Men of Stone: A Reflection on Richard Simon's Thomia - II

As stated before, the chapters describing the life of the school are interspersed with those describing its national context.

- BY PRIYAN DIAS

The most pertinent aspect of that context is the country’s educational environment. The book starts with Governor Frederick North’s vain attempts to persuade the British Government in London to allocate a decent budget for education in the colony of Ceylon. It ends with the tensions experienced by schools like S. Thomas’ in the wake of the Christopher Kannangara cum Abeyratne Ratnayake reforms, described in the former’s own words as follows: “In spite of the most dogged opposition from a large and very influential section of the people of my land, in spite of abuse and calumny, vilification and ridicule, I have succeeded in obtaining the sanction of the State Council of Ceylon for a scheme of free education, providing for all children of the land equal opportunities to climb to the highest rung of the educational ladder ... regardless of the status or financial capacity of their parents, and for obtaining for our national languages their rightful place in that scheme as an essential prerequisite for building a free and independent nation”.