Ravuki became one of our most successful N.M.P.’s, and like most Fijians, almost tragically conscientious. Right after graduation he was sent out to the jungle to control a typhoid epidemic. In his work our prize pupil picked up a typhoid germ—and was so ashamed of it that he refused to visit the School, all the time I was there.
His upper-class rival, Alo, had a much more romantic story when he went into practice. Principal Clunie—and a “damn good man” as we say unofficially—was something of a prize winner himself. He started with the rank of tutor, and before he was through with it Australia gave him a gold medal for his work among native races. Well, if I unconsciously played favorites with Ravuki, Clunie was much inclined toward Alo, and had such faith in his ability that he gave him special favors in surgery. Alo got to be as good a surgeon as you could ask for anywhere.
He was so capable that the C.M.O. of Tonga let him do surgery there. When Alo was put in charge of the Haapai group, the medico of the Vavau group was much annoyed, for all his surgical work began going to Haapai. The young Practitioner had set eyes on a pretty girl of a noble Haapai family, and was in despair because his sweetheart’s parents objected to his humble lineage. All the traders and other Europeans were in sympathy with the Romeo and Juliet situation, and from one of the sympathizers Alo borrowed a sea-going launch and filled it with gas. This was on Sunday night when all good Christians were at church. Very conveniently the girl stepped out of church and into the boat. When her family came out to give chase they found that all the launches in the dock were out of commission. Somebody had drained off the gas and crippled the engines.
The job of selecting boys for our School was never an easy one. Different races and different environment had to be taken into consideration. In Fiji we advertised for candidates, and the competitive examinations included the three R’s, plus a certain knowledge of English. We had to compromise between the over-young and the over-old. Boys from fifteen to sixteen would graduate too young. Those of twenty had been out of school too long. In the matter of sending incompetents, I had to visit several island groups and lecture the Europeans on their duty to keep up the standard. This brought about the rigid tests we required, and with satisfactory results. Two visiting English medical professors pleased me by saying that our boys in daily recitation compared favorably with students of the same grade in the University of London’s Medical School.
The matter of habit and custom had to be attended to. We had to treat them all as equals, and strike some common denominator. The lads from the Solomon Islands and New Hebrides—before well educated half-castes came to us—had never eaten off a table or sat in a chair. Their milieu was the floor. To give them credit in the eyes of the sophisticated Polynesians we must teach them certain rudimentary table manners. The Samoan and Cook Island boys, on the other hand, often showed up at the Grand Pacific Hotel’s dances in tail coats and stiff shirts.
This was something of a situation, in the School’s first years. Our Polynesians weren’t quite at ease with their low-browed associates. Then, to their credit, they began to see what it was all about, and things straightened out to a generally loyal corps spirit. We saw the danger of over-Europeanizing them; for they must not return to their homes and be discontented with island ways. We always put more stress on cleanly, sanitary habits than “fussy fixin’s” like tablecloths. Some of our students who had been too Europeanized by New Zealand before they came did not turn out so well. They knew so much already that they saw no necessity to work for what they got. It was another case of the hare and the tortoise; or, more properly, the hare became the tortoise and loafed on the job.
There was one of our Cook Islanders whose scholastic record was so unusual that the Administration there wanted to send him to London to complete his education, until I seriously objected. Such a precedent would fill the School with jealous discontent. The Cook Islands, I found later, had spoiled the boy so badly that he acquired vicious habits. He had enough character to reform himself, but not until his Practitionership was taken away from him.
His was an exceptional case.
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My volunteer marriage bureau for Practitioners and native nurses became an unqualified success. In Fiji the quality of nurses was improving all the time, and before long an especially pretty one was a marked girl the minute she got her diploma. There have been many such marriages, and there would be still more if it were not for the native missionaries, who are cutting ahead of our boys. In Samoa, where the New Zealand system turns out Polynesian nurses who are sweet as sugar and smart as chain lightning, it is almost taken for granted that an N.M.P. will lead one to the altar, or make a brave try at it.