AN ARGENTINE RUGBY
By REV. E. E. A. HERIZ-SMITH
IF you were to pay a visit to the City Hotel in Buenos Aires one evening in any April you would find a large dinner-party being held, at which there would be anything from too to 200 guests, and the guests of honour would possibly be the British Ambassador ' and a prominent Argentine Minister. The toast of the evening, enthusiastically drunk, would be " St. George's College." Here is to be found visible and audible proof of a great achievement, started and brought, to triumphant success by a man of far-reaching vision, high Christian character and unbounded enthusiasm.
At the close of the last century a young priest, the Rev. J. T. Stevenson, was appointed Chaplain of the English Church at Quilmes, a town zo kilometres from Buenos Aires. He found that the work was not nearly strenuous enough, and he conceived the idea of starting a school for British and American boys, to meet the need of those who were unable to 'afford to send their sons home for their schooling. He started with six boys at a country house beautifully situated in lovely grounds on the outskirts of the town and a mile from the River Plate. Taking as the motto of the school Vestigia nulla retrorsum, he literally fulfilled its promise. By the time that I became headmaster in 1936 the original Jtouse had expanded (rather haphazardly, it must be admitted) to include dormitories, class-rooms, an assembly hall, a library, a self-contained laundry, spacious playing-fields, a pavilion, a gymnasium, tennis- courts, a lovely open-air swimming-pool, a well-appointed sanatorium, and, above all, a beautiful chapel surrounded by palm trees and eucalyptus trees.
As the numbers grew, the need for a Preparatory School be- came urgent, and so, at the further end of the field, a really magnificent school was built, far better designed than any Preparatory School which I have come across in England. When I was appointed the numbers were over zoo, but could obviously be many more if there were accommodation for them. So the Governors were able to rent a large Children's Home next door, which belonged to the Buenos Aires Tramway Company, and this was converted into a Middle School, the halfway house for boys as they moved up from the Preparatory School into the Senior School. The boys in the three schools number now well over 30o, and come from as far afield as the wind-swept sheep-ranches of Patagonia in the far south and Pernambuco in northernmost Brazil ; over the Andes from Santiago and Valparaiso, from Mendoza at the foot of the Andes, from the hill country of Cordoba, from the vast pampas of Central Argentina and from Paraguay and Uruguay. The school, called St. George's College, has had as its aim from the beginning the establishment in the Argentine of a school for English-speaking boys run on the lines of a British Public School, and the result has been truly remarkable. Nowhere in England could you find a more enthusiastic Old Boys' Society, whose moral and financial support has done wonders in advancing the efficiency of the school. The Old Georgian Rugby XV has a great reputation, and was actually the only tears.' to cross the line of the English team which came out on tour in 1938. The Board of Governors, with the exception of the chairman, who is a prominent business man, was composed entirely of Old Georgians, though its constitution has recently been enlarged.
There are two terms of 17 weeks each, with a long vacation in the hot weather from December lath to March ist, and a month's holiday in July. This is rather trying for all concerned, especially when the last fortnight of the second term arrives with all the end- of-term activities, including school certificate, prize-giving and the annual Gilbert and Sullivan play, in weather so hot that it is difficult to do anything, and every corner swarms with vicious mosquitos.
The effort to inculcate Public School ideas of discipline and behaviour was, naturally, an uphill job, as home conditions of boys in Argentina are so utterly different from those of English boys. They either came from the free-and-easy open-air life of the estancia or from the rather hot-house, aimless life of the city. Prevailing ideas of straightforward dealing and obedience to authority are not as high as in England, and the outlook of boys born and brought up in that atmosphere is bound to be affected by it. It was precisely to counteract these tendencies that the Canon started the school, and he had an astonishing success. The love and respect which he won from all the boys who went through his hands was de- monstrated at his death in 1938. His body lay in state in St. John's Pro-Cathedral in the city from the evening before the funeral, and there was an incessant and ever-changing guard of honour standing four-square by his coffin, composed of Old Georgians, all through the hours of the night until it o'clock next morning. Every year on the anniversary of his death there is a solemn pilgrimage to his grave in the cemetery outside Quilmes.
There are many stories in circulation about him : some are amusing anecdotes connected with his refusal to learn Spanish, with conse- quent absurdities such as the occasion when he telephoned to order a taxi at 12 o'clock, and 12 taxis turned up at 1 o'clock, and another when he took three boys into Harrods to give them ices and 4sked the waiter for " Tres Frigorifitos." Like Spooner,- many such stories were foisted upon him for which he certainly was not responsible. But, apart from these stories, he is always remembered with affection and respect, and many instances are told of his kind- ness and generosity. He was a very sincere 'Christian with a deep love for his chapel ; the only criticism he incurred was that he was early Victorian in his strict Sabbatarianism, but this was due to his intense desire to counteract the secularisation of the Argentine Sunday.
There have been many ,ticklish problems connected with our relations with the National Government and its admirable educational system, but they have been progressively solved by goodtvill on both sides and the relations between the College and the Minister of Education are now excellent.* A certain number of purely Spanish periods are obligatory for all boys, and many belong to the special classes which take the yearly examinations which lead up to entrance into the Universities. Finally, the greatest tribute that can be paid to this interesting justification of the public school system when transplanted into foreign soil is the fact that up to date 221 Old Georgians are on active service, of whom twelve have died, six are missing and four are prisoners of war.
* Some years ago, in the House of Deputies, one of the members described St. George's as a corner of the British Empire on Argentine soil.
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