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| Sunday, 22 September 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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This year marks the Diamond Jubilee of S. Thomas' College, Gurutalawa, 1942-1964 were the glorious twenty odd years during which the School earned the reputation as the best school in the island and the world. Warden Buck said to the boys of S. Thomas' then, at Mutuwal over one hundred years ago. "You belong to one of the best schools in the world, a school (then barely 50 years old) with splendid traditions and most honourable name and I charge you to hand down those traditions and that name to those who come after you untarnished and unimpaired.....you have learnt the best lessons in the world at S. Thomas' College, not only English, the Classics and Mathematics, but true manliness and courage, purity and all the things that make a man and a gentleman." Headmaster of a Public School in England Edmund Thring set standards for public school education, Canon A.J. Foster the Chaplain non pareil of S. Thomas' spoke of Edmund Thring in an end of year sermon he preached at Gurutalawa. He set out Thring's aims of the ideal Public School, its structure and core values. Dr. Hayman provided a new dimension. Taking advantage of the magnificent environment of the school set in the farm gifted by Leslie de Saram.. The Welimada plateau became an extended playing field. Dr. Hayman had in mind the now famous Gordonstoun School. He gave passion a positive chance of absorbing the emotional strength of the growing boys. He added the motto of New College, Oxford, 'Manners maketh man.' But within a small school, (the number of boys even out at 40 odd in the earliest years, and was around 300 when Dr. Hayman left. He hoped that it would not exceed 360) with its values well in place it was the care and concern for every boy that invested 'Guru' with a very special quality. This cannot be better expressed in every day life than in how Dr. Hayman himself demonstrated that concern. Dr. Hayman was unique. No one could be so unimaginative as to expect his successors to be like him. But for a time the tide was stemmed supported by stalwart members of the staff of the Hayman Foster era firstly by Frank Jayasinghe (1965-68) and then by E.L. Perera (1968-74) one of the great Thomian teachers of the Warden de Saram era followed by an Old Thomian Lyn Illangakoon, who after three years as Head Master was moved to Mount Lavinia as Warden in 1977. The murder of Bala Gunasegaram was indeed sad. Bala was a disciplinarian and a man of unimpeachable integrity. He would not, compromise values and standard. In this Diamond Jubilee year, the tide has turned. English Language has emerged as the key language of a globalised world. Numbers in the school which had been a bench mark for quality rather than exclusivity had come down from a preposterous 1300 odd at one time to 413. Because some parents had at one time sent children to Guru to acquire proficiency in the English language. No doubt this Diamond Jubilee year is a defining moment in the history of STC at Gurutalawa. The way back is the way forward. We have a mandate to discharge, in the compelling exhortation of Warden Buck, inspired by the example of Dr. Hayman and to the great teachers who worked tirelessly in our heritage. We have also a new chairman of the Board of Governors in Bishop Duleep de Chickera, one time Chaplain and Sub Warden of Mt. Lavinia, and a new Headmaster in G.C. Mendis, Educationist who had taught previously both at Gurutalawa and at Prep. School, Kollupitiya and is well acquainted with the Thomian ethos. The opportunity has presented itself to rehabilitate those traditions that have earned the College its good name, to restore its image to the many parents who seek the best for their children and to do justice to the Thomian hallmark. Philips Duleepkumar |
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