"Annual Report of the Boarding School for 1884"

Written by Dilger. At the beginning of the year a heathen boy died – although his quiet modest ways had impressed the missionaries - his heathen relatives asked the fetish the cause of his death, which was attributed to his being at school. At which there was an exodus of heathen schoolboys which however was checked and reversed after the missionaries had argued with them. At the inspection of the school by Müller in March it was decided that the 4th class should no longer receive monetary support, nor should any class receive clothes more than once in the year. The result was a revolt which expressed itself in a breakdown of relations between the housefather in the school and the pupils - they refused to work for their lesson, in handwork they (deliberately) set out to annoy him by their laziness, and if he punished nay of them they simply ran away. The 3 Kwahu pupils from the middle school in Kibi created more trouble on their return by claiming there was no point in learning, since it got you nowhere (the language suggests that the closure was permanent or at least that there was no immediate prospect of a reopening). Many of the pupils left the Abetifi school, and Dilger straight away closed it. However they returned to school within two days of Dilger's threatening to make them pay back the money they had received to pay for their board. In the last year some of these schoolboys were baptised - and some have come forward into the catechumenate since the beginning of 1885. The objective of the reduction of payments etc. was to pave the way for the starting of free schools. There are 5-6 pupils awaiting the opening of a free school in Bepong; the Obo school of course had to be closed; there is also a free school now in Abetifi itself with 14 pupils at the end of the year.

17.03.1885

17.03.1885

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