AN INDOLENT PEOPLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22318, 16 January 1936, Page 3

AN INDOLENT PEOPLE

FORTY YEARS IN JAMAICA THE EDUCATION PROBLEM With an intimate knowledge and many memories of the people of Jamaica, at once childlike, shrewd, artistic, hard-working and indolent, Sister Mary Small, who for the last 40 years has been working among and teaching the natives, returned to New Zealand by the lonic this week. "1 have spent half my life among them," said Sister Small, who is now over SO years of ago, "and while I know and understand them as well as any European mind can, they still, in spite of all our teaching, retain their little mysteries and their own outlook."

Born in England, Sister Small taught for many years in various schools in England, at the same time being an enthusiastic and ardent Church worker. Forty years ago, when the Archbishop of the West Indies announced the need for a woman with teaching and religious experience to take charge of a school in Jamaica, Sister Small received the appointment. Since then she has lived through many changes in the people and their country. She taught at the Maryvilie School for most of her stay in Jamaica.

Advent ot the Schools Forty years ago, when she arrived there, Sister Small found the people almost entirely without knowledge of European customs and education, dressing, living and speaking in native fashion. They ranged in colour from black, through varying stages of brown to a white that could not be distinguished by European eyes from the white peoples of the world. In earlier days a great number of the people had been sent out from South Africa and India as slaves to the sugar and rice plantations. At the time of her arrival, however, a better and richer class had arisen and these people felt the need for schools corresponding to the British secondary schools, where the better-class children could be taught the manners and customs of the European people. In addition they also received instruction in the principles and ideals of the Ghurcli of England religion. One of the strict laws of the schools was that a "dress" dinner should be held once a week, when the pupils attended in full European evening dress.

The people, said Sister Small, were very imitative and in recent years the great influx of tourists into Jamaica had had a tremendous influence upon the of the natives. They now dressed and spoke and walked as the Europeans did. Quick to Learn

Sister Small found that the native children who attended the boarding schools were very quick to learn and many of them, after passing through the Jamaican schools, continued their education at the universities of England and Canada, assisted either by scholarships won at Jamaica or else were provided for by their parents. '"There is nothing that the Jamaican cannot do if he takes full advantage of his education," said Sister Small, " but they are a naturally indolent people and more often than not will use their education only to help them

smoke a pipe in the sun." Sister Small said that although their teachers were working hard in an endeavour to instil into the people the ideals of honesty and the morals of Christian living, they were battling against centuries of native custom and the words " right " and " wrong " were the hardest for them to learn. The servants in Jamaica were mostly full negroes and negresses and 110 white person, because of the intense heat, so much as picked up a. dropped handkerchief or opened a window a few feet, away. The servant class was still largely uneducated and constituted one of the greatest problems of the country. _ It was hoped, however, that by educating the better class children, they would in turn, 011 returning to Jamaica from the universities abroad, undertake the education qf their own peoplo. Sport played a very important part in the school curriculum. The rich native people intent upon learning the customs and the working of the European schools had themselves made the schools even stricter than those abroad. The pupils, especially the girls, had special dresses for almost everything they did Games of all descriptions were played in the schools while singing, dancing and musical instruction were other requirements. The Jamaicans, said Sister Small, possessed wonderfully full, sweet voices.

After a year's holiday with her sister-in-law in Auckland, Sister Small, who, in spite of the heat and the hard work of her years in the West indies, has retained a delightful sense of humour and a great and tolerant wisdom, hopes to return to Jamaica and the people sho has come to regard as her charges. " There is only one way to deal with them," she said, " and that is to treat them as little more than children, combining tolerance and understanding with a. sense of humour.."'