Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School,
Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 1 February 2014 No. 639
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Dear
Friends,
Why did the Abbey School not survive?
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From: Gmail Jan <jankoenraadt@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 8, 2013 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: Why did the Abbey School not
survive?
Dear Guys,
I'm reading this question why the Abbey School ended.
My sister visited the tourist shop of the monastery a few years
ago and bought me this book about Mount St. Benedict. (It was before the
Centennial).
There are three pages inside the book in which they describe why
the Abbey School ended.
I put them up in a dummy set on Flickr.
Please use the link to get to the set with pictures.
At the right edge there is an arrow to proceed to the next
picture.
If you right click on the picture, choose "Original"
and then right click again on the following picture and then you can choose
Save As to your hard disk.
Here is the link:
Maybe all of you already know how Flickr works, it's just a large
stream of photo's sorted by time of uploading.
In the menu you can choose to create all sorts of Sets of the
stream to your likings.
A Set is in fact a Photoalbum.
Please ignore the others sets, they are dummy stuff for other
friends at home.
As for the reasons why the Abbey School closed, the book says:
One of the original aims to build the Abbey School was the
promise it would be a source of new monks.
But in the end it hardly ever happened that a student joined the
monastery.
It happened in a few occasions, but they don't mount up to the
expected promise.
The 24 hour surveillance of the students was a tough job.
The monks like father Cuthbert, Augustine and Benedict did the
teaching for free.
After the oil crises in 1973, the monastery delivered less monks
for the teaching work, so more costly civilian teachers were needed.
Also, the monks working at the Abbey School, did not take part in
hardly any monastic activity or monastic life.
After each term they were like strangers to the other monks.
From 1970 on the system of boarding schools in the Netherlands
was abolished.
Also the division of separate boy and girl schools.
The amount of new religious monks declined rapidly in the
Netherlands since 1970.
The source of new Dutch monks to do the teaching for free at the
Abbey School dried up.
At this time 2005-2015 about 1700 church buildings are closing
down in a period of 10 years.
That amounts to demolish three church buildings each week!
Anybody interested in a conference facility all blessed and
sacred?)
By inflation the cost of civilian teachers went high and the
amount of students declined.
At the end of the 70's father Abbot addressed the Trinidad
Government for financial aid.
The book says, the letter was left unanswered.
Maybe you guys know better.
As I understood, at that time parents didn't have to pay for
secondary education in Trinidad.
The Abbey school was in fact the only school in Trinidad where
parents had to pay for the education.
If the government would have given the financial aid, it would
have been the only school in Trinidad to get financial aid for education on top
of the free education that already existed.
(The inflation part of the argument, that costs of civilian
teachers went high, doesn't fit in here).
And then subsequently the question arises, who is getting the
financial aid?
In fact that were the pupils what we were, rich peoples sons from
the whole Caribbean region.
The poor people’s children would be left out of the financial aid
It seems there was a social upraise amongst local people in
Trinidad getting ready for a protest march to the Mount.
That was the time when the last Principal Fr. Vincent Merrique
OSB vocated his "white boys" quote.
Upon that the school closed down letting the last pupils finish
their year and so.
At the Centennial, I received a link via the Circulars of the
Trinidad tv-broadcast.
Also, the part where old students giving a present to father
Cuthbert was broadcasted.
I didn't hear about the existence of our secondary school in that
broadcast, only that the boys were some old handicraft students . . .
Much regards,
Jan Koenraadt
----------------------------------------------------------------------.
From:
nigelboos@eagles-wings.ca
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 06:30:47 -0500
Your question is of great interest, Attila, and I would very much
like to get some answers myself.
By copy of this email to the youngest of the Old Boys, those who
turned out to be the last students at the Abbey School, I am asking for any
input on this matter, any recollections you may have had, any indications you
may have noticed, any evidence that would help to answer the question.
One of the suggestions which has come up over the past 13 years
or so, is that the last Principal, who I understand was a Fr. Vincent Merrique
OSB, seemed to have adopted a very racial stance in his remarks that the Abbey
School was a "white school", with a majority of white students over
the years. If such an attitude was in
fact, prevalent, I can understand why the Benedictines, perhaps stupidly, would
have wished to distance themselves from the comments and accusations of those
like Fr. Merrique, and finally decided to shut down the school. I do not know if this is true, and I am
therefore asking the Old Boys from the 1980-1986 period to offer their insights
on the matter.
It would be good, too, if we could ask Fr. Cuthbert to offer some
help here too. He would seem to be the
last link in the chain of Principals, who might be able to offer an opinion. But since he never responds to my emails, it
would be better for someone resident in Trinidad to go up to the monastery and
interview him directly on the matter, hopefully with a video camera and an
operator available to preserve for us all the responses of good old Cutty.
And here's a final thought - maybe we can also ask Lionel Roberts
(formerly Br. Vincent OSB), now a retired lawyer in Florida, to offer his
comments on the issue. (I'm copying this
email to him as well.)
Regards,
Nigel
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Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:02:02 -0800
From: gyuris@yahoo.com
Wow, Jan... thanks for sending the Flickr document.
Awesome quick response and thanks for taking the time to scan
that historical document about the Mount.
(Unfortunately I could not download and save the flickr images,
as they are "locked from downloading" by the author. I could only read them. But that is OK. I got what I wanted.)
Well, that explains almost everything in pretty good detail.
I now understand much better what and why it happened.
I am still not clear on some of the exact dates.
For instance, what year did the boarding school actually close?
Was it in 1982 or even earlier perhaps?.
It is not clear from the book pages.
One thing is clear though, we were there during the golden
pinnacle years of the Mount, the mid to late 60's and I feel I left at the
right time, graduating in 1969, because it seems that by the following year
(1970) and onwards, the school's problems and its long decline had started.
What a sad moment (or perhaps not?) it must have been when the
last student departed the Mount.
Regards to all,
Attila Gyuris
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From: vcl28@aol.com
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 17:21:10 -0500
An old boy's suspicions on why the school
closed.
The school was as Glen has said expensive.
There were probably three reasons why the school closed.
1. Economics
2. Isolation
3. Lowering in academic standards.
What I am offering is a path to investigating why the school
ultimately failed, rather than attempting to offer a meaningless opinion in a
matter such as this which is clouded in time.
1.. How much did it cost to upkeep a boarder in those later years
compared to earlier years? My father kept
a file on how much he spent on my being there from 1958-1963. It was around $8,000 US, a little over $1000
US a year. Apparently boarding schools
in the UK are experiencing unusually high costs today. The cost can now be higher than the average
earning of the UK households.
An analysis by The Good Schools Guide shows that parents face
paying £27,600 a year for each child enrolled in a fee-paying boarding school.
It is the first time that the annual cost of boarding has raised
higher than the UK average salary, which currently stands at £26,500."
2.. The isolation: the St Benedict College was isolated no one
questions that. And why they had day
boys was always beyond me. Perhaps it
was to top up the classes when they did not have enough boarder students. But day boys was not their market, their
market were the sons of wealthy people [and I don't care what colour] who for
one reason or the other wanted their children to be cared for and educated by
someone else, e.g., diplomats who were moving around or other types who also
had jobs requiring a lot of moving around. I have no evidence of this, it is just my
perception of the place. In my case it
was also understood to be a place where discipline was paramount and having
been expelled from every school here in Guyana, it was a sort of last resort.
In the case of St. Benedict it was not unusual for non English speaking
kids from wealthy families in the surrounding French and Spanish territories to
send their children to learn English. In
my own case I was given the Task of teaching Piton, a French kid form one of
the surrounding areas, English. That kid
must still speak English with a traces of Guyanese accent! When Piton went to the Mount he could not
speak a word of English. So they were
sent there for all of the reasons I have outlined here, but in addition to be
bi-lingual. Did the Mount lose its way
and stop attracting the boarders, which was what the main purpose the place was
established to do, and tried to compete with schools which were less isolated
and more accessible? If this is the case,
we have to try to find out why they lost their way.
3. First of all, I have to ask are there any records of the final
years of the schools' operation? Especially
how many boys took the GEC and how many failed/passed and how that compared
with an earlier time? No matter what
other conditions were met, if the academic standards dropped they would not
attract their core student, i.e., the boarders. The boys from the Mount usually did well
academically, especially if like me they were problem children.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Dec 8, 2013, at 11:28 AM,
On Dec 8, 2013, at 11:28 AM,
Cornel de Freitas <corneldefreitas@hotmail.com>
wrote:
A most Interesting topic, definitely one that I too would like to
know the answer.
Why did a truly magnificent school like (and I truly believe
this) "The Abbey School, Mount St. Benedict" suddenly / abruptly come
to an end?
Why?
My hopes, my prayers go with this one, that someone or group of
those of us each representing a tiny piece of that ever eluding picture is
pieced together and at last help "US" to understand what happened.
I am sure as everything came together when that, 'First seed was
planted', that evolved into what may have been the best boarding school at the
time beautiful (and very modern) Refectory, Kitchen (with state of the art
equipment at the time) and truly great Library, Modern Theater/ Auditorium/
Stage (where we ALL enjoyed the very latest movies released, and memorable
plays.
What went wrong ...?
I truly believe that at least half of the best times in my life
were lived at that great school....
Cornel A. G. de Freitas
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From: Don Mitchell <idmitch@anguillanet.com>
Date: 19 December 2013 04:48
News of one of our oldies, that may be of interest.
Keep well.
Don
-----Original
Message---------------------------------------------
From: Don Mitchell
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 5:03 AM
Hello, Elspeth,
Good to hear that Richard is okay.
I heard from a contemporary of his recently, Philip Nassief of
Dominica (they would both have done Form V in 1949). Philip was at the time
paying a short visit to Anguilla.
I so regretted that I was unable to meet with him, but I was at
work in some other island at the time of his visit and it was completely
impossible.
Hopefully, there will be lots of photos of the 2014 Reunion, and
there will be one or two names which may jog his memory. I cannot expect the
same result from a view of their faces in the photos !
Keep well.
Don
-----Original
Message---------------------------------------------------
From: O'Connor Elspeth
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 11:12 PM
Thanks Don,
He is not crochety at all. I am that one, as his memory fails him
sometimes!! When I re read the email it
sounded very abrupt, but I was in a hurry and tried to answer the form then
realised I did not really know how to answer it hence my brief email. I apologise. Hope you have a very happy Christmas and God's
Blessings on you and those who do so much for the Mount…
I think I enjoy the emails more than Richard does. I am trying to get him to jog his memory re
the Time Capsule but all he can remember is that something was done but where
or when is blank!! Cheers.
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Elspeth On 19/12/2013, at 8:03 AM,
"Don Mitchell" <idmitch@anguillanet.com>
wrote:
Thanks, Elspeth,
I hope that Richard is enjoying life down under, and is not
getting too crotchety in his old age. I
am some years younger than he is, and my wife tells me I am!!
Sincerely,
Don
-----Original
Message--------------------------------------------------
From: O'Connor Elspeth
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 11:52 PM
Richard O'Connor will not attend and never will travel again from
Australia.
Thanks. Elspeth O'Connor=
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Don Mitchell
Dec 26, 2013
Hello, Phillip,
How good to hear back from you.
Any news from your generation is too rare and precious to keep
private. So, if you do not mind, I am copying this acknowledgment to the
chroniclers and archivists of the Abbey School Old Boys’ Association, Nigel
Boos and Ladislao Kertesz.
Keep well.
Don
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From: Phillip Nassief
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 9:14 AM
Hello Don,
Thanks for copying the email from Richard O'Connor.
I will be travelling until mid-January. When the information
reference the Mount reunion is received, I will respond as I would very much
like to attend.
Best wishes to you and the family for health in the new year.
Regards,
Phillip
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Ladislao Kertesz at kertesz11@yahoo.com,
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Photos:
MSBAP29MI6512, Mount Inside
08LK0009LKEGRP, Dinner in Caracas
58UN0001FOD, Fr. Odo
13AM0001AMB, Fr. Odo
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