Dear Editor,
Here, closer, are the Methodist Chapel, and its alley: Chapel-Alley. Folks are all dressed up. It’s Sunday, noontime, or there about, and the service is most likely over now. I would venture that Pastor Gibbs’ sermon is still resonating in the minds of some of the faithful, but that most others are thinking of getting back home to a good Sunday meal and some rest. Nothing much has changed there over all these years: other faces worshipping, praising, singing, and another pastor sermoning. But the old chapel is still there standing.
On the other side of Chapel-Alley is that “Boy School” by the sea where they taught us to be civic-minded, to read, write, count, and reason – all of that in French; as well as to love and honour the French language and the Republic. That was no easy task for our teachers who hailed from Guadeloupe, with little or no proficiency in our English, or in any other English, for that matter.
Those were no easy teaching-learning objectives for our teachers and for us. But despite the difficulties we faced, and in spite of handicaps, ours and those of our teachers, for most of us, what we learned in that school by the sea may have made all the difference.
Sometimes, on the Water Front, I see Monsieur Jean limping along the Bayside, stopping to chat with acquaintances. He is so good-humoured, so friendly, despite that handicap that causes him to limp so severely.
I was not his student, and so I cannot speak to his teaching in the classroom, but he was one of my teachers nonetheless, for I learned a lot by observing the way he related to everyone, and by chatting with him. He was so generous with his time, so down to earth! I found him mentioned online where a retiring teacher refers to him in the context of a brief and recent (2017) retirement interview.
When I think of Monsieur Jean, I see a figure walking ahead of me on the Bayside. He is jouncing; the back of his head is bouncing up and down like a fishing float, a bobber in troubled water. But that image is always contrasted with a more powerful mental representation of a man in whose company most folks were the ones who felt lacking, wanting.
They would forego his obvious physical handicap, rather, they would forget it completely, or be embarrassed to inquire about it. To this very day, I couldn’t say what had caused Monsieur Jean to limp so severely. It is most fitting that, in Saint Martin, there is a school named after Monsieur Jean Anselme.
Sometimes while on the Water Front having coffee, looking down towards the cemetery, I see him in the distance coming up the Bayside from where he resides. There is no way of mistaking him for anyone else – long strides, fairly tall, handsome and dashingly svelte. (The younger President Obama reminded me of him, though his facial features were sharper, and his complexion lighter than the President’s.) He is neatly dressed, as always, in a well-pressed long sleeve shirt, pleated trousers, and shoes that are mirrors in the morning sun.
As he passes, I think he notices me looking at him, for he smiles and nods politely. But he never replies to my “Bonjour, Monsieur!” It is as if he sees me, but cannot hear me. Strange indeed! He doesn’t appear to be bothered by the change of scenery here, on the Bayside; he never stops; never tarries. He is, most likely, hurrying to prepare for his classes. But I have some news for him: his classroom is no longer there, and neither are his students. Like the old Sandy Ground, he is no longer here, no longer anywhere, except in my mind, and maybe, in the thoughts of a few other old-timers still around.
Monsieur Henri Ligarius, our teacher, my master, my hero and exemplar, was as fastidious, as meticulous in his appearance as he was at the “tableau noir,” the blackboard in his classroom – no matter the subject that he was teaching us. And he mastered all of them: French, history, math, geography; civic and moral instruction (Instruction civique et morale); I may have forgotten one or two others. English wasn’t taught in those “good old days,” it wasn’t a subject matter back then, moreover, it was considered subversive: seemingly, as an impediment, a hindrance to other more crucial, more fundamentally political objectives.
My teacher got to school early before class, and he often remained there late in the afternoon to prepare his lessons, our lessons. We would enter a classroom where the board was covered in chalk by an elegant multi-colored script, the most beautiful chalk script one can imagine. When teaching us grammar, sentence structure, and composition, the blackboard was a Christmas tree: verbs and subjects, and complements, each one had its color.
As I recall, it was our failure to grasp the rules of agreement of past participles, and to apply them, as well as to respond rapidly to his queries on the multiplication table, and on other assignments he had given us that led to most of the whippings. That is when we were made to eat from the loaf, from “le pain des paresseux,” the bread of the lazy: a leather belt he took to us, but never harshly, never brutishly, as I recall.
All of this must be placed in its proper context: those were the “good old days” when a schoolboy would never ever think of being aggressive towards his teacher. Rather, we hoped, prayed that the news of our strapping didn’t get home, for fear of a real “cut ass” from our parents. Those were “the good old days” – for teachers!
Gérard M. Hunt
