
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   >>  



Top keywords:
colour
 

Negroes

 

success

 

public

 

Trinidad

 
Emancipation
 
education
 

intercommunion

 
intelligent
 

generations


abroad

 

professions

 
selected
 

sections

 
inhabitants
 

sympathies

 
subtle
 
generated
 

training

 

blight


common

 

influence

 

withering

 

frequently

 

grades

 

weakened

 

bondage

 

schools

 

destroyed

 

effective


bringing

 
demoral
 

denationalized

 

children

 

playground

 
college
 

school

 
Rivals
 

enlightened

 
breasts

Clement
 

Rector

 
Doughlin
 
intelligence
 

insult

 

brilliant

 
embodies
 

comprehensive

 
language
 

weighty