The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 1
School at Ovalau
School at Ovalau.
The return of the "John Wesley" was the signal for our departure, and we parted from our kind host and hostess with no small regret; and on the 9th of July, 1854, hailed the shores of Feejee with strangely mingled feelings. At Lakemba, we spent but a few hours, took up Messrs. Lyth and Polglase, and proceeded to Vewa, to attend the District-Meeting. And here our wanderings ended, for this has been our Station for the year, with Mr. Calvert: though we have paid short visits to Nandy and Bua on the Vanua-Levu, and the large and beautiful isle of Ovalau, where Mr. Binner, the schoolmaster, is located. He lives at Livuka, where the white men reside; and though they obstinately reject the truth, and choose to live after the dictates of their own wicked hearts, yet, among their wives and children, Mr. Binner is very useful. We spent a morning in his school; there were a hundred and ten children present, nearly all half-castes. The instruction is conveyed through the medium of Feejeean, (for that is their mother-tongue,) and evidently is an exercise for their intellectual faculties, and not a mere test of memory.