SIR AND EDUCATION IN BRITISH MALAY A, 1874-1904

Peter Wicks

Shortly following his retirement in 1904, after them for the lives they will probably have to lead," more than three decades in the Malayan civil and also that "rightly or wrongly, the Malay service, Frank Swettenham wrote the book Brilislr administrators have tried to avoid a system likely Mrrlayrr, a highly personal account of the British to create an imitation, however remote, of the colonisation of the between occasionally startling, sometimes grotesque, and 1874 and 1904.1 Only 2 1h pages of the book-out often pathetic product of the British Indian of some 345 pages-were devoted to the topic of schools,"s where the medium of post-elementary formal education. It is not surprising, then, that at formal education was English. least one recent scholar has suggested that These tart and relatively brief comments indicate Swettenham did not place a high priority upon the 11 01 that Swettenham was unconcerned with formal social dimensions of British colonial policy such as educational development in , but formal education during his illustrious Malayan rather that he had a distinctive, toughly-conceived career.2 At first glance, the scant attention which approach towards educational issues. To a later Swettenham gave to education in his book twentieth-century Western eye, this approach may furnishes little evidence to challenge this scholarly well appear profoundly conservative, even assessment. For the most part, Swettenham fossilizing, and destined to retard the progress of confined himself to a brief, approbatory overview its recipients towards modernity. In the eyes of its of the limited state of formal educational provision late nineteenth-century proponents such as in the Federated Malay States at the end of the Swettenham, however, the approach was at once - nineteenth century, concentrating on the Malay well-intentioned and politically astute, economical vernacular school system. However, a closer and cautious, and grounded in what Swettenham reading of the totality of Swettenham's remarks himself liked to call "that special sympathy and suggests the need for a more complex assessment consideration for the ."6 of his educational position. For Swettenham went This article will trace the development of on to summarize what he perceived to be that Swettenham's thought and action in the sphere of rationale underlying British educational policies. formal education in the Federated Malay States. A A system of elementary Malay education in the reappraisal of Swettenham's Malayan career should vernacular was preferred, Swettenham suggested, cast valuable light upon the early years of British because the was the fingurr frrrrrrn of Malaya, and upon the strengths and failings of its maritime .J He did not mention that educational system. whatever the popular status of Malay, the language of government and administration in The Residents and Their System British Malaya was English; but the omission is Frank Athelstane Swettenham was one of twelve significant in that it suggests the parameters of Englishmen who were successively appointed as educational vision in a colonial environment. We Residents to the Malay States of , , are also told that the principal value of school Negri Sembilan and between 1874 and attendance for the Malay was "to teach him habits 1896, and who fashioned the remarkably effective of order, punctuality, and obedience."~ Even more political amalgam of dt jure Malay sultanates and significant, though, were Swettenham's assertions de f11cto British administration which became known that "the Government has not aimed at educating as the Residential System. In fact, the "System" the children of any class or nationality to unfit evolved through a kind of trial-and-error experi-

27 ence, for the early Residents had no clear rules to Resident manifested the inherent dichotomy of guide them. "Nothing with any pretensions to a British colonial policy in Malaya more acutely and system had ever been formulated," Swettenham with greater self-assuredness than Frank was wrily to note later.7 Indeed, leading Malays Swettenham. delighted in telling Swettenham that he and his colleagues had been thrown out as bait by the Swettenham's Early Malayan Career (1871-1882) British Government. "If the Malay chiefs swal­ The rugged son of a wealthy English family, Frank lowed the bait, they would find themselves on the Swettenham was 20 years old when he arrived in British hook; of course, no one would worry about in January, 1871, to begin his profes­ the bait."11 That so many of the Malay rulers did sional career as a cadet in the Straits Civil Service. swallow the bait was testimony to the personal He passed the strict Malay Interpreters' examina· qualities and diplomatic skills of the early tion some fifteen months after his arrival in the Residents, several of whom were outstanding Colony. Between 1872 and 1874, Swettenham paid exemplars of the "gentleman ideal" of nineteenth­ several official visits to the western Malay States, century British government and public administra­ and in August, 1874, as part of the British tion. 9 Their families graced the upper levels of "Forward Movement" on to the Peninsula, he was English society, and they had been educated in the posted to "assist" the ruler of Selangor, Sultan classical tradition at public schools (or enjoyed Abdul Samad. Within two months, the Sultan private tuition). The ''gentleman ideal" to which wrote to Straits Governor, Sir Andrew Clarke, they subscribed involved a distinctive style of life saying of Swettenham that: which married social position with public service, privilege with duty, loyalty with honour, and outer He is very clever; he is also very clever in the propriety with inner virtue. Ruling with "an customs of Malay government and he is very clever effortless grace, a casual assurance, the light touch at gaining the hearts of Rajas with soft words, in command,"10 they saw themselves as a body of delicate and sweet, so that all men rejoice in him as in the perfume of an open flower.14 disinterested governors, acting exclusively in the best interests of the Malay States, interests they Whilst Assistant Resident in Selangor, Swettenham defined in terms of public order, social harmony, travelled extensively around the state by boat, by and change by gradual adjustment rather than by elephant, and on foot, examining the resources of dynamic intervention. "The Residential System," the land, its villages and people, its rivers, mines, affirmed a youthful Swettenham in 1875, "will and plantations. Most of the time he was exclu­ secure safety to life and property, will put a stop to sively in the company of Malays, and so acquired piracy, and will by its influence over the Rajahs give a comprehensive knowledge of the territory and its even justice and a collection of legitimate and inhabitants. In 1876, he returned to Singapore to unoppressive taxes."11 But this affirmation was to take up the position of Assistant Colonial tell only part of the story. Secretary for Native States, and during the next Whatever the lofty self-image of the officials-on­ five years, he dealt with all the official correspon­ the-spot, in the viewpoint of a now aggressively dence to and from the Protected Malay States. Not imperialistic government in London, political surprisingly, the Straits' administration had come stability and ordered administration of a Western­ to regard Swettenham as tire expert on Malay type were merely necessary preconditions for the affairs. The new Straits Governor, Sir Frederick rapid economic development of Malaya's rich Weld, frequently sang his praises to London, and natural resources, a goal to be achieved by a recent historians have re-echoed Weld's favourable profitable combination of British capital and evaluation.ts non-Malay labour. None of the Residents Three elements in particular guided Swetten­ themselves ever gave official indication that they ham's thought and action as a colonial official. disputed the desirability of this long-term goal. First, like Governor Weld, he was a consistent Instead, they worked hard, long, lonely years to admirer of the pioneer of Britain's Malayan empire, achieve it. The dilemmas of a colonial government Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, whom Swettenham "bound to respect tradition, yet intent on saw as utterly devoted "to the prestige, the power, revolutionizing the economy and administration,"12 and the trade of in the ."1° were to remain unresolved throughout the entire Swettenham shared this devotion and perceived period of British Malaya, and have been viewed by himself as helping to fulfill Raffles' dream. Second, later historians as dichotomous.13 No other Swettenham firmly believed that the welfare of

28 Malaya's inhabitants would be improved by western Malay states, the task of developing material progress and administrative order, and formal educational systems was impeded by that with British intervention had come "an fundamental Malay indifference, by lack of entirely new order of things"t7 in the Malay adequate financial support, and by the absence of States. Third, and seemingly with less consistency, qualified educational personnel. From 1874 to Swettenham evinced an affection for the tradi­ 1890, school construction and attendance were left tional Malay way of life which bordered at times to the responsibility of individual Residents and on the romantic and the antiquarian. As he later district officers. Selangor in 1882 had only one wrote in a literary sketch appropriately entitled government Malay school. Yet individual British "The Love Philtre": administrators did give the question of public instruction a considerable amount of attention and Of Eastern places the had special careful thought. attractions for me .. .. It is difficult to say exactly wherein lies the spell, but there are beauties of Shortly after his arrival in the state, Swetten­ scenery, the undoubted charm of the people (as ham addressed a letter to Straits Governor Weld distinguished from other Easterns), and the sense on the subject of formal education, recommending of mystery, of exclusiveness, of unspoilt nature that "the best means of initiating an educational and undescribed life, that arouses a new interest scheme" was to concentrate on the provision of a in the wearied children of the West.1" free elementary education for the Malay com­ munity in the vernacular medium and through a His praise of the "old" Malay world had an network of rural village schools.20 Other issues aesthetic basis, too: such as the educational needs of Chinese immi­ It is difficult to imagine any state of human ex i ~­ grant children and the desirability or otherwise of tence more typical of perfect peace, of idyllic sim­ English-medium instruction could, he suggested, be plicity. of warmth and colour. and the plenty left to a later date. bestowed by a super-abundantly-fruitful Nature, There were several reasons for Swettenham's than that presented by a Malay riverine hamlet, choice of educational priority. First, he believed when the observer has time and inclination to that the British had a moral obligation as the note the details of the picture. It is p.1inted by Malays' "Protectors," as well as the Malays' nature, true to life, in perfect proportion, full of "partners in government," to cater for their atmosphere, of light and shade, of strikin~ realities educational wants first. As early as July 1875, he and subtle suggestions; and it satisfies the Mt is tic sense in a way that seems peculiar to many ph.1ses had unflinchingly affirmed that "the Malays look of Eastern scenery.1° upon the British Government as their father-as one who can confer upon them by just government All three elements of Swettenham's thought­ all those things which they lack under Malay rule British interest, material progress, and pro-Malay whilst holding complete power to enforce sentiment- were reflected in his administrative obedience and punish wrong."2 1 This paternalistic actions after his first substantive appointment as quality in Swettenham's approach to the Malays British Resident in Selangor in 1882. During this was deep and enduring. Residency, Swettenham moved promptly and Moreover, as a result of his extensive expe­ energetically to convert Selangor into a model riences as explorer, interpreter and administrator, colonial state by overhauling the administrative Swettenham believed that he knew "the real structure, replanning the shabby Chinese town of Malay"H and his strengths and weaknesses, and into a modern urban centre, probably knew them better than anyone else. Here opening a railway from Kuala Lumpur to Klang, Swettenham shared the fashionable Victorian and doubling the state revenues within a few intellectual tenet that it was possible and desirable years. If these changes accurately mirrored his to make binding generalizations about ethnic preoccupations with economic growth and groups as products of their distinctive heredity and administrative efficiency, it was in the sphere of environment. Swettenham had none of the later formal educational provision that Swettenham's twentieth-century inhibitions about stereotyping rather different attitudes towards the Malay "national characters." On the contrary, he believed community were most manifest. that it was on the basis of generalizations about the distinctive character of ethnic groups that Education in Selangor (1882-1889) sound colonial policies could be formulated. Ideally, During the early years of British rule in the such knowledge was dependent upon intimate

29 personal contact, observation, and interest. cultural and economic grounds.27 Consequently, any workable modern educational system would To begin to understand the Malay [he wrote] you have to make allowance for these fears. On the must live in his country, speak his language, re­ other hand, Swettenham was increasingly spect his faith, be interested in his interests, humour his prejudices, sympathise with him in conscious of the political and social dangers that trouble, and share his pleasures and possibly his might be posed to British colonial rule by the risks. Only thus can you hope to understand the creation of an English-educated elite, a problem on inner man, and this knowledge can therefore only which he was to elaborate more fully when he come to those who have the opportunity and use moved to the Residency of Perak. it ... So far the means of studying Malays in their In the meanwhile, Swettenham pursued the task own country have fallen to few Europeans, and a of erecting a Malay vernacular school system in very small proportion have shown an inclination Selangor with his now customary vigour and to get to the hearts of the people.H determination. Within a year of his taking over the Much of Swettenham's reflective writing is filled Residency, the number of Malay schools in with blunt, dogmatic assertions about particular Selangor had increased from one to six, and the Malay qualities, and there is room here only for a number of pupils on the Register from a handful short list of them. According to Swettenham, the to 200, with an average daily attendance of 167.28 "real Malay": The curriculum of these village schools did not 1. "above all things ... is conservative ... proud develop beyond a four-year elementary education of his country and his people, vener.1tes his focussing on the "Three Rs," practical work in ancient customs and traditions, fears his R.1jahs, vegetable plots, and the inculcation of habits of and has a proper respect for constituted cleanliness, tidiness and punctuality. The typical authority. school consisted of one or two classrooms in 2. "looks askance on all innovations, and will resist makeshift premises and minimal instructional aids. their sudden introduction ... The government provided some textbooks and 3. "is lazy to a degree ... without method or order primers, principally translations of basic English of any kind, knows no regularity .. . works on geography, natural science, hygiene and 4. "is courteous and expects courtesy in return ... arithmetic. Not surprisingly, the nature of these 5. "is extremely particular about questions of rank early government schools has been harshly birth . i~ and 0 6. "is loyal, for loyalty is part of his creed. He is assessed by later scholars.z In fairness, though, it hospitable, generous, extravagant, a gambler, must be recognized that Swettenham and his a coxcomb."is Residential colleagues had continually to contend Swettenham also conceded that "if you let him with problems of teacher shortage, higher take his own time he can produce most beautiful governmental disinterest, parental distrust, and and artistic things . .. if he were given the erratic attendance. These problems tended to defy conditions which appeal to him, he would rise gentlemanly administrative solutions, and again to the height of his past achievements."i0 Swettenham was prominent amongst those Formal education would be one of those conditions Malayan officials who, during the 1880s, urged the of Malay "regeneration" (one of Swettenham's appointment of a full-time, professional Inspector favourite phrases), but it had to be the sort of of Schools for the Protected Malay States. education that would accommodate the "admirable" However, even when Mr. H.B. Collinge assumed Malay characteristics of conservatism, class­ this post in 1890 and addressed himself to consciousness, courtesy, loyalty and a rural problems of school attendance and management, lifestyle, whilst eradicating the "undesirable" Malay responsibility for broad educational policy remained characteristics of laziness and unreliability. substantially with the Residents in their various states. There were two other ~actors that appear to have influenced Swettenham's approach to formal education for the Malays. One of them was Education in Perak (1889-1896) pragmatism. On the basis of past experience in the Swettenham succeeded as Resident of , Swettenham and other British Perak in June 1889, and thus became the most officials thought that elementary vernacular senior of the British Residents in Malaya as well as education was the form most likely to appeal to the most influential and vocal of colonial policy­ rural Muslim-Malay parents who were extremely makers. In Perak, he found only eleven Malay wary of British-sponsored schools on religious, vernacular schools, the same number as in

30 Selangor, even though Perak had four times not think it is at all advisable to give the children of Selangor's Malay population. Again, Swettenham an agricultural population an indifferent knowl­ moved quickly to correct the anomaly. Within edge of a langu.age that to all but the very few three years, annual educational expenditure in would only unfit them for the duties of life and Perak rose from $1,256 to $10,034 (figures in make them discontented with anything like manual Straits currency: $8 equals one English pound). labour.JJ The number of Malay schools in the same period Because of Swettenham's senior position and increased from 11 in 1889 to 51 in 1891, and the forceful personality, this cautious view prevailed. number of pupils on the Register from 500 to On the one hand, Swettenham believed that 2,780.30 By 1891, most of the government Malay instruction in English or "higher education" of any schools on the Peninsula, and most of the pupils kind could produce a group of politically active attending them, were in Perak. As early as 1890, indigenous malcontents who might wish to rid Swettenham sought to ease the problem of erratic Malaya of the British. As he reiterated in 1894, school attendance by allowing Islamic teachers to "whilst we teach children to read and write and hold special classes in the government schools count in their own language ... we are safe."J4 On during the afternoon, a move which served to the other hand, Swettenham also believed that to increase the popularity of the schools amongst teach English unrestrictedly in a Malayan 1campo11g dwellers and obviated the need for environment would be to invite frustration and compulsory attendance laws. Under Swettenham's failure for both teacher and pupil. He did not guidance, Perak pioneered modern Malay female dispute the efforts by the Reverend F.W. Haines in education with the opening of two girls' schools in Selangor to provide English-medium instruction 1890, and another two in 1891. for those sons of the traditional Malay aristocracy However, the year 1891 proved to be a who wished to participate in the lower levels of the watershed in Swettenham's approach to formal colonial bureaucracy. For the vast bulk of the educational provision, for after that year, his Malays, however, the only further education that enthusiasm for educational innovation visibly Swettenham was prepared to make freely available waned. Essentially, the paternalist and romantic in was technical or teacher training. Swettenham was convinced that the state of Throughout the 1890s, Swettenham's policies educational provision as had been achieved in were realized in practice when most of the Malay Perak by 1891 was sufficient at that stage of Malay boys who passed through the vernacular school development, and for the forseeable future. As he system returned to their familiar peasant pursuits. wrote later: For example, a survey of "past pupils of Malay schools" conducted in Perak in 1896 found that Malays do enough work to satisfy their needs, and 2,070 of them had become "padi planters or nature is so bountiful that that is very little. They gardeners," while only 118 had become clerks and do not strive for riches, but they are probably as orderlies, and 59 had become schoolteachers.JS As happy and contented as other people who regard life differently, and it is questionable whether we long as Swettenham remained in Malaya, as first should deserve their thanks if we could teach them Resident-General of the Federated Malay States the tireless energy, the self-denying frugality of from 1896 to 1901, and as Governor of the Straits the Chinese. And for wh;it?J• Settlements from 1901 to 1904, any moves to He also reflected that "time will not change the foster English-medium instruction among the Malay character," nor should formal education Malays were stringently restricted, and the attempt to do so too quickly.J2 education of Chinese and Indian immigrants There was a more specific reason for regarding continued to be regarded as the private preserve of 1891 as a crucial year in Swettenham's educational the leaders of those communities, or of Christian record. For it was in 1891 that Swettenham felt missions. Swettenham recognised and praised the prompted to rebut strongly and publicly those few Chinese contribution to Malaya's economic amongst his British colleagues who were pushing development, but like most of his British adminis­ for wider opportunities for Malays to enjoy trative colleagues, he perceived the Chinese as English-medium instruction. On 5th May, 1891, fundamentally alien, transient, and potentially Swettenham wrote in his Perak Annual Report: disloyal "birds of passage."J6 The one danger to be guarded against is an attempt to teach English indiscriminately. It would not be The Heritage of Swettenham taught well except in ii very few schools, and I do By the first decade of the twentieth century, a

31 rudimentary system of government Malay J5wettenham, op fll ., p. 2.57. vernacular schools was firmly ensconced in the 4lb1.I • p. 258. 'lliill , pp. 258· 259. Federated Malay States. Swettenham's adminis­ •lbiil • p . 342. trative skills, experience, knowledge, and sheer 11/1111 • p . 21 7. strength of personality had enabled him to play an &l/1i.1 . p 219. especially crucial role in formulating the nature of •Rupert H. Wilkinson "The Gentlemen Ideal and the this school programme, within the very flexible Maintenance of a Political Elite," in PW. Musgrave, ed., Sot1olo~y . History and Edurnhon, London. Methuen, 1970, structure of the Residential "System." That he was pp 126-142 a founder of modern Malay education is beyond 1011,M dispute, even if the kind of foundations he laid 11Memorandum by Frank A. Swettenham, dated July 1875, and remains a matter of controversy. included as Appendix 1 in Peter L. Burns and C.D. Cowan, eds., Sir FrnnJ.: Su>tllrnhnrn 's M11/nynn Journals, 18 74 -1876, Kuala For a reappraisal of Frank Swettenham's thought Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 333. and action on educational issues during his 12Emily Sadka. Tht Proltcltd MnlaySl11lt5 , 18 74 -1895, Kuala Malayan career must conclude on a note of Lumpur· University Press, 1968, p. 204. paradox. "When the features of the country 1Jfbid., pp 208-210 Also, William R. Roff, Thr Origins of Mnlny change," he wrote in retirement, "the features of Nnriormlism, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967, p. 12. uQuoted in Roff, Introduction to Storrts nn1l Sltlthrs, p. xiii. the people, their language, manner, religion, and "See Rex Stevenson. Cultivators mul Adm1nislrnlors British even their colour, will probably undergo as great a Erlurntionnl Polin1 Touiar1ls rlir Malays. 1815-1906, Kuala Lumpur: change."J7 No British official did more to promote Oxford University Press. 1975, p. 29; also, Eunice Thio, British changes in the features of the Malayan country­ Poliry m rht Ma/nu Ptt1insu/a, 1/1110· 1910, Vol. 1, Singapore: University of Malaya Press, 1969, p. xvi. side. Swettenham's Malayan career was devoted to l•Swetlenham, op. tir., p. 3 . the forthright promotion of British colonial rule, to 1?Roff, or. (If • p 204, administrative order and efficiency, to rapid 1s11ti1I., pp. 189·190 economic growth and mechanical innovation, and 1•/bid • p 206. to the encouragement of industrious immigrant 20Stevenson, or. rrl, p. 29. 21Memorandum by Swettenham, p. 335. labour for material ends. Swettenham never really 11Roff, op. ul., p. 16. doubted the purpose and worth of British rule in 1'/b1d. Malaya. He was not an introspective or self­ HQuotation taken from ibid., pp. 17· 18. recriminating man like his colleague, Hugh uswettenham, op. cit .. 140. 2•lhi'd • p 138. Clifford.J5 Instead, Swettenham liked to assert that 21For a fuller discussion of Malay responses, see Peter Wicks. British rule had given to the Malay community "an "Education, Colonialism, and a Plural Society: The independence, a happiness, and a prosperity which Development of Formal Education in West , 1786· they never knew before.''J9 Yet few of the other 1909," unpublished M.Ed. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1978 British officials possessed a more intimate or 2&Stevenson, op. cit., p 43. 2•Sadka, op. cit .. p. 293; Roff, or. rrl .. pp. 27·28. comprehensive knowledge of the "old" Malay JoStevenson, op. cit., p. 43. world than Swettenham, or tried so hard to J1Swettenham, op. cir., p. 305. preserve its "best" features through a formal J2lbu1. educational system. JJQuoted in Philip Loh Fook Seng, Swls of SrrnrnlJsm Bnl1sh However paradoxical and dichotomous his Edurnlronal Policy in Malaya, 11174 - 1940, Kuala Lumpur; Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 15. Malayan career appears in retrospect, Swettenham "llml., p. 16. never wavered in his conviction that the Malays " Stevenson, op. cit., p. 73; Loh, 01•. ell., p. 17. were "the people of the country," or that their J•Swettenham, op. cir., pp. 231·233. Also, Victor Purcell, Tht distinctive cultural integrity should be preserved. Mtmoirs of n M11laynn O(fici11/, London: Cassell, 1965, p. 97. J?Roff, op. cil .. p. 208. A future generation of Malay nationalist leaders J&Cf. William R. Roff, ed. Storrrs l•y Sir , Kuala were to reaffirm this part of Swettenham's Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1966 Also, Peter Wicks, heritage, even if they regarded his image of the Introduction to Hug/i Clif(or11's /ournnl of Hrs Mission lo Pnhnng "real Malay" as a restrictive stereotype. in 1887. Southeast Asia Working Paper Number 10, University of Hawaii, 1978. l ~wettenham . or. cir., p. 305. Footnotes

•Sir Frank Swettenham. Brilrsh Mnlity.t, rev. ed., London· John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1929. Ptltr Wicks rrcm•r1l lus M11sltr's 1lrgrtt from lhr Drpnrlmtnl of E1lurnlional iWilliam R. Roff. Introduction to Storits and 51.:rtrhu by Sir frnnl: Fou ndnt1ons '" 19 7 ,~ . Ht 1s cunmr/v Jl ss1 ~ l11nl Drnn of A cndrmic SrrI'ictS , Swtllrnham, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, Darlin.~ Doums lnslrlulr of A.lt•nncrd E1lllrnrion. Toou•ooml111 . llustrn/111. Hr 1967. p. xv. h11s puhlish11/ rwo booh on 5011rh111sl Asin nn1l urrrnl nrtrclt5

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