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.
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