In the last couple of months I read three short books, more accurately pamphlets perhaps, published in the seventies. Two were accounts of school principals who had contributed much not only to their students but also to education in this country. One was the legendary Kularatne of Ananda, celebrated by a junior colleage at Ananda, K D de Lanerolle. The other was Helen Park, who had been principal of Methodist College.
She arrived in Ceylon in 1912 as Deputy Principal of what was then the Kollupitiya Girls High School, and took over as Principal in 1926, by which time it had been renamed Methodist College. She stayed there till 1944, when she was in her early sixties, but continued in touch with her students until she died in 1970, having come back twice, including to lay the foundation stone for a new building.
The book is a collection of appreciations by past pupils, including by my aunt Seelia, amongst whose books at Roshanara I found this copy. It notes in different articles her innovations, principally in introducing Science Education, but also in starting the house system, and also in encouraging girls to donate for the benefit of people less fortunate than themselves. She and her fellow missionaries lived in the school and were constant presences for the children, providing ready assistance and comfort to those who needed it.
Kulartatne, who was nearly a quarter of a century younger than Helen Park, started his teaching career a few years after her, having been selected when he was in England to take over the Principalship of Ananda. He started in 1918 and retired around the same time as Miss Park, when he was 50. He made it clear, when asked to stay on, that he thought it time for a younger person to take over.
He too did much to popularize the teaching of science, and like Miss Park added to the school buildings. Though less involved with individual students than the lady, he too was enormously respected by both staff and students.
But apart from the sterling qualities, and capacity for innovation, of these principals, what struck me was the independence with which they acted, and the ease with which they took important decisions, without the bureaucratic constraints that educationists now have to face.
The third pamphlet was on a very different subject, The Sinharaja Forest. It was written by Thilo Hoffman, the Swiss head of Bauers who was a pillar of the Wildlife Society of Sri Lanka which published the book in 1972. It was written in response to a logging project of the government, which prompted ‘the almost certain knowledge that within 10 years the last large tract of virgin rain forest in Ceylon will have lost its original character’.
I fear Thilo Hoffmann was right, and the Sinharaja is now a shadow of its former self. But while reading the pamphlet was a melancholy experience, I was also impressed by the intensity with which Hoffmann pursued his brief, and also the splendour of his descriptions, not just of the forest but also of the villages which he went through on his explorations.
I used to think the world had changed enormously in the half century after the First World War, but reading these books made clear to me how that change has continued, relentless, over the last half century too.
The pictures are of Kularatne and the book about him, and then a book about Hoffman with a picture of him on the cover. I could find no pictures of Helen Park.