School Birthday
written by Will
Third Letter
March 5, 2003
Inanda Seminary 134 years
Hello friends. This is Will writing. I want to give you a a bit of history and perspective of the Inanda Seminary where we are spending these five months. This past Saturday, we all celebrated the schools 134th birthday.
There was a chapel service with speeches and singing from the girls and an outstanding address from a graduate, an Old Girl, of Inanda Seminary. Afterwards we all marched outside the school grounds to the cemetery next to the school where Mary K. Edwards is buried. Some words were spoken at the grave site by Rev. Dludla followed by cake and juice and lunch at the school.
I want to include some of this womans speech because it tells an important part of the story of South Africa.
I want to dispense with the niceties such as I feel honored to be given this opportunity...no, I am glad to be back home, to me an old Inanda Girl, this is a home coming CHERISHED!
The story of Inanda Seminary is A STORY OF FIRSTS. It begins with a simple enough instruction given to a woman missionary of the American Board Mission in the United States to go to South Africa and start a school for Zulu girls. Now the idea in itself was novel and that school was destined to become a first of its kind for Africans and would remain so for a long time before the idea would be emulated in other areas.
...the story of Inanda Seminary is a story of BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS. According to social patterns on the time... it was given that the only career for Zulu girls was marriage. Fathers raised daughters so they could be married, provide lobola cattle for the brother to take a wife for himself and/or for the father to take another wife.
Girls who viewed this system as oppressive and distasteful would run away to Inanda Seminary where Mrs. Edwards reciprocated the girls faith in education by fighting hard, sometimes through the courts, to give them a safe haven and protect them when their irate, angry fathers came to fetch them back home and to their arranged marriages. Today we know that barriers against women exist in many spheres of life, but with education it becomes easier to meet these challenges head on and break barriers down.
...There is yet another dimension to the story of Inanda, a dimension that - had it gone another way - would surely have made a big difference to the way we are today in this chapel. That is the political dimension and resistance to repression. As the school entered modern times it also entered a world of politics when between 1948 and 1954 apartheid and Bantu education were introduced to our society in earnest. Mission schools were advised to commit to sell to the government and become state aided or sink.
But rather than sell Inanda Seminary to Verwoeds apartheid government, the church, which always the mother body, and she school refused and instead opted to give up much of the government subsidy in order to be able to continue giving quality education to African Girls. That was how in 1958 without regret, the school became a private unaided school. Many teachers who taught at Inanda Seminary after that, did it first and for most as a labour of love rather than earn a good salary.
Here is how the then associate principal, Miss Wood, justified that stand:
...We feel that our decision to carry on without government aid was a wise
one and right one...it has given us an opportunity to maintain standards
and ideals we believe in:
1. A continuing of christian concern for African Youth
2. Freedom in the choice of staff
3. Natural, friendly relations between races
4. Training in christian service and leadership among students
5. More opportunities to develop African women of strong character, moral courage,
enlightened christian faith and personal dedication to the kingdom of God.
...Mrs. Edwards died on September 23, 1927 at the age of 97. Almost sixty years since the opening if Inanda Seminary in 1868. At her request, she was buried in a plain wood coffin like most of her native christian friends. She had wished that there would be no tombstone at her grave, but her old girls decided each to bring a stone from her home to be a monument...
Now what remains for me to say is: Happy 134th Birthday, Inanda Seminary."
This is Will writing again. Its March 4th and as I sit with Cheryl and Jim Smejas iBook computer (thanks you guys), I can look out from Stanwood Cottage built in 1904. The students are on break and are walking by the window - chatting, laughing (theyre supposed to be speaking english during the academic day, but I hear lots of Zulu).
Much needs to be done here in South Africa. What was the figure I heard, 17% of the working population will have died by the end of the decade - due to aids. Much leadership will be needed. These girls have been given an opportunity to help fill this crying need. Thank you Mah Edwards (a term of respect and endearment), thank you all who followed her. May we all do our part to help our sisters and brothers, wherever we are on Gods planet. amen
