snranns’ DIFFICULTIES. 85

intteresting peep at the educational condition of the country at this period, specifying the various causes to which the ex- trcime deficiency of the educational machinery was attribut- able. In many of the settlements the inhabitants were poem, and having to struggle with numerous difficulties in pro-curing subsistence for their children, their education was regarded as a matter of secondary importance. Little en- courragement was, in most cases, held out to teachers of character and qualification, and the precarious mode in which their salaries were paid operated powerfully as a bar in the way of educational advancement. Hence it not unf're- quently happened, when the necessary literary attainments were wanting, that it was only persons of shipwrecked Cllfltl‘flCtOl‘, and blasted prospects in life, who had assumed the important office of schoolmaster. “I must also men- tion,” reported Mr. McNeill, “another practice which is too prevalent in the country, and which, I conceive, is ex- ceedingly injurious to the respectability of the teacher in the eyes of his pupils, and, consequently, hurtful to his useful- ness—that is: receiving his board by going about from house to house; in which case he is regarded, both by parents and children, as little better than a common menial.” Mr. MeNeill’s suggestions, by way of reformation, were judicious and well put. He held the situation of visitor for ten years, and seems to have been well qualified for the post. When he vacated the situation, in 1847, there were one: hundred and twenty schools, of all grades, and over five, thousand scholars.

The new governor visited all the principal districts of the island, and, as the result of his inquiries and observations, addlressed a circular to the proprietors of land, in which he advocated the granting of important concessions to the tenantry, with a view of allaying the agitation for escheat,