Dear Editor,
When Monsieur Ligarius grew frustrated by what he most likely perceived as our lack of effort, of application, or by our poor performance, he would try to motivate us by scolding and lecturing us. He would call us barbarians, savages; with no regard for the beauty and importance of instruction in general, and of the French language and culture in particular. He would reproach us our so-called (material) privileges as compared with students in some of the poorer communes in his native Guadeloupe. He would explain how students, there, were eager to learn, despite their lack of classrooms, of materials and teachers.
Those impromptus, those lectures still resonate in my head. Oddly enough, that is when I felt him the most caring. He would have been a superb lawyer, statesman, university lecturer, or a scientist (like his son Philippe: Ph.D. in Applied Sciences, Rouen, 1995; reportedly, a genius in Math; once a teacher at one of the most prestigious “lycées” in France; now, if my information is correct, an inspector.)
Some of us savages would set about provoking the lectures, those admonitions we so enjoyed as they would also take him away from the planned routine instruction. Some others resented his whippings, his reprimands, and the referring to us as savages.
But we were no easy lot, and he was, most likely, merely trying to motivate us, as best he knew how – there was no malice intended. To tell the truth, most of us were, indeed, barbarians, savages of sorts. In those days, that is how most St. Martiners were regarded by French education officials in Guadeloupe and beyond. Back in those good old days, “barbarians,” or “savages” were folks who didn’t speak the Greek of that era (the 50s and early 60s): the French language. And so, why feel aggrieved? Why be bitter? Why be resentful towards our teacher?
The fact that some 10 to 15 years later, he had acquired sufficient competency to teach English, that he taught English in Saint Martin, and later in Guadeloupe is ample proof that he had nothing against the language itself, or against St. Martiners, for that matter.
During those early years of his teaching career on the island, he may have simply misread the attitudes of most of us towards the French language, and the difficulties we faced. Monsieur Ligarius mastered the French language; he was a superb teacher. One got the impression that he loved the profession, that he loved teaching his savages, despite the challenges we placed on him. Maybe, in part, that is why he stayed so long among us.
I couldn’t find any reference to him online apart from the info on his son, but my search was not exhaustive. When I left home for the first time, in 1963, he was still a young man (in his early to mid 30s), and a school principal for a number of years already. I am told that he returned to Guadeloupe in the mid 70s, that he finished his career teaching at the secondary level, and died there, in the 1990s.
I have it from a reliable source that there was one St. Martiner at his funeral – one of his numerous students – to bid our old master farewell. We get caught up in our little lives, and much too often, we cannot find, or make some time to say thank you to folks we are indebted to. Such is life, but it need not be that way.
I have often wondered how he happened on the isle of the savages. Did he request the posting, or did they just dispatch us one of their brightest due to the heavy challenge we presented? But the two are not mutually exclusive. He arrived a few years after Guadeloupe became a DOM (French Overseas Department) in 1946; when an Antillean intellectual élite began to replace metropolitan functionaries in some such posts. For some reason, the obvious bright young man did not pursue higher education in France. All of that, I think, may explain how the exceptionally gifted young teacher happened among us.
It doesn’t surprise me at all, that no school is named after Monsieur Henri Ligarius, our master, my idol; neither in his native Le Moule, in Guadeloupe, nor in St. Martin where he spent most of his teaching career. He was a man whose bearing, education, principles, abilities and talents must have incited a lot of envy, caused much jealousy. And it must not have helped matters that he didn’t suffer fools easily. He was not intimidated by education authorities in Guadeloupe and/or by politicians there, or in Saint Martin.
The next time I’m having coffee on the Water Front, and I see my master striding hurriedly up the Bayside, I won’t let him get by me. I’ll insist that he joins me, and I’ll set about trying to impress him with my French, so as to make him proud of me. I doubt I’ll succeed, for he has such high standards. I’ll tell him that it’s been quite a journey, but that most of his savages, old men now, have done quite well, given their handicaps; and so did some others who have long departed.
I’ll explain that, for all of us, it was due, in great part, to his selfless, dedicated, “no nonsense teaching.” I’ll inform him that some of his star students have had schools named after them. That, for sure, will impress him, and he’ll smile.
I think I know what our old master will be thinking: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” the more it changes, the more it’s the same (old) thing. I’ll tell him how much we are, forever, grateful to him. We’ll laugh about those bygone reprimands, and the whippings. My master and I will then discuss education (teaching/learning); the fickleness of recognition; politics and the profession, namely the politics of education.
Gérard M. Hunt
