4. GUEST ADDRESS GOROMONZI SCHOOL: 1979

John Hammond : 13th October, 1979

The story of education in this country is one of such dynamism and achievement, despair and hope that I hope it will one day be written.  Not from the point of view of the professional academic … that has already been done, but very much more in the shape of personal reminiscence.”

My father came to Rhodesia in 1906 as headmaster of Plumtree School.   For twenty years he and my mother lived in pole and dagga huts; I was born in one.   Until I was 15, I and the other boys in the school, seldom wore shoes except on Sundays.   The main buildings for many years were old wood and iron structures, which had served as barracks for the army during the siege of Mafeking. Few of our teachers had professional educational qualifications, though most of them were university graduates. In the early days it was a church school until, owing to extreme financial difficulties, the government was asked to take it over.

A great friend of my father’s was Mr H S Keigwin who was responsible for opening the first government schools for Africans; Domboshawa in 1920 and Tjolotjo a year later. These schools were originally started as local schools to serve the immediate areas in which the schools are situated.   

Very soon however, they became national schools drawing boys from all over the country.   They were intended to assist people to improve their conditions by giving instruction in building, carpentry and agriculture at the same time as they undertook their academic studies.   

I went to Domboshawa in 1935 and was given responsibility for the direction of the academic work of the school. Colleagues of mine at that time were Cephas Hlabangana and Gideon Mhlanga who were the first two Africans in this country to be awarded university degrees. It is interesting to note that in that same year, we had, for the first time to refuse entry to the school to some applicants. In all previous years, our accommodation far exceeded demand.    

In 1937, I went to Tjolotjo and later that year, took over as principle. At that time, we still depended, for teaching in our upper primary classes on men from South Africa. On my staff I had three amaXhosa, one Zulu and two Botswana. We had to rely on an ox wagon to bring most of our supplies from Nyamandhlovu, some 45 miles away. In one rainy season we were completely cut off, except by telephone, for two weeks, when the Gwaai river was in flood.   

Some of the boys used to walk up to 100 miles to get to the school, they all slept on the floor in their dormitories and they played football in bare feet.  Some of the pupils were older than I was and I recall cases where leave was granted at weekends for pupils to go home to visit their wives and children.

I would like to pay tribute to those who were being trained at that time – they were the grandfathers of boys and girls who now enjoy the facilities of schools like Goromonzi. For their secondary education they had to go to South Africa or work on their own through correspondence courses.   

But of these, whom I knew as small boys, one is now a member of the Public Services Commission, another is a Regional Officer in the Ministry of Education; others are senior education officers, one is a Senator, several are members of Parliament, others have made their way as businessmen and a variety of other occupations. Without them, much of the development undertaken in this country over the past forty years would not have been possible. They were and are excellent people.

Meanwhile most of the primary school education and the training of teachers was undertaken by missionaries. It must, however, be remembered that in the main, these men and women were preachers of the Christian gospel first and only undertook teaching because the need was great.

Malaria eventually drove us out of Tjolotjo. We had no DDT and relied on quinine as a cure.   None of the modern drugs had been produced.   At that time we were drawing boys from all over the country and many of them came to Tjolotjo from areas where malaria was not a problem. To give you some indication of what we were up against, I remember one term - we only had two terms a year in those days – when out of 230 boys in the school we had an average of 40 boys every day in hospital with malaria, throughout the term.

We moved the school to Essexvale and renamed it Mzingwane. It took us three years, because we had to keep Tjolotjo operating at the same time as we were building the new school at Mzingwane - much of the building was undertaken by the boys themselves, as part of their instruction.

At that stage, the department of African Education was concerned that too few girls were attending schools. We had passed the stage where parents believed that the herding of cattle and goats was more important than going to school, but there remained a strong prejudice against the educating of girls.

When I came to Goromonzi in 1953, we were unable to find a sufficient number of suitably qualified girls to fill a single class in Form 1, and we then ran a domestic science teacher training course to make up the numbers in the girls hostels.  

Goromonzi School was opened in 1946 and was the first African school to prepare pupils for the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate. Before that time, what secondary schooling there was orientated towards the South African examination system.   

 Two points I would make about the opening of Goromonzi, Sir Godfrey Huggins, who opened the school, gave it as his opinion that Goromonzi would serve the country’s needs for secondary education for Africans for as far ahead as he could then visualise. This surely must have been one of the few short-sighted observations he made. The second point is that the average age of Form 1 when the school first opened was 18 and a half years.

When I arrived, there were only two boys in Form V. Those who wanted university training had to go to South Africa. Girls who wanted training as nurses had to go to McCord Hospital in Durban, while those wanting to become doctors of medicine had to go to Natal University.    There were few scholarships and bursaries for university training compared with the number available today.

 I have tried to outline some of the highlights of African education during my involvement with it during the past 44 years. It is, I believe a story of which we can all be very proud. When I started at Domboshawa, the country was very poor. There were few industries, agriculture was, by today’s standards, very unproductive and mining was still in its infancy.   It is also worth recording that the population of the country was well under two million.

What I want to say to those of you who are now in this well established school is that should you ever feel sorry for yourselves, should you ever think that the way ahead is very hard for you, and that there are not enough opportunities to give you full scope, think back for a moment to the conditions under which your grandfathers and grandmothers, your fathers and mothers, had to labour in order to get an education.   

Many of them achieved it and have made their way into the world with distinction.    

You have many more opportunities and if you follow their example, you will not go very far wrong.

One of the major problems with which we had to contend in these earlier times, was to try to marry the individualism of the school system under which most of the whites were educated with the co-operative outlook of traditional African society.

In our boarding schools the system introduced was based very largely upon the type of schooling offered in English boarding schools. This was the system we knew and rightly or wrongly we passed this on to our African schools.

This system places much emphasis on the development of the individual; it is highly competitive and places great emphasis on individual responsibility. Some of you will shortly be receiving prizes for your individual efforts in the classroom. You have achieved this in competition with your classmates. This kind of competition ensures that everyone aspires to the top and is aimed at bringing out the best that each has to offer.   

But there are dangers in individualism if it is carried to extremes. It can lead to arrogance, to selfishness, to the spirit which denies to others due recognition of their excellent qualities. If you have won a prize for Latin or mathematics, or any other subject, remember that the award is made for excellence in a very limited field. It says nothing about what kind of a person you are. It makes no comment on your ability in other directions.  For these reasons it is important that counter measures be taken within our schools to ensure that individualism, while being encouraged, is directed towards the overall benefit of the society in which you live.

To this end, it is important that the school should provide as much scope as possible through clubs, through individual projects, through games and through giving responsibilities to as many individuals as possible so that each in his or her own way can make a contribution to the life of the school. Most of these opportunities will be provided by extra mural activities.      These are seldom provided by government and in making provision for them the school is heavily dependent upon parents, and former pupils of the school, who by raising funds, by encouraging a variety of interests in their children while they are on holiday will contribute so much to the life of the school, to the benefit of all the children who attend.

The aim must be to try to ensure that each boy or girl in the school has something to contribute. Through such contribution, no matter in how small a way, the individual will develop into a worthwhile member of the society of which he or she is a member.

In English schools much of this is achieved by a strong dedication to the Christian religion.    The humility which this demands is a great counter to the pride which can result in high individual achievement. If parents and former pupils wish to embark on a major project for Goromonzi School I can think of nothing better than the raising of funds for the building of a school chapel. A place where the boys and girls can worship, where they can seek peace to give thought to those higher values which are so important in this material world in which we live.

The second major requirement to counter excessive emphasis on individualism, is the provision of opportunities for service.   In this country there will be a great need for those who will render service to others in the days ahead.   In rendering such service, individual expertise will be much in demand.   But it must be offered in a spirit of unselfish concern for the welfare of others.   

You will be faced with many temptations to amass great fortunes and there will be opportunities for this. In any individualistic society, there is no harm in this. But I hope that when the time comes you will not forget your responsibilities to lend assistance to the community of which you may be a part.   

This responsibility, which is so strong a feature of African society, must not be allowed to diminish. It is a part of your heritage. I sincerely hope you will not allow it to die and that you will not allow selfish considerations make you disregard it. In this way our European attitude to individualism and your background of community responsibility can be brought together for the benefit of this country and for all the people who live here.

There I leave you with a thought that given a high standard of achievement which results from disciplined, individual effort, and marrying it to the high level of duty towards your communities, to which you are all heir, we shall build a society which will be the envy of many.

3. GOROMONZI SCHOOL SPEECH DAY: June 6th 1956

John Hammond.

 It is with very real pleasure that I on behalf of all in the School welcome you here this afternoon.   Speech days serve the double purpose of allowing us to indulge that very human desire to show ourselves off while at the same time calling upon us to give an account of our stewardship.   Our debt to all of you here this afternoon is that you act both as an audience when we display a little exhibitionism and as judges of what we are trying to do.

I hope that you have all taken the opportunity of seeing those aspects of the schoolwork which have been put out for exhibition.   I hope that you have judged its quality, assessed its value and tried to fit what you have seen into the picture of the Country’s growth and development.

It is my task now to try and fill in the background to the picture of the past year’s work, because without it, what you have seen may appear to be no more than the highlights, lacking both perspective and proportion.

We have in this School at the present time, a total of 327 pupils of whom 73 are girls.   They come from all corners of Southern Rhodesia and a few have slipped in from even further afield.   They come from a variety of home backgrounds and have emerged from a great diversity of religious and educational institutions. They are selected to come here to be offered the chance of reaching the peak of the educational pyramid.   Their ages vary from the correct age of 13 or thereabouts, for starting on a secondary academic training, to the very much over age pupil, well into the middle twenties.

 We offer them as good classroom teaching as most schools could hope to offer.   We are generously staffed with highly qualified teachers and consequently we can offer a very good range of subjects.   These subjects include those which must form the basic education for anyone going on to University, some of which are of particular value to those who will later become primary school teachers and others which develop practical skill, artistic ability and domestic training for girls.  

 In addition to the more formal classroom instruction there is a considerable variety of activity, stimulated by the energies, which members of Staff give to their jobs over and above the calls which duty makes on them.   There are special classes in music and musical appreciation, Scouting and Guiding are flourishing and some of the senior Scouts are assisting with a Wolf Cub Pack; there is a keen photographic club;  those who like Art, but cannot fit it into their school instruction can continue with it in the Art Club;  there are opportunities for the pupils to learn Chess and Draughts and other indoor games;  there are the beginnings of a Young Farmers’ Club and those who wish for more religious activity than the School programme provides, can join the Students; Christian Association or assist in the running of Sunday School classes.   

After tea you will see a small dramatic production into which the drama Club has put much work.   There is, of course, room for many more of such activities and we are nearly at the stage where a small printing press, a museum, a modelling club and perhaps carving and pottery could find a very useful place.   Lack of time, and rooms to house these activities are problems which must be met and, of course, we have to watch the funds available.

 Games and P.T. cater for pupils’ physical well-being.   We are endeavouring to teach a variety of games rather than concentrating on football throughout the year.   The boys have athletics and football as their main activities and cricket is making a good start.   Soft ball is played with much enthusiasm and tenniquoits and table tennis are also available to them.   There is considerable enthusiasm for tennis though the facilities are poor.   We hope to devote more effort in the coming year to getting new tennis courts made.   The girls play netball, take part in athletics and have rounders as their summer game.   They have also shown enthusiasm for tenniquoits and a start has been made with hockey.   The dam is providing very useful recreation for those who are keen on fishing and with all that water there, we hope to be able to get a swimming bath and to lay on water to the school grounds and the playing fields.

It will all take time, of course, and money and effort, but, if we have patience we will get there.   The School is just ten years old.   Reasonably rapid progress has been made in that time, but we are still at the earth moving stage and it will be some years yet before we can add the frills and the elaborations.

 Further behind the scenes of the schoolwork, are the many chores which every pupil has to do.   While most of the school are doing a quarter of an hour’s P.T. in the early morning, others are sweeping and polishing their dormitories, washing down their latrines and picking up the pieces of paper which, in any school of this size, always litter the grounds.   

In the afternoons, when prep is over, each House has its activity.   One plays games, another is doing its laundry, another is doing manual labour to level more playing fields and the four devotes its time to the cleaning up and development of its particular area of the School grounds.   The girls, meanwhile, have much the same kind of activities, except that they mend sheets for the whole school while the boys are levelling the playing fields.

I hope you will realise, from this account of what goes on here, that there is plenty of variety of activity and plenty to occupy everyone.   We try to bring out the full potentialities of those entrusted to our charge.   Along with this, we endeavour to give them a realisation of the need for service to the community – and the good response to requests for blood donors is a measure of that success. We try to inculcate a sense of responsibility in the minds of those who are chosen as prefects and we try to encourage initiative where it wishes to branch out on any venture.   

It is this last thing that has given me much satisfaction during the year.   In many small ways and in some big things I have seen pupils in the School taking the initiative and accepting the responsibilities which follow upon the things which they want to organise for themselves.   The Students’ Christian Association, which meets on Sunday nights, has been under the Chairmanship of the Head of the School this year.   He has organised and conducted the meetings, arranged for Speakers and, where necessary, has invoked the aid of the staff.   It has been very pleasing to watch the success that has followed his efforts – as a culmination of those efforts, this group will be putting on a Nativity Play tomorrow evening.  

 The Captains of games have also taken much responsibility in the training of their teams, taking them out for runs at both ends of the day and it was very gratifying that their enthusiasm helped us to achieve one of the most successful football seasons in the School’s history.   We won the inter-school football competition after several very exciting games, and did not lose one match!   The Young Farmers’ club is taking the initiative in several ways, and is growing vegetables and planting flowers.   Tenniquoits was reintroduced largely through the enthusiasm of one of the boys, while another, maybe with an eye to earning some pocket money, started taking his camera to our various football matches and gaining the experience which, I assume, all Press photographers have to acquire.

These are some, among many others, which are indications of ways in which the boys and girls of this School are showing their initiative and accepting responsibilities.   I very much hope that there will be increasing signs of this spirit as the years go by.   There can be no doubt that these characteristics are what the young African must develop if he is to earn the respect of all and if he is to make that contribution to the Country’s development for which we in this School aim to equip him.

And what, you may ask, are the dividends which the Country as a whole reaps from this.   From the classrooms we saw very good results in last year;s School Certificate examination, 58 out of 59 passed and these results are a tribute both to the skill of the teaching staff and the industry of the pupils.   Of those 58 who gained Certificates, eight came back to work for their Higher Certificate, one or two went direct to Universities and most of the others entered Teacher Training Institutions, whence they will emerge in a year’s time to help expand the work of the higher classes of primary schools.    Others went into various occupations, mainly of a clerical nature and some of the girls are being trained as Nurses in the Union (South Africa)  

 This year, for the first time, ten pupils of this school are sitting for the Cambridge Higher Certificate examination.   At least two of these we hope will be foundation students of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.   I feel sure they will be a credit to the School.   The others hope to go to the Union, some to Fort Hare to take degree courses leading to teaching jobs, three hope to take Medicine at Natal University, one would like to be a dentist and another a veterinary surgeon.   

All of these will in time take their places in the ranks of the professions and we hope that our endeavours here will have given them the background to enable them to live up to the highest standards both professionally and ethically, which those professions so rightly demand.

There can be no doubt that opportunities in very many directions are beginning to open out for those young Africans who have had an education such as we offer.   Government Service, Commerce and Industry are all making openings for those who have had a good secondary education.   They are as yet, perhaps, doing little more than exploring the possibilities of offering interesting and worthwhile jobs to boys and girls of this School and others like it.   They are, so to speak, throwing the ball to the young African to see what he will do with it.   If he catches the ball neatly, knows what to do with it when he has caught it and plays it according to the rule of decent behaviour, many more such opportunities will be given to him.     Whether this happens or not, depends largely upon the young African concerned and upon what we can make of him when he is in school.

One thing which still makes the work of our schools difficult is the age of the pupils who are in them.   In any European school covering the range of education which we offer here, even a 19 year old is considered a misfit.   He is no longer a boy, but a man, he should be either at an institution catering for a University standard of work or he should be out in the world, making an independent living and contributing to the production of the Country.   We at Goromonzi have an age range of 13 to 26.   I leave it to your imagination to picture the problems which arise from this.   I would like, however, to draw your attention to some of the wider implications in the Country as a whole, of maintaining in schools the very many over age pupils which can be found in almost every African school.

Consider to begin with, the loss of productive capacity resulting from all the 16, 17, and 18 year olds who are still in the primary schools.   Even the more advanced countries of the world cannot afford to keep youths of this age in school if they have not by then progressed well into the secondary stages of education.   Can we, with our very limited resources, do what even a Welfare State cannot attempt ?

 Think also of the extent to which many of the African children aged 10 or 11 or 12 are excluded from schools because the places are occupied by those who should have been superannuated and who should be out working and producing.

We are also doing ourselves much harm in the eyes of the world by giving the impression that we are providing less education for the African population than we are doing.

1932 was the year in England and Wales when the full impact of the post-war population bulge was being felt in their schools.   For that reason and also because the Butler Act and the fully fledged Welfare State had not at that time been introduced, I use figures of that year for a comparison with ours in Southern Rhodesia today.   In 1932 in England and Wales, the total number of children undergoing full time schooling at public expense was roughly 150 for every 1,000 of the population.   This is the figure for nursery schools, elementary schools and secondary schools which were wholly or partly supported from public funds.   I repeat the figure.   150 for every 1,000 of the population.   Southern Rhodesia today, is providing schooling for approximately 180 out of every 1,000 of our African population.

From this, it would certainly appear that with the places which we are today providing in African schools, there is room for every child to have six years of primary schooling.   This is one year more than the Kerr Commission laid down as being the first objective at which we should aim.   It would be an excellent thing for us if we could tell the world that we had reached the stage where every child received six years of education.   Instead of that, however, we too often hear complaints that children of 9 or 10 or 11 are unable to get places in school and this, not unnaturally gives the world the impression that we are further from offering adequate educational facilities than in fact we are.

Another point worth taking into account, is the fact that those whose education is behind schedule very often do not start their working lives until very much later than they should do.   The education of a Doctor, for instance, entails a considerable investment of money.   Where the State provides that money they should demand on behalf of the community the fullest possible return.   Yet a man who because of the late age at which his education starts, only qualifies to practice as a Doctor when he has reached an age of 30 or more, has fewer years of service to offer to the community than one who can start making his contribution when he is 24 or 25.

There is one further point I would make.   By retaining in our schools large numbers of over age pupils, we are not getting the best out of the facilities we offer.   Six years of elementary schooling between the ages of 6 and 12 is of much more value to the child than the same instruction given between the ages of 10 and 16 or as is often the case, between 12 and 18.   In the same way, we in the Secondary schools can have a far greater impression upon, and can teach much more thoroughly, the child who is here between the ages of 13 and 18, than the young man or woman who gets here at 17 or 18 and struggles on to his middle twenties.

Hitherto, we have looked for a solution of the problems resulting from our limited resources to restrictions both on the opening of new schools or on increases in school enrolment.   Surely the solution must be in thinking in terms of age rather than standards of attainment and turning away from the schools the older rather than the younger pupils.  

 I know, only too well, how large a part sentiment plays in this.   There is always the one who couldn’t start going to school early because he had to herd the cattle or the goats, there is the one who had to leave school to work for a year or two to earn the money to take him on to the next stage, there is always the decent, hardworking, keen individual whom, one feels, should be given a chance.   But every chance we offer to the sixteen year old in standard four, is depriving some 12 year old of his chance and, I submit, that the 16 year old is the one who should stand aside.   There are growing alternatives for out of school education.   Sentiment also takes a hand when it puts forward the plea that a 14 year old is too young to start work.   Few who say this ever stop to think that in Britain today, over 80% of the population starts work at 15 and that before 1947, this same proportion started work at 14.

Hitherto, as I very well know, we had to have rather more mature pupils in schools.   We wanted Demonstrators, and Medical Orderlies and Teachers who could start, immediately they left the primary school, doing responsible jobs.   A 17 year old Demonstrator would not have carried much weight with a grey headed Chief and a Medical Orderly of the same age might well have done more harm than good.   But those days are going.   We now have grey headed Demonstrators who can handle the more difficult old men in the Reserves and the 17 or 18 year old youngster would come to no harm if he were made to mind his p’s and q’s when he first started working!   

We must look at it today as an educational problem and try to see what methods we must adopt in order to get the best value for the money we are spending.   It is a problem which must be tackled by Government, by Schools and by parents.   The parents must ensure that their children start going to school at the right age;   they must learn that only some of the family will be able to go far with their education while others who do not show the aptitudes which secondary schools demand must start work earlier and become independent of the father’s income.   They must also realise that pleas of poverty are not always very convincing when children who are quite old enough to fend for themselves are still being maintained in schools.

The schools will have to take a wider and more realistic view of things.   They will have to remember that in being kind to an over age child they are being more cruel to the younger one.   They will have to try to see the picture as it presents itself to the schools higher up on the educational ladder.   Here, for instance, we watch with regularity, the 14 year old in form one, catch up with his 17 year old classmate in form two, overhaul him in form three and race away from him the following year.   There are, of course, exceptions – but this happens sufficiently frequently to be stated as a rule.

On Government, of course, rests the major responsibility.   They will have to lay down the unpopular ruling which will exclude from schools, those who will feel they have not had their chance.   On them also will rest the responsibility for keeping up the flow of more and better trained teachers to ensure that those who do have six years in school get the best teaching which can be made available.   They will have to plan ahead to the time when these six years of training can be made compulsory and that will involve school attendance officers, the compiling of statistical information and the registration of births.   The provision, in fact, of all the background information which any modern system of educational administration requires.

We have enough school places to take in every child – for six years of schooling – provided we are prepared to take the step of removing those who are over age.   We have reached this stage despite the enormous backlog which has had to be made up over the past 20 years and we can, presumably, now hold our own against the large natural increase in school population which is coming.   

If we have now reached this milestone, the next stage must be the improvement in the quality of the instruction we offer.   This involves firstly, a higher educational background for the teachers, so that those who are untrained and inadequately educated may be replaced.   Having provided a sound teaching staff for the six years of primary training, the next step will be the expansion of the six years to eight years as and when the Country can afford it.

That boarding schools of this type have been able to get along as well as they have done with such a wide age range is really rather remarkable and is an indication of the great keenness to learn which nearly every pupil has.   This great keenness carries even the older ones through the classroom work.   They are attentive and anxious to learn and present few disciplinary problems there.   But in many respects we miss the liveliness of the very young, we find that the mischievousness which often leads on to many useful lessons in living is overshadowed by the almost extreme seriousness of the approach to their work.  

Good examination results from older pupils, tend to come from sheer hard slogging rather than through that intelligence which learns despite every effort to side track a teacher off his path and every temptation to think of things other than the job in hand!    

We need prefects of 17 and 18 who are near enough to the mischief making age to know how best to deal with it, who will not tolerate obstreperousness in a junior but put him firmly and effectively in his place.   But the 18 year old has a difficult time when he has to discipline those older than he is, and prefects in consequence have to be chosen from amongst those who are old.   Boys of 17 and 18 should be learning to take responsibility, they should be learning the fundamentals of leadership, but with our present age range they are denied these opportunities until they are too old to get the full benefit from them.

As a Schoolmaster, I am very anxious to have school boys to deal with rather than undergraduates and I feel sure that as taxpayers, you will want to see money spent to the best advantage, and not be devoted to those old enough to look after themselves and who should also be making a contribution to the Country’s prosperity.

A start has been made in tackling this problem.   I believe that the facilities are available for a system of compulsory education which would reflect great credit on this Country which is still so young and undeveloped.   From the point of view of this school and the Country as a whole, the sooner it happens the better.

It may seem that I have been critical of those older pupils who are now in this School.   There are many of them who have made a very valuable contribution to the life of the School and I would be the last to decry their efforts.   Most of them, I know, are impatient to get out on their own, to live their own independent lives and they realise, as much as anyone, that they would have got more out of their time here, had they been able to come here at an earlier age.

 Much of the credit for what success we have achieved here must go to them for the good example which they have set.   But the major part of whatever success we achieve, must also go to the staff and I am sure that the boys and girls would wish that I speak for them and add their thanks to my own for all the work the Staff has put in during the past year.   We have had many changes in the Staff since the end of last year.   More changes than any school should be expected to accept.   That the work of the School has not suffered to a greater extent is a great tribute to all, Staff and girls and boys.   I would like to thank them all very much for their outstanding efforts during this past year.

Finally I would like to thank His Excellency the Governor for coming here to speak to us this afternoon, and Lady William Powlett for consenting to present the prizes.

2. OPENING OF THE BEIT HALL: GOROMONZI SCHOOL 1953

March 28th, 1953.                                                                                       John Hammond

This is a big day in the history of this School and we are grateful to all of you for coming here this afternoon to share it with us.

The generosity of the Beit Trust is well known in the Rhodesias and we at this School have received much from them.  During the past eight years, 180 pupils of this School have had their fees paid for them by the Beit Trust, while generous grants have also been made for the purchase of library books.   Today, we are here to express our thanks for this magnificent Hall and Library.   No School could ever hope for better.

This Hall, designed on such generous lines, is equipped for any stage or cinematograph show which we may wish to put on.   It will become the hub of the social life of the School and as it matures, it will record the School’s history and carry the names of those who have served it well.

The Library, where we shall shortly have tea, is a beautiful room, admirably suited for its purpose.   There the pupils will come to appreciate the value of intellectual exploration, beauty and peace.

These contributions to the education of the boys and girls of this School cannot be measured.   They become a part of each individual which will awaken in them new ideas of what is good and worthwhile.   We are grateful beyond our powers of expression, to the Beit Trsut who have given us this wonderful building and we can assure them that no effort will be spared to make this a worthy memorial of the Centenary of the birth of the Founder of the Trust.      We shall endeavour to ensure that the Memorial will be in better people as much as in bricks and mortar.

It is difficult on an occasion such as this, to give you a very comprehensive picture of what we are attempting to do at this School.   Much will have to be left to your imagination.   Samples of the girls’ needlework and of the boys’ art is set out for you to see.   You will also have the opportunity of testing the girls’ cooking when we adjourn for tea while after tea a short play will be put on for your entertainment.   For the rest, we shall be pleased if those who are interested will attach themselves to one of the pupils who have been detailed to help you look round the buildings.   

In doing so, you will be able to picture for yourselves the normal everyday life which goes on here.   It does not differ much from the life to be found in any secondary school.   The pupils do nearly all their own domestic chores, cleaning the hostels, and tidying and developing the grounds and playing fields themselves.   In the classrooms the scenes are much the same as in any school, except perhaps that the Staff have to spend less energy in persuading the pupils to work hard!   In the dining hall and hostels there is the normal amount of clatter and chatter found in any school.

We cover the full range of secondary work up to the standard of the Cambridge School Certificate and some pupils, who aim to go on for study at Universities, return for a further year of post-certificate work.   Results in these public examinations, have on the whole, been most impressive.   In the first three years that pupils from this School took the Cambridge School Certificate, only three out of 83 were unsuccessful.

It is too early yet for us to judge with certainty how the former pupils of this School will react when faced with the greater freedom and the larger responsibilities of the outside world.   We have the evidence that, in so far as examinations can test it, these pupils have the capacity to do well.   We wait now for those reports which trickle in from time to time, telling of success and failure in the world for which we are attempting to train them.   Should any of you come in contact with those who have been trained here, I hope you will spare a moment to tell us how you find them.   Please do not attempt to spare our feelings, we are keen to know of our failures as well as our successes.   

We want to know if they have the right attitude to their work, if they are well mannered and if they accept responsibility.  We want to know, in fact, whether our attempts to train their characters are producing results.   Examinations are very satisfactory things for schoolmasters.   They assess, objectively, the success or otherwise of one’s work.   They do this so successfully that there is sometimes a danger that we may come to the point where we feel that the work of the classroom is all that matters.   I am asking that as many of you as can do so, shall act, as the opportunities occur, as examiners of our efforts to make these boys and girls into useful citizens.

It is imperative that we should succeed in this task because we are now training those who will be foundation members of a new class in African Society, a class who will have to assume responsibility, not only in their own professions, but in the social growth of the African people of this part of the world.   On them will rest the responsibility for maintaining and building up standards of morality and integrity and behaviour which will act as a pattern for others.   They are pioneers, and we are most anxious that they should start out along the right track.   We solicit your co-operation in our attempts to achieve this.

When we look outside the confines of our daily jobs, where we are concerned primarily with the development of individual boys and girls … and when we try to assess the educational task before us in this continent, we have cause to wonder whether our efforts can every produce results quickly enough.   The speed at which results can be achieved in this 20thCentury has increased enormously in almost everything except schooling.   The Medical profession has devised rapid, easy and relatively inexpensive ways of controlling most epidemic diseases.   The politicians have, at their service, all the modern means of telecommunication for the dissemination of ideas.   Industry and Agriculture and Commerce, all have mechanical aids to speed along production and turnover, provided the labour to work their various devices is available.   

But schooling cannot be hastened.   We still need to take a sixth of mans’ allotted span to bring him to the stage where he can begin to be fully educated and no machine, and no vaccine can contribute very much towards hastening the process.

In Africa the problem is made even more acute by reason of the enormous backlog which has to be made up.   Added to this, we lack, in the main, the educated parents, who, in most other countries can lay a foundation on which the schools can more easily build.   On the other side of school life there have been, ever since this continent was settled by Europeans, more jobs than people to fill them and this has led to a lighter discipline and a more indulgent attitude from employers than has been the case elsewhere.

The schools, therefore are forced to carry not only their own responsibilities for the dissipation of ignorance and the inculcation of habits of discipline, but they have also, in part at least, had to take on some of the responsibilities normally assumed by parents.   At the same time they must try to turn out people whose standards of discipline and behaviour will persist into their lives after school because, in this country the thought of losing a job does not yet have the same disciplinary effect as it does in most other parts of the world.

This is our problem as I, a Schoolmaster, see it.   I am amazed that, taken by and large, our success in tackling it has been as great as it has, and that our failures have not been very much more obvious.   We must, however, ask ourselves if the traditional methods of school education will ever, by themselves, be able to outstrip ignorance, before it, ravishing our soils, and wasting our resources, leads us inevitably to shortage of foods and goods and all the calamities which would follow in the wake of such shortages.

The “white man’s burden” hitherto has been an administrative burden, today it is an educational one and is no longer the “white man’s burden” – it is the ‘educated man’s burden”.   If we are to overcome ignorance within the space of time allowed us, we cannot expect success if the schools system alone has to bear the main burden.   Even assuming that all necessary finance were to be provided, the shortage of men and women qualified to teach in schools, would still limit the rate of progress to a dangerous slowness.

I can see but one answer and that lies in the rapid increase of well educated people, who, in their everyday lives, may assume some part of the responsibility.   We cannot do it on our own.   Therefore, every housewife who insists upon habits of cleanliness in her kitchen, and on hard work in her garden … every farmer who demands a straight furrow in place of a wandering one … every industrialist who insists on punctuality and high production, and every business man who insists on accuracy of work and honesty in dealing with other people is contributing his or her portion to the solution of this problem.   And if this problem is to be solved we must have more people more conscious of the immense task which lies before us all.

To Africa’s educated minority I appeal for a more conscious effort to assist in dissipating ignorance;  to Africa’s uneducated and semi-educated youth I would suggest that learning can be obtained elsewhere than in schools if you are but prepared to be taught;  from Africa’s parents, I request a firmer discipline of the children and insistence on good behaviour in the home and a search for other avenues for the instruction of your children if you cannot provide it yourselves and if the schools cannot take them.

You will, I hope, forgive me for having thrust these rather pedagogic ideas upon you.   I know that your interest in our efforts here is considerable and I have therefore taken the liberty of trying to put before you my idea of what our aims must be.

Ladies and Gentlemen may I repeat our thanks for your attendance here this afternoon and once again express our very great thanks to the Beit Trustees and particularly Colonel Ponsonby for handing over this Hall and Library for our use.

I now have pleasure in inviting you to take tea in the Library, and to see our first production on this stage immediately afterwards

1. TJOLOTJO SCHOOL SPORTS DAY : June 6th, 1938

John Hammond

 It is customary on this day for a report on the year’s work to be given.   Before doing that, however, I want to thank you all for coming out here today.   

 That the journey is not a pleasure trip we all know, none better than those of us who live here.   We have made an attempt this year to add a little comic relief to the monotony of the bumps.   Our principal misgiving when editing the road map was that on first reading it through at Nyamandhlovu you would all turn round and go home again!    I hope that what you have seen today has made you feel that the journey has been worth while.

By this time next year, I hope that the road map will be out of date.   Next year a new and magnificent bridge is to be put across the Gwaai on another road.   We owe this new bridge to the generosity of the Government, the Native Reserves Fund and the Beit Trustees.   When this is completed the journey to Bulawayo will be less arduous than the one you have taken today;  but even a new Bridge cannot make an indifferent road perfect and there will still remain 15 miles of road on the new route which will be capable of doing damage to the springs of any car.   But I sincerely hope that you will not let a mere 15 miles of bad road deter you from visiting us again.

 Today, of course, the School is on show.   Naturally things are looking a bit more spick and span than they usually do, but we have tried to give you some indication of what the School looks like on an ordinary working day.   Naturally the boys work with greater enthusiasm when they have an audience to watch them;  but you will have been able to get some idea of what we do here and how we do it.   If any of you feel that you want to see more, I take this opportunity of extending to you an invitation to come out here when the School is in normal working order and to spend a day or two finding out more about the place.

 This year, it was decided to limit the numbers of the School to 200.   This was made necessary for two main reasons – water and accommodation.   We have had anxious moments this year with our water supplies;  in October last the second borehole gave signs of going in, one having done so the year before.   Then in March this year, the third suddenly dropped just when it should have been at its best.   A machine was rushed in to sink a new hole and has found an apparently excellent supply.   This new borehole is not yet in use – the other two having picked up sufficiently to keep us going and our water problems are temporarily solved;  I say ‘temporarily’ because I would not dare to guarantee the life of any borehole in this area – only a very rash man would.   When once an engine is put to pump on a hole it seldom seems to last more than three or four years and in spite of the thousand gallons an hour which our new hole gave on a test, I am still far from optimistic about the future.

The new dormitory, which was completed in January, has made it possible to house all the boys in good buildings.   It would not have been possible to exceed our present numbers without having to go on using the old and very dilapidated buildings which have served as dormitories almost since the School started 18 years ago.

For the coming year, no funds have been given for the construction of permanent buildings … the dining hall in which you have just heard the boys singing, had to be left uncompleted through lack of funds.   I regret that I am unable to say when work is likely to be resumed.

A few figures regarding the boys of the School may be of interest.   They come from 26 different districts of Southern Rhodesia and from three neighbouring territories.   There are 14 vernacular languages spoken in the School and 12 different religious denominations are represented;  two boys claim no definite denomination;  86% of the boys are between the ages of 15 and 25, the average age being about 20.   23 of the 37 new boys who entered the School this year came from 15 different central or boarding Schools – the other 14 came from Kraal (village) schools.

Many of them travel long distances to come to school.   Most of them come from Matobe, Gwanda, Mzingwane and this reserve, but some come from as far as Marandellas and Chipinga.   One man arrived this year from Enkeldoorn.   He was 36 and wanted to enter Standard 2.   We hadn’t the heart to turn him away, so he is here now struggling along, and hoping that his time here will help to improve his wage earning capacity and so make it possible for him to send his children to school.

The numbers following the different industries in the upper standards show the popularity of each … 20 take building, 17 carpentry, 7 farming and 15 tanning and leatherwork.

This year, standards V and VI are allowed to specialise.   Next year Standard VI and a post standard VI class will specialise and in the year after than specialising will only be allowed after boys have passed standard VI.   The lower standards do general industrial work which includes elementary building, carpentry, agriculture and leatherwork.   A course of metalwork will be started this year for standard VI and I hope that in a year or two we shall be able to offer that as a further course in which boys may specialise. 

The time table is divided so that half the boys are on industrial work while the others are in the classroom.We try as far as is possible, to relate the work of both sections.We are in fact, giving the boys a grown up form of what is being called modern education.Most of the boys have to earn their livings as soon as they have finished their schooling here.Their time at school is too short to allow them to learn by playing in the lower standards.That time will come, but meanwhile I sincerely hope that we shall not be asked to modernise to the extent of having free discipline.

Those of you who were here last year will have seen the progress that has been made since then.     The new dormitory was built almost entirely by school boys and completed in eight months.   The pupils get a certain amount of useful practice on these permanent buildings but most of their instruction is given on the teachers’ cottages.   Those cottages are of the type which we hope Natives will build in their Reserves.   They are designed to show the Native that in the Reserves he has the material from which to build a good house.   No large cash outlay has to be made to purchase other materials such as glass, ant course etc.

The poles and grass are getting scarce in some areas;  however, our boys agricultural training should equip him to grow these things or at least to ensure that supplies are maintained in those areas where they do still exist.   Personally I am in doubt as to whether this is a right principal to follow.   Should we endeavour to make the Native self sufficient in his own Reserve, or should we encourage him to train for his wants.   The greatest benefit to the country as a whole would undoubtedly come from this latter training.   

To make this trade possible however, he must have the where-with-al to buy his goods.   Only two ways lie open to him to make money;  firstly by selling his labour and secondly by selling produce and stock.   In both of these his scope is limited by the very people who want his trade.   And so the vicious circle continues and we, who are endeavouring to raise the standard of the Native population, see our own way out in making the Native self sufficient, while at the same time we see the drawbacks of that practice.

At this end of the country, it is through stock that the Native will benefit most.   If agriculture can be raised even to the level where famines need no longer occur, a great advance will have been made.   We averaged seven bags of maize to the acre on the School plots this year.   Only fifteen inches of rain fell on those crops before they were reaped.   That shows that even in this area, famines need not occur if sound methods of agriculture are followed.   Even if only a few Natives, having learnt, then carry out the methods by which they get fair crops in bad areas, our time will not have been wasted.   

But for anything over and above the bare necessities, the Native here must look to their stock and it is on animal husbandry that we wish to lay most emphasis.   We are slowly improving the plant which we have for the teaching of this.   New pigsties have been built this year and a new stone kraal.   Both of these add considerably to the appearance of the cattle sheds.   This year we hope to put up new milking sheds and sheep pens.   Without them the instruction we give loses much of its value.   Mere theory is insufficient;  concrete results push home lessons much more quickly.   I hope that when the time comes for us to ask for the necessary funds for this work that we shall be able to obtain the backing of the Hon. Minister of Agriculture, who is here today.

The tannery continues to do very good work.   A Native Teacher is in entire charge of that section of the work.   The results he obtains are splendid.   Educationally it is an excellent industrial subject, particularly for boys who ar too small to hand bricks or planes.   Its value economically in a cattle country is too obvious for me to have to mention it.

The exhibit of carpentry is not a very large one.   There has been a great deal of building construction to be done this year and carpenters have consequently not had a great deal of time in the workshop.   But you will have been able to see the type of thing we teach them to make and you will have had a chance to study the quality of their work.

Of the future, two things will always have to be contended;  water and malaria.   This year an average of six boys were absent each day during April on account of malaria.   Last year for the same period, the number was twelve.   This may have been due to the short rains.   We like to think that the improvement has been mainly brought about by the methods of control of mosquitoes which we have introduced as well as to the extra clearing and drainage.   Of one thing I am certain, this improved situation would not have been but for the presence here of Miss Weir.   She has probably the hardest job on the place, yet never have I known it to be too much trouble to turn out at any time of the day or night to give assistance to those who need it.   We are extremely fortunate as a district, to have her at Tjolotjo.

We might be able to reduce the incidence of malaria, but increasing our water supply is a different matter.   No one, as I have said before, should dare to guarantee the continued supply of water in an area such as this.   There are very few possibilities of damming;  and overstocking in the neighbouring Reserve leaves the veld bare of all grass.   As a result most of the rain which falls runs off instead of sinking into the ground.   Before we can hope for adequate water supplies, the problem of overstocking and soil erosion will have to be overcome.   On the continuance of this adequate water supply rests the fate of this School.   It is my belief that a definite decision will have to be made within five years.

Before I stop I must take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the members of the staff for their loyal co-operation.   In a School such as this where there are several branches of technical work, it is impossible to carry on if the is any lack of co-operation among the staff.   For the past year, there has certainly been no such lack, and it is principally to this that I attribute the excellent progress which the School has made.   I must also extend the thanks of us all to the ladies who have given so much of their time and trouble in the preparation of this lunch.   At this distance from town, catering is not easy, especially when one has to deal with the unreliability of certain Bulawayo firms.

Lastly, I would like to emphases once again the pleasure which it has given us to entertain you here today and to express the hope that we shall have further opportunities to show you a small part of what is being done towards the raising of the standard of a vast number of Natives in this country.