ITS HISTORY, CONSTITUTION, AND TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION: WITH GEOLOGICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL NOTES. Compiled for the use of Schools BY JOHN JARRETT WOOD, Government Inspector of Schools. KINGSTON : 1884. PREFACE. For years past I have been urged to prepare a Classbook of Jamaica for the use of Schools. After much hesitation-hoping that some one with more leisure than I had to bestow on the work would undertake it-I began to compile a History and Description of the Island, which I had nearly completed when two other volumes appeared. On perusing them I find that they do not supply the want of this volume, neither will it hinder their usefulness therefore I have ventured to put this before the public. : The boundaries of Parishes, &c. have not been given, because such knowledge is more easily acquired by a class before the map. No questions have been appended, because it is considered a very profitable exercise to require a class, with book in hand, to frame questions on the chapters and subjects in succession, and then, when questions have been framed on given portions, to lay the book aside and proceed to answer them in the pupil's own style. This should be done in the usual Exercise Books. My maps are obtainable, mounted and varnished, or in sheets, or in book form; and it is hoped that these and the book will prove highly interesting and acceptable to the youth of Jamaica, among whom I have so long laboured. I claim no merit for myself in the compilation, except for some judgment in culling, as the book might have been extended to double the size, and thus rendered unfit for the purpose intended. My daughters, too, have wrought at the compilation both of the book and map; and as to the former we have been mainly indebted to Martin's History of the West Indies, and to the Jamaica HandBook. My labour has been chiefly that of a "gatherer and disposer of other men's matter," but it is hoped that the plan adopted will render the work both entertaining and useful. If my efforts in the Schools for forty-two years past, and this little work-as well as any labour I may be still spared to perform-shall be found to have contributed a little towards the social elevation and progress of the youth of Jamaica and its dependencies, I shall not have lived in vain. JNO. JARRETT WOOD. "MARGARET VILLA," ST. ANDREWS, Jamaica, December, 1883. |