BUILDING OWN SCHOOL

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

BUILDING OWN SCHOOL

WORKING IN PLAYTIME. AN EPIC IN CONCRETE. Great examples are far-reaching in their effects. Inspired by the examples of the monks of Buckfast Abbey 200 African boys are building themselves a new school with an assembly hall, chapel, library, large classrooms, and three residental houses. It will replace the dilapidated houses of wood and mud which have served as school buildings since 1910, when Bishop Hamlyn founded what has become a great African public school. At the present school at Cape Coast all the classrooms are congested and every ceiling leaks. In the Sixth Form the blackboard or the teacher must stand outside the door. For playing-fields there is only a cramped compound. So urgent was the need for larger buildings that some friends of the black boys generously presented to the school a glorious new site of 64 acres on a hilltop at Adisadel, two miles from the town. On one side is the sea, and there are fine views in every direction. But little gold was to be found at the Gold Coast—only enough money could be produced to buy a few building materials. How could a large and costly public school be attempted at such a time?

The masters and boys answered this question by setting to work to build their own school. Now all the neighbourhood is seeing how a vast store of enthusiasm can change the word Impossible into Possible. Though they know that they are building not for themselves but for other boys who will succeed them these young Africans are tackling hard, monotonous work in their playtime. Already a large builder’s shed and a carpenter’s shop have been built, almost entirely from broken barrels collected at Cape Coast. They ate now hard at work on the first of the three residential houses.

Group by group the boys work in turn. Mixing concrete and making building blocks is hard work under an African sun; but they have made a fine start, and in six days they laid 60 cubic feet of concrete. There are many other tasks, such as carrying stohe from the quarry and clearing the* bush. But the harder the work the more they smile. There may be sermons in stones, says the headmaster, but here is an epic in concrete. Unfortunately the funds for building materials are so low that work may have to cease. Readers who take their well-built schools and spacious playing-grounds as a matter of course are asked to help these young Africans to make their dreams come true by sending donations to the Headmaster, St. Nicholas Grammar School, Cape Coast, Gold Coast, West Africa.