So my life from rags to riches, from elementary education to self-acquired knowledge, from shattering adversity to rewarding accomplishment, is an epitome of the determination, the tenacity, the purposefulness, and, above all, the cultural values, inculcated in me, as a Buddhist, by the teaching and the example of the Christian Fathers and Teachers who moulded my up-bringing in the impressionable age of my youth. I then learnt never to take no for an answer!

(N.U. Jayawardena, The Aloysian 1915-1990 Diamond Souvenir, p.256)

(Chapter IV continued)

Compared to the other schools NU had attended, St. Aloysius’ with its numerous facilities was a lively and stimulating place for a young boy. It opened up a new world, where studies, sports, cadeting, field trips, debates, theatrical performances (including Shakespeare and Molière), as well as an excellent school magazine, were features of school life. Other advantages were the science laboratory, library and reading room, and a dedicated teaching staff, which included scholars such as Father S.G. Perera, the historian, and several Belgian, British and Irish priests who were specialists in various fields. There were also excellent local teachers, Sinhala, Tamil and Burgher.

Cover of The Aloysian

The staff of St. Aloysius’, composed as it was of teachers from diverse communities, including foreigners, broadened the vision of the boys, who generally came from monolingual, mono-ethnic backgrounds. The school magazine The Aloysian, published annually, kept up a high standard, and included articles, poems and sketches by studentsand articles by staff members. The school motto was “Certa Viriliter” (Fight Manfully), and the school crest included the letters “I.H.S.,” the first three letters of the Greek word for Jesus, which was an old Jesuit emblem. The original crest (designed by Father Soden) had two elephants and two lions. When the crest was modified in 1933 and fashioned as a shield, these were replaced by four symbols: an elephant for Sri Lanka; three lilies for purity of conscience, associated with St. Aloysius; the flaming torch (of learning); and the rooster, the Dutch emblem of Galle (The Aloysian 1915-1990, pp.57-58).

NU’s Teachers

Dedicated teachers often leave an indelible impression on their students, by igniting their imagination, and stimulating their intellect by opening doors to knowledge and self-potential. Such teachers are never forgotten. NU was fortunate to have teachers who opened out new vistas for him. He was at St. Aloysius’ between the ages of 12 and 16, which are formative and impressionable years of a young person’s life. In later life, NU always made special mention of these teachers and referred frequently to Father S.G. Perera (1882-1950), who encouraged him, took a keen interest in his studies and gave him special tuition in Latin, enabling NU to get a distinction in that subject in his Cambridge Senior Examination.

Father Michael Soden

Born in Kalutara, Simon Gregory (S.G.) Perera was in government service before joining (in 1905) the Belgian Province of Jesuits, who were in charge of Catholics of the Southern Province diocese. He was trained in philosophy and humanities at the Sacred Heart College in Shambaganur, southern India, and subsequently taught at St. Aloysius’ College, Galle. He completed his ecclesiastical studies in India between 1911 and 1915, and was ordained in 1919, becoming the first Sri Lankan Jesuit. Father Perera spent his life at St. Aloysius’ – somewhat reclusively – and while teaching senior classes he also engaged in serious

historical studies, visiting Portugal from 1932 to 1933 for research.

According to A.C. Alles, Father Perera “devoted himself without interruption to his research work,” in an austere room with “a desk heaped with manuscripts, documents, books and letters” and overlooking “the Indian Ocean in the distance over the palm trees.” He had “a small coterie of students and teachers who helped him in work connected with the editing of his writings.” Alles adds that, it was from Father Perera that he (and no doubt NU) learnt “the art of writing, the elements of sound reasoning and logical sequence and above all precision in detail” (The Aloysian 1915-1990, pp.118-19).

Playing chess in the Reading Room

Father Perera’s best-known works were his History of Ceylon, which was a popular textbook in schools, and his translation from Portuguese of Queyroz’s The Spiritual and Temporal Conquest of Ceylon. He also contributed articles regularly on historical themes to learned journals, and wrote often for the St. Aloysius’ school magazine. Another Jesuit priest, Father Michael Soden (1883-1933), helped NU with Chemistry. Father Soden, who was from Britain, had joined the Jesuit Order in 1901, and after further studies in Europe was sent to St. Aloysius’ College. NU made reference to Fathers Perera and Soden coaching him in Latin and Chemistry, respectively, “out of an abundance of kindness” (The Aloysian 1915-1990, p.254).

NU also referred to one of his first teachers, affectionately called ‘Bundy’ Silva, a stern disciplinarian, and praised other teachers who prepared him for the Cambridge Senior Examination. Several of them, including Keegal, J.E. Ludowyk and Michael Croos, were from the Burgher community, known for its modernizing influence and academic achievements, often setting the pace for other communities. NU vividly recalled Keegal, “who taught History fascinatingly,” enabling NU to gain a distinction in History at the Cambridge Senior. He also remembered Michael Croos, who taught him in Form III, as “that remarkable teacher” (The Aloysian 1915-1990, pp.254-55).

Julien Edema Ludowyk of Galle was “the respected and exacting teacher” of Mathematics, taking great pains with the students. He had started his teaching career in 1890 at All Saints’ School, Galle, and then alternated between Mahinda College and St. Aloysius’ up to his retirement in 1927. “The verandah of his home in Kaluwella (Galle) became in the evenings a veritable workshop where poor boys were punctiliously coached for public and professional examinations by a teacher much poorer than the pupils themselves” (ibid, p.173). NU received extra help from Ludowyk, since he needed to pass in Mathematics at the Cambridge Senior to gain exemption from the London Matriculation. In 1926 he sat the latter examination as a private student and passed in the First Division, becoming one of only two ‘overseas’ students to achieve this distinction. Among Julien Ludowyk’s many pupils was his cousin’s son E.F.C. (Lyn) Ludowyk, later an eminent Professor of English at Peradeniya

University, who studied at Richmond College, Galle, in the early 1920s. EFC’s father, who was a teacher at Richmond, was ambitious for his children to move beyond their middle-class lifestyle in the Galle Fort and “attain the mortal blessedness of a cadetship in the Ceylon Civil Service” (Ludowyk, 1989, p.60). As EFC, who was weak in Mathematics, recalled: “I did learn sufficient in the way of Arithmetic, Geometry and Algebra from Uncle Julie to take me later through the Cambridge Junior and Senior local examinations.” Ludowyk added:

All teachers… insisted on the discipline of completing the task set; with them there were no easy options; you had to know, and to know thoroughly, whatever was set as the appointed lesson. It was unthinkable that it should, or could be otherwise.

Father Olivier Feron

Such methods of teaching at the time would have influenced NU. According to E.F.C. Ludowyk, the teachers were strict and there was only “momentary resentment at the punishments they so conscientiously awarded.” He also claimed that, “there were strong bonds of respect most certainly and, in many cases, genuine affection between them and their pupils” (Ludowyk, 1989, p.61). Dr. Michael Roberts, a student at St. Aloysius’ in later years (1946-57), had this to say about the teaching staff:

Few schools today could boast of such a cohort of skilled teachers – persons dedicated, skilled, knowledgeable and in varying degrees, patient. We boys were never angels of course. There was always a limit to patience and some teachers matched their learning with verbal ferocity which few of us dared to test… But threading their teaching too was a commitment to humanity as much as to learning. (One Hundred Years of Love and Service, 1895-1995, p.69)

NU was fortunate to have committed and interesting teachers, some whom had many outside interests. Julien Ludowyk, for example, was famous for his agitation on behalf of teachers – a group who were proverbially poor. He founded the Southern Province Teachers’ Association, and “fought on till he brought the whole subject of teachers’ salaries to the forefront of public affairs” and made the government acknowledge “the scandalous inadequacy of teachers’ salaries” (Ludowyk, 1989). The result of such agitation was a revision of the salary scales and the Teachers’ Pension Ordinance of 1928. Ludowyk was unusual for the time; he was a pioneer of the Galle Labour Movement and a member of the Galle Maha Jana Sabha.

He was said to have taken “a leading part in politics in the South, and… (had) seriously contemplated contesting the Hambantota seat in the Legislative Council” (The Aloysian 1915-1990, p.173). Others who influenced NU were the Rector of St. Aloysius’, Father Feron, whom NU called “a master of French and Latin,” and Father Denis Murphy, “a master of English.” They were both, according to NU, “erudite, kind but stern” (ibid, p.254). Father Olivier Feron (1862-1939) was a French-speaking Belgian who had joined the Jesuits. He went to Britain for further studies in philosophy, along with other Belgian Jesuits, Fathers Cooreman and d’Herde, who both also later worked in Sri Lanka.

Father Feron was sent to teach at St. Aloysius’ in 1908, becoming its Rector in 1913 (ibid, p.112). During his period, the school made great progress: by 1915 a science room and laboratory were added; followed by a commercial department in 1917, and a manual training workshop in 1919. What was known as the “Cambridge Block” was completed in 1922, with a reading room/library, a “Masters room,” a science lecture room and laboratory (The Aloysian 1915-1990, p.111). NU was no doubt influenced by the energy, style and discipline of Father Feron, a dominant figure in the school, who placed great “confidence and trust in his inferiors,” and was to them “a father much more than a superior.” As stated in the school magazine:

Father Denis Murphy

He expected his subordinates to work hard. He was exacting and demanded much of them; but his gentle ways obtained even more. No wonder his inferiors were ready to toil and sweat and spend themselves for their dear Rector. (The Aloysian 1915-1990, p.114)

The Library and Reading Room

The Aloysian magazine commented that the library and reading room attracted the studious boys, and were a place where they could spend time reading, playing chess and spelling games; there was also access to newspapers, the choice being wide, including not only the local papers – Observer, Times, Daily News, Herald, Leader and Catholic Messenger – but also foreign magazines, including Punch and Asiatic Review. The Reading Room, with clusters of chairs and tables, was described in the school magazine as “palatial… reserved for members

of the upper school,” who paid one rupee a term. NU would have benefited immensely from the Reading Room, since already as a young student he was ‘addicted’ to reading. Professor E.F.C. Ludowyk recalled that, to boys like himself with limited money, the libraries of Galle were treasure troves. In the schools there were libraries, which “opened up new vistas,” and in town were public libraries, including the Galle Library in the Fort, which Ludowyk, a self-professed “avid reader,” used. He also dipped into the library of St. Aloysius’, from which his cousin Randolph Ludowyk (NU’s batch-mate) borrowed books, thereby providing EFC with “another supply.” He claims that, the “chief difference between the libraries was that St. Aloysius’ had the books from Catholic missions [and] the novels of Father O’Flynn on the boys of Chicago” – a popular series among Catholic youth (Ludowyk, 1989, pp.81-82).

Cricket

Father Denis Murphy (1862-1943), mentioned above, was born in Ireland and joined the Jesuits in 1882; he arrived in Sri Lanka in 1901. Father Murphy built up St. Aloysius’ in its early years, and took a keen interest in promoting a better knowledge of English, as well as organizing sports activities (The Aloysian 1915-1990, pp.115-16). Cricket provided much excitement for the boys of St. Aloysius’, whose main rivals in Galle were Richmond College and Mahinda College. E.F.C. Ludowyk remarked that, “the fanatical competition” in cricket generated by school matches “took a strong hold” on him. Recalling that “the partisanship went to extremes,” Ludowyk says it was “seriously rumoured” that:

Father Murphy, the Prefect of Games at St. Aloysius’, secretly blessed the cricket ball with which his team played. He was a likely candidate for a sorcerer – he was bearded and constantly muttered over the book he wascarrying. (Ludowyk, 1989, p.80)

One of EFC’s classmates, however, countered “such machinations,” with “charmed water sprinkled on the pitch the first thing in the morning,” to give “our slow left-arm bowler the edge over our opponents” (ibid, p.80). NU watched the school cricket matches and enjoyed the excitement of the competitive matches, for as he said in later life, “when I was young I was very fond of cricket but after that I had no opportunity to do sports” (interview by Kalpana Isaac, 1991).

NU’s Success

NU has described his rapid progress in school:

In Galle I soon got on with my studies and as a result got a promotion to the second form and thereafter I got double promotions. I then sat for the Cambridge Junior and passed the examinations. However, I was underage to sit for the sixth form examinations, so I studied for two years in the same class waiting till I was old enough to sit for the exam. (interview by Manel Abhayaratne) He also recorded some problems he faced: During this time my father was not so well off financially and I was keen to leave school and help him. My brother too had entered school, and due to these financial liabilities I thought that it would be better to find a job rather than spend my time studying. However, when the results came I had passed with honours, and that made me feel that I should continue studying; in fact, my parents were keen that I studied rather than leave school and work. (ibid)

The Aloysian records in more detail that N.U. Jayawardena passed the Cambridge Junior in 1922, and the Cambridge Senior in 1924 with honours, and with distinctions in History, Latin and Physiology. This was the largest number of distinctions by any pupil of the school that year, but in spite of this, NU had already left school to seek employment. Instead of going on to the University College, Colombo, as did two of his batch-mates at St. Aloysius’ – namely, Randolph Ludowyk and Somasunderam Chetty –NU joined the staff of St. Servatius’, Matara, in 1925 (The Aloysian, 1925, pp.233 & 237). The fact, that students who had done less well than himself went on to the University College, would have disappointed NU, but this would have also made him even more determined to eventuallyfurther his studies, which he did a few years later.

It was his rigorous training and wide experience in St. Aloysius’, together with the dedication of his teachers, that gave NU the ability and determination to face the future. Writing in 1989, he paid tribute to St. Aloysius’, where he had studied from 1920 to 1925:

I still retain vivid memories of my years at College, of the lay teachers and the ‘priest-teachers’ who took an abiding interest in me personally as a student, of the value of discipline, attention to studies and respect for elders which the teachers and Reverend Fathers inculcated in me and above all, of the character formation and the cultural values they bestowed on me which contributed in no small measure, despite the many vicissitudes which befell me, to my development and progress in life from humble beginnings to what little I have been able to achieve over the years. (The Aloysian 1915-1990, p.254)

(Excerpted from N.U. JAYAWARDENA The first five decades)
By Kumari Jayawardena and Jennifer Moragoda ✍️