AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941

page forty-two

Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix

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George Bogg was a similar character, direct, honest, earthy. His keen old eyes missed nothing about the grounds. If the beck had eaten away part of the bank, his stakes and brushwood began the repair. He cleared any obstruction of the bath pipe by a homemade plunger, a stout stave with a bundle of rags tied on one end. He emptied the bath and brushed out the mud; he tidied the paths and trimmed the bushes and he never seemed to tire.

The children, however, naturally came into more direct contact with the staff. Edith Lamb ruled on the girls’ side with a prim decisiveness. Her literature lessons, apparently dead, roused sparks of interest in some minds, and an unprecedented judgment of hers in geography gave twenty marks out of ten for a written examination answer because, as she said, it was so manifestly superior to any other.

Ada Metcalfe was her second in command, a kinder, milder figure but not less efficient. She convinced each girl and boy that she took a personal interest in them, knew them as individuals, not as pupils merely. She seemed to take a gentler, softer attitude to life and children were quick to appreciate that humanity softened the necessary teaching severities.

Apprentices and ex-apprentices staffed the boys’ side. The two juniors popped about bewilderingly between Ayton and Flounders, so that sometimes John Thompson and J. W. Proud shared the queer common room, sometimes Thompson and James Clark, sometimes Proud and Clark. But for a few years before 1891, and for a few years after, Charles B. C. de Vit remained head teacher. Looking older than his years, possessing a rook-rifle and a fishing rod and maintaining always a sober severity, he ruled like an Olympian. His aloofness and his strict economy of speech, his particularly upright carriage, even the little beard he wore, made an impression of almost awe upon the boys and though Thompson, Proud and Clark each excelled in discipline, de Vit beat them by sheer manner and reserve. Even the handicap of comparatively poor football, poor compared with the expert dexterity of J. Thompson, the solidity of J. W. Proud or the dash of J. Clark, he overcame without trouble. If de Vit’s strictness sometimes merged into severity, even the sufferer admitted justice. He left once a form of boys in the museum telling them not to talk. Returned, he invited them to incriminate themselves and a supply of hands shot up. It appeared, however, that one boy had not owned up. When questioned, he argued with a certain rash boldness that he had spoken merely and not talked. The distinction was not lost upon de Vit who reflected, accepted the plea and then proceeded himself to take the illogical step of pardoning the offenders.

One other personality, rarely seen, rarely heard, spread far her influence. Elizabeth Dixon, wife of the superintendent, had in 1891 no official connection with the school. The children saw her in Meeting sitting in saintly quiet on the women’s side of the ministers’ gallery. She never varied in her expression of complete calm; no trace of emotion, passion, suffering, remained to alter the Christian certitude which shone softly from her. Peace clothed her brow; a lovely serenity composed her face. When she spoke her low, quiet, unemphasised voice reinforced the quietude of her face and bearing. Here was the flowering of the Quaker discipline; the light within became almost visible and even blundering boys recognised her presence as a benediction. Fortnightly, on Sunday afternoons, she read aloud to the boys in the big schoolroom. The usual turmoil roared around. Elizabeth Dixon opened the glass door; she stepped into the room; she sat at the teacher’s desk. She opened her book in a silence deep, profound and continued. Hardly a breath disturbed her reading, and she left in an atmosphere of calm and peace. And as an ideal unreachable though reached by her, the boys who heard her kept always the memory of that benignant tranquillity. ‘Molliter ossa cubent:’ may she lie softly in her Quaker grave.

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