A few of my schoolboys, after being with me for some time, were sent on to the larger school at Kuching to be taught English. These were the boys who one hoped would in after years become teachers and catechists. There is so little Dyak literature that it is necessary that a person learn English so as to be able to educate himself by reading English books. But the majority of my boys stayed with me for two, three, or four years, and then returned to their Dyak homes. In my school there was manual work as well as lessons to do. They lived plainly, cooking their own food and doing most of their own work. They were cut away from all the superstitious customs of their people, and received a certain amount of moral and religious training. After three or four years of such school life they were ready to return to their old surroundings, taking with them the lessons they had learnt.
For the present, at any rate, there is no need for the Dyak to take up new industries. What he wants is to be taught to do the work he has to do more thoroughly, and to be released from the bondage of superstition and the constant fear of evil spirits in which he lives. The problem of his future will work itself out by a natural process. When the present sources of supply fail him, necessity will force him to take up new industries.
My schoolboys came from different Dyak villages, but the majority of them were boys from Saribas. The Dyaks of that district are more anxious to improve themselves than other Dyak races. The following incident will show how keen they are to learn to read. A party of Saribas Dyaks going on a gutta-hunting expedition asked for a copy of the first Dyak reading-book, because one of them could read, and thought he would teach the others in the evenings when they were not at work. And this is indeed what did happen, and when the party returned most of them were able to read. The Saribas women are just as keen as the men, and many of them have been taught to read by some Dyak friend. I have myself noticed, when holding services for the Christians in some villages in Saribas, how many of those present were able to use the Dyak Prayer-Book and follow the service and read the responses.
A Dyak schoolmaster, who had taught in Banting for many years, afterwards worked as the Government clerk at Betong in Saribas. He told me that he was struck by the number of Dyak men and women in Saribas who could write, and how they often wrote letters to their friends who were away, and received letters from them.
The school programme for the day was as follows:
5.45 a.m.—The two boys whose turn it was to cook, and the two boys whose turn it was to sweep out the school-room and the lower room of the Mission House, would get up and begin their duties.
6.30 a.m.—A gong would be struck telling the boys to come to breakfast. They would all go to the kitchen and have their meal, consisting of rice with a little salt fish or vegetables.
7 a.m.—The boys would be told what manual work they had to do: either they would weed the paths, or cut the grass, or work at their different vegetable gardens. Sometimes they would go out into the jungle to get firewood. At Temudok, where the soil was good, the schoolboys had excellent vegetable gardens.
8.30 a.m.—A gong would be struck to let them know they were to stop working and have a bath, after which, at 8.45 a.m., there would be a short service.
9-11 a.m.—Morning school.