"Sitzler's Report in the Begoro Middle School and the Kibi School for the Year 1887"

The Middle-School suffered a three-week holiday immediately after the riots of February. The soholars returned in rather a rebellious spirit - Sitzler reckons because two holidays close together had reminded them that idleness is rather nice. Then when the force under Captains Brenan and Lethbridge arrived and it seemed there might be fighting the scholars again asked to be allowed to go away under their own auspices to Akwapim, since they feared that if war came it might take the form of guerilla attacks on Christians. Sitzer however kept them at work threatening them with dismissal if they did go away. The Middle School started the year with 18 pupils. Two were dismissed early in the year. Three graduated at the end of the school year, two of whom sent to the Pastor's Seminary at Akropong, while the third is still living in the heathen town in Begoro. They received 4 new pupils. A very gifted pupil had to be dismissed in the latter part of the year for being pledged to marry a heathen girl - all the local people believed he had ‘fallen’ also. However they made arrangements for him to attend the school privately so that they will be a position to take him back easily if circumstances alter. Another disappointment was John Ayebinim who was warned that laziness would keep him out of Akropong, but he resolved to be lazy, asked for a reference so that he could go to the coast and work for a trader, and when he was refused this (Mohr told him he would go under bodily and physically on the Coast) - has simp1y gone to live in Begoro town. He also communicates the biography of Opuni, a slave child, graduate of the Kibi School, who in 1883 had joined the Middle School, but was so little gifted that he had been dismissed, eventually came to the Begoro Mission House as a servant. His health and mental powers deteriorated fast, however, and he died on Christmas evening 1887. The Kibi School was gradually gathered together in Begoro, reaching 20 pupils - half the size of the earlier school. Heathen parents, of course, became more unwilling to see their sons in school. They ended the year with 28. The Kibi School will be returned to Kibi now that the community is back in residence. He was pleased to learn, when Imm. Boakye's son Agyei was seriously ill in Akropong, the Kibi School pupils asked for him to be remembered in their prayer hour by the teacher who was leading the prayers. (There is a table of information on the pupils at the end of the report.)

26.01.1888

26.01.1888

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