“It is fitting that there should be this meeting today to record the opening of the new Medical School in Suva, which has really been in being for some weeks, from November first, but officially as a Central Native Medical School in the Western Pacific will enter on its career, which we hope can be no other than a successful one, from January first, 1929 ... had its origin some years ago with Dr. Lambert, a member of the Medical Staff of the Rockefeller International Health Foundation ... whole-heartedly supported by Dr. Montague.... And the various Administrations in the Pacific, who have co-operated in the scheme, owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Lambert for his strong faith, for his persistent advocacy of the proposal with the governing body of the Rockefeller Foundation ... without which we should not be in this building today....”
I looked over the upturned faces, brown and white. I counted the eight native boys of the graduating class, and thanked God that all the undergraduates wouldn’t have to sleep in the little firetrap of a dormitory, which would only accommodate twelve. The new dormitory could pack in twenty-eight, and there was room for forty in the dining room. The new main building, over which we were making such a fuss, would be fairly cramped quarters. It needed space for laboratories, pathological, bacteriological, biochemical. And the dissecting room wasn’t much bigger than my grandmother’s cupboard....
Just the same, my dream had come true, even with a string on it. The modest buildings we had achieved were modern-built and filled with students.
Now the Governor, his kindly, eupeptic face rather flushed with December heat, was addressing the student body:—
“... You are receiving opportunities with limitations, which are unavoidable, of becoming members of a very honorable profession, not only for your personal benefit but mainly for the good of those men, women and children to whom you will be called on to give medical and surgical aid and treatment to the best of your ability and knowledge....”
Then it was over, everybody had shaken hands, and I was being interviewed by the press. I told the reporters what I felt, that his Excellency had been too modest in disclaiming his own important share in bringing the School to life; how the project had been a partnership between Dr. Montague and myself, and how I might have given up early except for his quiet persistence; and how Queen Salote of Tonga and her Prince Consort had offered financial aid in my hour of deepest discouragement; how their loyalty to all the South Pacific had inspired other groups until at last they had touched the purse-strings of the Foundation....
Outside on the half-finished grounds I saw students filing into the classrooms. There was a score of dark-skinned Fijian boys with shocks of kinky black hair, sport shirts and sulus. They had the look I have always admired in their race, that of intellectual honesty and will to learn. The Polynesian boys were in lavalavas, and like the Melanesians they were bare-legged and unshod; some of them had the pale, even features and straight hair of Caucasians. There were a couple of boys from the Solomon Islands, wooly-haired and almost plum-black. The light-faced, worldly-looking ones were from the Cooks. There were a couple of well-dressed East Indians. The Condominium was sending us New Hebridean students, but they hadn’t come yet. The Fijians outnumbered the others, for there were twenty in all, and twelve of them were graduating from the old school, which had only accommodated sixteen students in all. Almost overnight the enrollment had increased to forty, and I was wondering how the boys from far-off groups would get on with the Fijians, when more of the outsiders came in. The fair-skinned boys from the Cooks and Samoa had one great advantage; they knew more English, whereas the Fijians were handicapped there and would have to learn hard lessons in a strange tongue. For the same reason all the Melanesian lads would have a tough time at first. New Zealand had been wise in giving her mother tongue to the Polynesians.... But I knew the Fijians, men like Malakai and Charley, who had mastered every hard subject that came their way.
More boys would be eligible for the school. We would have to refuse some for lack of space, and look very carefully into the mental qualifications of every applicant.... There would be a tendency on the home islands, I knew, to play favorites for political reasons. Some of the officials would promote candidates because they were “good batmen”—meaning that they had served them well personally.
All that must be straightened out, for we would never have room for slackers.... I wondered how soon we could promote a decent school for native nurses; that was a part of my plan for enlargement. Now they were living in a crazy shack where they did their own cooking, and in the hospital they scrubbed and emptied slops for dainty British nurses. Samoa was giving her native girls an adequate training. We could do no better than follow her lead.... I wondered if students would ever come from Papua and New Guinea, where N.M.P.’s were dreadfully needed. The Canberra Government was standing pat on White Man’s Australia, and the “blackfellow” was not supposed to have a head on his shoulders. Papuan and New Guinea natives, they said, were not adequately prepared for higher education. I knew better, for I had seen those boys, and worked with them.... According to Australia’s yardstick students from the New Hebrides and the Solomons were also inadequately prepared; but they were entering our first class. Australia forgot that her Territories had been missionized by Fijians, Tongans and Samoans.... Dr. Strong, the progressive C.M.O. at Port Moresby, had offered to pay the expenses of Papuan students, if Canberra would consent.... But why argue the point? Australia was jealous of little Fiji’s rise as a medical center, and had decided not to send a student or to permit an N.M.P. to work in her possessions.... I wondered if she would ever change her mind.
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