Ziesel is a subject named in General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943) by M. H. du Croo, in connection with the history of Atjeh and the governorship of H. N. A. Swart.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
From Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
He was also the father of volksonderwijs in the Indies — or rather, du Croo wrote, the man who made the village school financially possible. Confronted with the estimate that twenty thousand little schools would be needed to combat illiteracy on Java alone, at a cost of more than half the Indies budget, he entrusted Ziesel with a trial of simple schools, arguing: “in my grandfather’s day the master of the village school in the Netherlands was also sexton, bell-ringer, postman, barber, cupper and so forth. Education that was good enough at the beginning of the nineteenth century for Dutch villages is also sufficient to help us out of our difficulty for the present in the Javanese village… But above all: take hold of it and do not sit with your hands in your hair. Something is always better than nothing!”
From Het Pacificeerende Bestuurswerk 1908-1918
There was in the beginning a painful shortage of good teachers, as everywhere in the barely opened Buitengewesten. Building the little school was manageable: a simple wooden or bamboo building the population could put up without much trouble. But the teachers were another matter. Van Heutsz, “the father of this popular education, or better still, the man who made the village school financially possible,” solved the teacher question in his own pithy way, entrusting Ziesel with a trial of simple schools with the village schoolmaster of his grandfather’s day as model — “But above all: take hold of it and do not sit with your hands in your hair. Something is always better than nothing!”
From Volksonderwijs in Atjeh
Van Heutsz, “the father of this popular education, or better still, the man who made the village school financially possible,” solved the problem in his own pithy way. Twenty thousand little schools were reckoned necessary to combat illiteracy on Java alone, at a cost of more than half the Indies budget. Van Heutsz therefore charged Ziesel with a trial of simple schools, arguing: “in my grandfather’s day the master of the village school in the Netherlands was also sexton, bell-ringer, postman, barber, cupper and so forth. Education that was good enough at the beginning of the nineteenth century for Dutch villages is also sufficient to help us out of our difficulty for the present in the Javanese village. If need be, the children need learn to begin with no more than a little reading and writing and the four rules of arithmetic. For such a curriculum teachers can certainly be found. In that time the department of education can see to the training of teachers.”
See Also
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
- Het Pacificeerende Bestuurswerk 1908-1918
- Volksonderwijs in Atjeh
- H. N. A. Swart
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Atjeh
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), passim.