ing certificates .
' Brother [ oseph McNally and I were posted to SJI on our arrival while the other Irish Brothers who accompanied us were sent to our schools in West Malaysia . Brother [ oseph was appointed Form Master of the 1947Cambridge Class and he must have been bitterly disappointed with his first class ' s performance . I taught History to that class and Literature to Standard Eight which contained pupils who have made their mark over the years . Among them were Rev . JerryTseng , S . J ., now on our Staff , and Mr . Rudy Mosbergen , now Principal of Raffles Junior College . I was Form master of Standard 7A whom I taught English Language , Literature , History , Latin and Geography . I also taught some subjects to Standard 78 , a very much weaker class . I was told to teach them French , started one French lesson with them , found that they knew very little English and so I spent all my French periods teaching them English . Nobody ever questioned me on how I was getting on with the French lessons , but I was never again asked to teach French and I have had an " overdose " of English classes down the years . My best pupil in Standard 7A was Bemard Fong Fook Chak , now Principal of Hwa Chong Junior College .
, Among the teachers with whom [ was closely associated in those years were the late Mr . Tong Quee Yat , father of Mr . Tong Wai Cheng , now on our Staff , the late Mr . Sng Yew Chong , the only Science teacher on the Staff , and Mr . Ngui [ irn Chiang , the Geography Master . Mr . Quee Yatwas particularly good for teaching the weaker pupils and his main subject was Maths . I remember that many of his pupils were well over age and had little interest in study , so when any oneof them did badly in a test or an Exam , his remark invariably was " He has other interests ", meaning girls ! Mr . Cyril Reutens was in charge of Cadets who were the only uniformed group in the school at that time . Mr . [ oseph David , now in the Ministry of Education and in charge of Physical Education , was another Normal Trainee Teacher in those days .
' Soccer was the popular school game then as now , and our Football Captain was the late Francis Lim , whose father , " Pop " Lim Yong Liang , a famous Singapore player of earlier days , used to coach the players . On one occasion at an annual Past v . Present Match , both were Captains of their respective sides , so the Straits Times carried a Heading , " Father and Son Shake Hands ". Our outstanding athlete in those days was Tan Eng Yoon , now President of the Old Boys ' Association . He was in the same class as Fr . Tseng and Rudy Mosbergen . Cricket was another game in those days , and SJIused to do very well in it - we had Players like Alexis Delilkan and Reggie da Silva . Our Annual Sports used to be held on the School Field . When Icame , the field was in quite a mess as it had been used for various purposes successively by whoever were the occupying Armed Forces during the War . It was levelled and drained during 1948if I remember rightly .
' In 1949 I was appointed Form Master of Standard 7A , which was the brightest class I remember from those days . Ihad themthroughout1949 , 1950 and 1951 , and these were some of the happiest days of my teaching career . It was the only class I ever had for three years in succession . Toward the end of that time the Government started expanding education in Singapore and many new schools were being opened . So there were many openings for prospective teachers and many of my boys took up teaching and have made it their career . Among them are some of the most devoted teachers SJlhas ever had on its Staff , men like Poon Kay Tee , Dominic Yip , Peter Martens and Tong WaiCheng . Others have done great work in Government Primary and Secondary Schools and quite a few are School Principals . I have very good reason to feel proud ofall of them because of their dedication to teaching and the hard work they have put in in educating the youth of Singapore down the years . Quite a few also became doctors and have done exceptionally well in various fields of Medicine . And I must include our Vicar General , Mgr . Francis Lau .
SJIhas always been a Catholic Mission School and in those early days a great deal of emphasis was put on Religious and Moral Education . We had Moral Education lessons for the first half-hour every day of the week then . We had Annual Retreats for the boys given by the Redemptorist Fathers , and these achieved a great deal of good among the boys who , for one reason or another , had moral problems arising out of their wartime experiences . There were no YCS [ Young Christian Students ], no St Vincent de Paul Society and no Legion of Mary in the early years , but there was a " Sodality of Our Lady ", a Religious Prayer group . The Legion of Mary replaced the Sodality in the
school towards the end of my early days on the SJl Staff .'
The school re-opened on 13 January 1947 . There was again a large number of pupils seeking admission on the opening day , but only the new pupils for Primary Iwho had been registered in December 1946 were admitted . Daily , scores of parents came and begged admission for their children , but they could not be considered for the idea of an afternoon school at SJIdid not become a reality until 1948 . At this point only Catholic boys , and the children of Old Boys with brothers already in the school could be admitted , but the problem of overcrowding was partly resolved by giving many boys a double promotion .
In order fully to appreciate the developments that now took place at SJlitis necessary to glance quickly at the general educational scene in Singapore in 1947 .
C . C . Tan , whose schoolboy memories have been given above in Chapter Four , wasatthispointamember of the Governor ' s Advisory Council . The story that now unfolds tells how Mr Tan ' s firm stand for a principle altered the course of the educational history
Post-war Memories 43