Thirty years in Madagascar

by Thomas T. Matthews

On August 5, 1890, the British government concluded a treaty with France in which, very unjustly as most people think—because he was giving away what did not belong to England, and granting what he had no right to grant—Lord Salisbury recognized a French protectorate over Madagascar. The French government consented to the following clause, which most of us knew was hardly worth the paper it was written on:—‘In Madagascar the missionaries of both countries shall enjoy complete protection. Religious toleration and liberty for all forms of worship shall be guaranteed.’ Immediately on the seizure of the island, that clause practically became a dead letter, as the Jesuits were let loose and allowed to work their own will for a time, until they overreached themselves, and had to be first checked and then repudiated.

During 1891 there was a slight religious movement in the capital. There were not ‘showers of blessing,’ but the dew of the Spirit descended, and the churches were quickened and refreshed. Perhaps more was made of it than should have been; but this was not much to be wondered at, seeing it was the first experience of the kind in the capital. There was a good deal of blossom, but not much fruit came of it, only what did come was genuine. Some of the best, most satisfactory, and most devoted of the younger Christian workers in the capital and neighbourhood to-day are among those who found their way into the Kingdom then. One lad was converted through reading a story in English, in a volume of the Herald of Mercy, which I had given to a friend of his, from whom he borrowed it. He went to the secretary of the Imèrina district committee, and confessed to having stolen two shillings from the normal school money, some years before, when I was in charge of the institution. He was a scholar there then. He pleaded for forgiveness, and returned the money fourfold! The secretary told him how glad he was to hear of his conversion, and to see the fruit of it in his confession and restitution.

Political difficulties began to arise, and a spirit of unrest spread among the people during 1893. The prime minister, deceived by those whose interests it served, was led to believe that his son and son-in-law had conspired against his life. They were tried and sentenced to death, but the French resident and others remonstrated so strongly against such a course, that the sentence was reduced to banishment for life. All these things affected the work, but still the consolidation of the best of the country churches, and the work in the village schools, made most satisfactory progress.

From the time of our settlement in the capital, I had felt that not nearly enough was being done for the girls and young women of Antanànarìvo, and that there was more than room for another high school for them in the neighbourhood of A-kànga; I had tried hard to persuade the Imèrina district committee to take the same view. The majority of the committee was with me, but such was the opposition from vested interests that the proposal had to be given up. While at home on furlough I had received help from friends for our work, and so on my return I built a small school in the A-kànga churchyard, and began, in a very humble way, a private high school for girls. We and our friends found eighty per cent. of the funds for the school for the first five years. We provided all the material for the sewing-classes there, and at the centres for the village schools, while our eldest daughter devoted herself, as a labour of love, for three years as it proved, to the work of the school. With much covert opposition, condemnation, and with very faint echoes of praise, or encouragement, in the end she made it what it became. The following sketch, written some years later, shows how this work prospered. It was written by Miss Matthews, who for some years superintended the work:—

‘Almost from the time of my father’s settlement in Antanànarìvo, in 1882, he had the idea that enough was not being done for the girls and young women of Àntanànarìvo, while so much was being done for the boys and the young men. He did not think that two high schools—the London Missionary Society Girls’ Central School and the Friends’ Girls’ High School—were enough for the girls and young women of a city of nearly a hundred thousand inhabitants. The London Missionary Society’s Central School supplied the wants of the centre of the capital, while the Friends’ supplied the needs of the north end of the capital; but there was really no proper provision for the needs of the south end of the capital, or for the west, south-west, and north-west sides of it.

‘When my father was at home on furlough in 1890 some kind friends gave him money to help him with his work, and with that, and a grant of fifty pounds which the directors made him for the purpose, on his return to Madagascar, in 1892, he built a schoolroom in the Ambàtonakànga yard. He soon saw that it would never be what he wished it to be without a European lady in charge of it. In 1894, as the time drew near for my mother’s return to Madagascar, it was arranged that I should return with her to assist her with her sewing-classes.

‘By the time we arrived at Madagascar father had conceived the idea of my taking charge of the girls’ school at Ambàtonakànga, and a few days after we arrived he took me to see it, and said, “There, my dear; there is a school for you to take charge of, and to work up.”

‘I was rather astonished, and said, “But I am not a teacher; I have had no training as a teacher.” Father said, “Neither am I; just buckle to and do your best”; so that is what I did!

‘There were twenty-six pupils when I took charge first, and we had two hundred and thirty when we left. Shortly after I took charge we had to leave for the coast owing to the French war, and the march of the French on the capital; and we were away three months. For nearly four years I superintended the school as a labour of love, taking up the work as something providentially laid upon me. I was splendidly assisted by my staff of Malagasy teachers, but most of all by E. Rabarijaona, the principal teacher, really the head master of the school, to whose untiring efforts we owe it, in the main, that the school has been for so long in such a satisfactory state. After the visit of the deputation, the foreign secretary and Alderman Evan Spicer, on their recommendation the Directors recognized my work in the school.’