But I must not forget, while speaking of education in Trinidad, one truly ‘educational’ establishment which I visited at Tacarigua; namely, a Coolie Orphan Home, assisted by the State, but set up and kept up almost entirely by the zeal of one man—­the Rev. —–­ Richards, brother of the excellent Rector of Trinity Church, Port of Spain.  This good man, having no children of his own, has taken for his children the little brown immigrants, who, losing father and mother, are but too apt to be neglected by their own folk.  At the foot of the mountains, beside a clear swift stream, amid scenery and vegetation which an European millionaire might envy, he has built a smart little quadrangle, with a long low house, on one side for the girls, on the other for the boys; a schoolroom, which was as well supplied with books, maps, and pictures as any average National School in England; and, adjoining the buildings, a garden where the boys are taught to work.  A matron—­who seemed thoroughly worthy of her post—­conducts the whole; and comfort, cleanliness, and order were visible everywhere.  A pleasant sight; but the pleasantest sight of all was to see the little bright-eyed brown darlings clustering round him who was indeed their father in God; who had delivered them from misery and loneliness, and—­in the case of the girls—­too probably vice likewise; and drawn them, by love, to civilisation and Christianity.  The children, as fast as they grow up, are put out to domestic service, and the great majority of the boys at least turn out well.  The girls, I was told, are curiously inferior to the boys in intellect and force of character; an inferiority which is certainly not to be found in Negroes, among whom the two sexes are more on a par, not only intellectually, but physically also, than among any race which I have seen.  One instance, indeed, we saw of the success of the school.  A young creature, brought up there, and well married near by, came in during our visit to show off her first baby to the matron and the children; as pretty a mother and babe as one could well see.  Only we regretted that, in obedience to the supposed demands of civilisation, and of a rise in life, she had discarded the graceful and modest Hindoo dress of her ancestresses, for a French bonnet and all that accompanies it.  The transfiguration added, one must charitably suppose, to her self-respect; if so, it must be condoned on moral grounds:  but in an aesthetic view, she had made a great mistake.

In remembrance of our visit, a little brown child, some three or four years old, who had been christened that day, was named after me; and I was glad to have my name connected, even in so minute an item, with an institution which at all events delivers children from the fancy that they can, without being good or doing good, conciliate the upper powers by hanging garlands on a trident inside a hut, or putting red dust on a stump of wood outside it, while they stare in and mumble prayers to they know not what of gilded wood.