Carnegie Library and the Grammar School

26.SEPT.08

Editor: Congratulations to the prestigious Boys’ Grammar School (BGS) which on Sunday celebrated the 100th year of its official presence. There is to be no discussion whatsoever about its contribution to national development. None whatsoever.{{more}}

We now live in a technological world where the pages are turned, if only to determine what existed in the past. Today’s past is 1908. That’s 100 years ago.

A visit to the capital Kingstown. Location. Carnegie Library. The plaque on the site of the Carnegie Library (now the Old Public Library) tells Vincentians that that Library (the Carnegie Library) was officially opened to Vincentians in that precise year (1908).

In 1908, St. Vincent was administered by our colonial dominators. Now, Andrew Carnegie was from a place in Scotland, and by dint of hard work and prudence he accumulated enormous wealth. Libraries throughout the Commonwealth and the USA represented his philanthropic contribution to mankind.

What needs to be examined today is the relationship between our colonial occupants and their son-of-the-soil (Andrew Carnegie). Surely that kit-kin (mother country) relationship surely has to be factored in.

Had there not been the Carnegie Library, whither the Boys’ Grammar School, the Girls’ High School and Education in general across the board.

S.M. QUAMMIE