In 1671 the last of twenty-four enquiries sent to the governor, Sir
Thomas Modyford, was “what provision for instructing the people in the
Christian religion and for paying the ministry?”; but there was no
mention made of secular education.
In 1675 Sir Thomas Lynch reported that “Mr. Lemon, a sobergoing man and
a very good preacher, is minister of Guinaboa, St. John’s parish; he has
£100 per annum from the parish, and about as much from Colonel Coape for
keeping a free school he has erected.” To John Coape, who was a member
of the first Council, Custos of Precinct VII (consisting of the parishes
of St. John, St. Ann, St. George and St. Mary) and a Quaker, is due the
honour of having spent the first money recorded in the cause of
education in Jamaica.
The art of self-defence was not neglected. Sara Lyssons, of St. Thomas,
employed John Lookmore, “a master of the noble science of defence,” to
teach her sons, in 1678.
Till the end of the seventeenth century the safety of trade and
commerce, the means of defence against Spanish or French invasion, the
encouragement of immigration, government, and legislation, formed the
subjects of discussion with the home government, and the comparatively
newly formed colony was too unsettled to think of imparting knowledge to
the rising generation.
The only reference to education found in the legislation of the century
is in an “Act for Confirmation of Pious, Charitable and Public Gifts and
Grants,” to “erecting or maintaining of Churches, Chappels, Schools,
Universities, Colledges, or other places for education of Youth or
maintenance of men of Learning, or any Alms-houses or Hospitals, or any
other uses whatsoever, heretofore made, and hereafter to be made within
the time aforesaid.” But it was long ere “Colledges” came into being,
and the Universities are as yet in the future.
In the year 1688, Sir Henry Morgan, of buccaneering fame, gave £100 to
aid the bequest of £100 sterling by Joachim Hane to found a school in
St. Mary, but nothing was rendered available to the establishment of
such a school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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