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Dr. G.E.D. Lewis ran the V.I. like a tight ship and
was a very strict in ensuring that the staff, too, not only worked
hard but followed his instructions to the letter. One day I was in
One of the Senior Assistant's many duties was to
prepare the teaching master timetable at the beginning of the year.
Each teacher's class periods and free periods would be noted on a
Before the Second World War a typical picture of the teacher was that of a man with a serious face carrying a long cane in his hand. This was because in every classroom there was always a cane, usually on the teacher's table or hanging somewhere in the classroom. This cane formed an important part of his various "teaching aids", especially in the primary school. However, in the secondary school, this type of teaching aid was not often seen. This was not because the teacher has lost faith in the belief "Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child" but because he had found a replacement..... The Victorian (1936): Late to school meant a few strokes from Mr F L Shaw's cane 
...the human PALM! This was more convenient. There were also teachers in the primary school who used the palm but practice was confined generally only to the male teachers. The Second World War wrought numerous changes to the world, and one of the changes was the belief that human beings must behave in more civilized ways. Nevertheless, the practice of using the cane on pupils
or that of slapping students still continued. Perhaps it is difficult to
change habits, especially bad ones! It could also be because, during the
You might be curious to know whether I was ever slapped
by a Japanese soldier. No, never. Why? I don't know. With so many teachers
slapping and caning their pupils, was I ever slapped or caned by any of
Was this practice of the teacher slapping or caning of pupils by the class teacher an official policy of the education authorities at that time? Well, again, I must say that I do not know. However, from the fact that it was a common practice among the majority(?) of the teachers at that time, and the fact that such practice was known by the public, it can be concluded that even if it was not a policy (official or otherwise) the practice was accepted by all. With the advent of Merdeka on 31st August 1957, this country had for the first time, a national policy on education. Teachers, who are the key to the success or failure of the education system, were now made aware of their role and responsibilities towards their pupils. In the case of discipline in schools, the Ministry of Education issued a set of rules detailing how corporal punishment was to be carried by the school. The rules stated:- (i) No female pupil/student can be caned, Thus, the ordinary classroom teacher was now prohibited from imposing any form of corporal punishment. He had to end his long practice of slapping, knocking heads, or even pinching (mild or hard) the pupil. It cannot be denied that, with any rule or law, there would be people/teachers who would break or flout it. There were some teachers who devised ways and means to circumscribe
this rule, and among them was one V.I. mathematics teacher in the lower classes.
In his time he used to be considered as one of the two "real terrors"
How did he achieve this? I only uncovered his secret after some discreet investigation. It seems that he had devised a system of launching "flying missiles." This meant that when he was at the board teaching, if he noticed a student not paying attention or up to some mischief, he would immediately hurl a duster or a piece of chalk at that particular student. He was apparently such an expert that he never missed his target! What if he was not near the blackboard? I was told that once, when he was in the middle of the classroom, he spotted a pupil misbehaving. He immediately grabbed hold of a box of geometrical instruments and flung it at that boy. Unfortunately, when this box hit the boy on the forehead, the lid flew open, a pair of dividers flew out, hit the boy's forehead and stuck there for a moment. There were, perhaps, more than a few seconds of stunned silence. "Are you all right?" asked this teacher who must have been shocked also. "Yes sir! Yes sir," answered the student at the same time pulling out the divider from his forehead. The class then continued with the lesson. I must explain that this particular teacher, while a practitioner of unorthodox disciplinary methods, was an excellent teacher. He was, nevertheless, a very kind, helpful, and charitable teacher. It was only after several years after he and I had retired that I came to know about this other aspect of his character. I happened to meet one of the many students whom he had helped. This student, who came from a very poor family, related to me that this teacher would, at the end of every academic year, visit him in his classroom and dump a whole bundle of textbooks on his desk, saying "Here, these are your textbooks for the next year." It would appear that this very bad-tempered and fierce teacher who demanded complete and absolute attention from his students while he was teaching, somehow or other would know about the background of his students and reach out to help them. Dr. G.E.D. Lewis who joined the Colonial Service was posted to the Penang Free School a few years before the invasion of Malaya by the Japanese. He was unfortunate to be captured by the Japanese and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner-of-war at the notorious Death Railway in Thailand. After the end of the War he returned to Malaya and served in many schools in various parts of the Peninsula. In 1956 he was posted to the Victoria Institution as the Headmaster and remained there in the same post until he retired (under the Malayanisation Scheme) at the age of 49 to return to the United Kingdom. It is said that he chose to remain as Headmaster of the V.I.
and refused promotion to a higher administrative post in the education service.
In that sense the V.I. was lucky because it was during his tenure of office as
Headmaster that the School reached the pinnacle of its success, which many would
consider as the "Golden Age" in the history of the School. This was because
By the time Dr. Lewis left his post on retirement towards the end of 1962, the V.I. could be considered to be one of the best, if not the best in Malaya. It possessed facilities which other schools did not; it was the only school with a swimming pool, a well-run air-conditioned library and a separate reading room. What was equally important was the fact that all the extra-curricular activities were run by the students themselves with teachers playing the role of advisers only. The school also published a number of student publications where the contributors of the articles were written and edited by the students themselves. However, the success was not achieved easily. It was during the tenure of Dr. Lewis as the Headmaster that the School faced one of its greatest challenges, one which most schools would have failed in surmounting. This came about partly because the School is very near Chinatown. It is a well-known fact that Chinatown, even today, is infested by rival groups of gangsters. It was during Dr. Lewis tenure as Headmaster that some of these gangs tried to infiltrate the School by recruiting the students as members. Their main aim was for the gang members in the school to fund their illegal activities through extortion. It was indeed fortunate at that time many senior officers
of the police, including the Inspector General of Police, Claude Fenner, were
The method the Headmaster used can be considered simple, yet effective. Basically, it relied on threats and the use of psychology. The suspect would be called individually to see Dr. Lewis, who would first tell the suspect that he had received from the police all information about the illegal activities committed by him. Then, with clever questioning, which included a lot of "poker bluffs" and threats, the Headmaster would get the student not only to confess to his crime but also reveal the names of other gang members in the school. And it always happened that those names revealed would be members of rival gangs! The particular student would then be sent to the Senior Assistant, Mr. Lim Eng Thye, to make a written confession, in the Senior Assistant's cubicle. After the suspected gangsters had confessed, they would be caned by the Headmaster, in accordance with the rules issued by the Ministry. Mr. Lim Eng Thye was the Senior Assistant of the V.I. when I was
transferred to the School on 1st January, 1958, so he must have been the witness
Those canings which I was witness to involved students who had made written confessions that they were either members of gang or had associated with gangsters. I was never when present when such students were first interrogated by Dr. Lewis. I would enter the picture only after the student had verbally confessed to Dr. Lewis and had also fingered other student(s) involved. At this juncture I came into the picture to get the written confession. I did not and still do not know how my predecessor, Mr. Lim Eng Thye, did it. I never used any physical punishment because that would have
been against the Ministry's regulations. So I employed the "sympathy" method
by getting them to first tell me about their family background and asked
them how they got themselves into their present trouble. At some stage of
the interview, threats - implied or otherwise - would be brought up, such
The caning always took place in the H.M.'s room. The caning
I was witness to usually ranged from 4 to 6 strokes. Before the caning the
student was asked whether he was really guilty and that what he had written
in the confession was true. This would be followed by scolding by Dr. Lewis
who appeared very angry, so angry that the two veins on either side of his
temples seemed to be in danger of bursting! His whole face would be completely
flushed. The student would then be asked to bend down. Then, the first stroke
would be delivered, then a pause, followed by the second stroke, another pause
followed by another stroke and so on. What I observed was that the strokes
seemed to land quite accurately on the same spot. Each stroke would also be
followed by a scolding in the same angry tone. I also noticed that the first
two strokes would be usually received quite calmly by the boy. But by the third
At one of the canings, after administering the second stroke, Dr. Lewis looked at the boy and commanded in an angry tone, "Stand up! Take off your shorts!" For one horrible moment I thought he was going to cane the boy on his naked buttocks. This would have been against the rules issued by the Ministry of Education! But I need not have worried. When the boy took off his shorts it was revealed that he had another pair on! For that, he received an additional stroke from the Headmaster, and this was duly recorded. While his buttocks received a rain of rotan strokes, the boy's ears were also subject to tongue lashing by the Headmaster. At one session, after he had delivered the second stroke of cane, Dr. Lewis suddenly turned round, caught my eye, gave me a wink, and smiled!! Can you imagine that! All that angry tirade had been a put on! There was at least one sequel to the caning. One morning I learned from Mr Pavee, our school clerk, that someone had dumped some cow dung on Dr. Lewis car in the night. Mr Pavee had been asked to contact the school mandor to wash out the Headmaster's car! It can be seen that I played only a minor role in the drive to rid the V.I. of infiltration by gangsters; my role was in getting them to write down their confessions. Even then, my active role also came towards the end when most of them had been weeded out and punished. However, I was not unaware that the gangs might be trying to harm me because of my role, small though it might have been. Thus I did take some precautions, especially after I started
to receive threatening phone calls in the middle of the night. I received
such phone calls for about two months around 2 or 3 a.m. The phone would ring,
My standard reply would be, "Why are you so stupid? You have to go out of your house in the middle of the night, search for a different phone box each time to make your phone call. If you really want to beat me up, why don't you come to the school or to my house to do that?" This made the caller angry and he responded with a string of curses followed by obscenities. My reply to this would be the same, "Whatever wishes you have just made to me, I return them to you with added interest." These anonymous calls were repeated for perhaps one more month, after which they stopped. I will tell you why I was so "bold". This was because I was staying at that time in the V.I. quarters, the single-storey bungalow just behind the Examination Syndicate building which was in the same compound as the V.I. Hostel, and to get to my house would not be so easy, because one would have to use the same entrance as the Hostel, and also would have pass the Syndicate building which had a watchman. So I felt quite safe. However, at the same time I also took the precaution of not visiting to Chinatown at all. One night I was driving home from Davidson Road As I passed the entrance to the hostel, I saw a man lurking in the shadows on a motorbike. I stopped to ask him what he was doing there. He would not explain his presence and seemed rather aggressive. So when I got back to my quarters, I phoned Dr. Lewis who was my neighbor. He soon came over to my place with three other European friends who had been visiting him. They were all armed with golf clubs. The five of us made our way towards the V.I. Hostel. As we passed it, Dr. Lewis cried out, "Come out!" This was his pre-arranged signal to the hostelites. The V.I. boys swarmed out and our large party surrounded the stranger on his motorbike. Outnumbered, the flabbergasted intruder explained that he was a police detective. He had been lying in wait for any gangsters who might be coming along Davidson Road from Chinatown. Then, one night several years after I had been transferred out of the school, I and my family went to the Federal Cinema at Chow Kit Road. It was after I had purchased the tickets that I noticed a young man approaching me. He appeared rather familiar to me. Suddenly I remembered that he had been one of those students who had been caned by Dr. Lewis and that I had been involved in getting him to write his confession as well as having been a witness to his caning. Obviously I could not run away as my family was with me; it was also impossible for me to outrun him in any case. So I stood rooted on the spot until he reached me. I thought to myself, "You're going to be beaten up or something of that sort." He then stopped in front of me and said, "Good evening, sir. How are you, sir?" To say that I was extremely relieved would be an understatement! In reply to my query, he said that he had joined the armed forces. Here was a clear case of a reformed delinquent student. Full credit to Dr. Lewis! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
SPB Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Yahya Petra Ibni Almarhum Sultan Ibrahim consented to embed the KMN Medal to Mr Saw Chu Thong during Medals investiture ceremony at the National Palace, Kuala Lumpur. 27.09.1977 
The V.I. Web Page |
the staff room when Mr. T. A. M. Bennett, a popular expatriate teacher
of English, walked in from the Headmaster's office looking
uncharacteristically upset. I went up to him and asked "Hi, what's
the matter? Anything wrong?" He looked at me, muttered something
inaudible and then said in an angry, exasperated tone, "This b*****
Headmaster. He should change his initials from G.E.D. to G.O.D.!"
massive blackboard on a wall in the staff room. That provided the
Senior Assistant with the information to perform another duty - to
assign relief teachers to fill in for any absent teachers. Mr. Lim Eng
Thye's stint as Senior Assistant allowed him to allocate relief teachers
with great efficiency. He had only to walk into the staff room with
his relief teacher's book and if he spotted any teacher sitting around
- obviously this teacher was having a respite from teaching - he would
walk up to the teacher and sign him up as a relief teacher. Small wonder
that whenever any teachers in the staffroom saw Mr. Lim Eng Thye come
into the staffroom, they would flee in terror. Some would go to the
tuckshop while others would seek refuge in the bookshop run by Mr.
Harry Lau, popularly known as "Harry's Den" to indulge in fervent gossip.
Japanese Occupation, slapping was practised by the Japanese soldier. He
would always slap practically anyone, if he thought that you had been rude
to him. This was especially common during the early days of the Occupation
when not many people understood a single word of Nippon-go. I personally
saw a number of adults being slapped by the Japanese. This had happened
when they had tried to run away when the soldier shouted loudly and
fiercely in Japanese "Kurah!" That word merely meant "Come here!" in Japanese,
and naturally, that soldier became angry when people ran away instead
of going to him! Usually, such an incident ended with the poor victim making
a bow indicating that he was sorry. Otherwise, he would suffer multiple slaps
from both of the soldier's hands.
my teachers? Caned? Never. Slapped? Only once (a hard, stinging slap)
when I was in Primary 2 (Std. 2) because I was a few seconds too slow to
give the answer to "what is 4 x 8?" The benefit of that slap? A permanent
one in that I shall remember until my dying day that four times eight is
THIRTY-TWO! 
in the school cannot cane or slap the pupil,
of the V.I. This particular terror had never been known to slap or used
the cane to punish his students, and yet when you pass his class while he
was teaching, you could see the entire class paying 100% attention to his
teaching. 
the School achieved outstanding success in all its fields of endeavour. That
the V.I. was extremely successful can be seen by the fact that a number of prominent
leaders in the country had studied in the V.I. when Dr. Lewis was the Headmaster. 
personal friends of his. In fact, some of the police officers were also ex-students
of the V.I. It seemed that one day Dr. Lewis was given by the police names of
some V.I. boys who were associated with gangsters. Dr. Lewis now began his
investigation to ferret out all the members. 
when Dr. Lewis caned those delinquent students. I came into the picture only at
the beginning of 1962 when Mr. Lim Eng Thye was transferred to the Cochrane Road
Secondary School as Headmaster. He was also the key person who helped Dr. Lewis
get the written confessions from those students. I only came into the picture as
Senior Assistant in 1962 when the campaign was winding down. By the third quarter
of 1962, when Dr. Lewis left on retirement, it could be said that the menace of
gangsterism in the V.I. had been wiped out. In my time as Senior Assistant, I was
involved in only about 6 to 7 cases of caning. 
as: "You have already confessed to the H.M. So why are you telling me these
fairy tales?" They would finally be asked to write down their "confessions."
Of course, sometimes they would have to rewrite their confessions because
what they had admitted orally did not tally with the written version.
Inevitably, the confession was always the prelude to the caning, but never
to an expulsion from school. Expelling the student from school would be to
condemn him to a life of crime. 
stroke or at the most by the fourth, even the most hardened student would
betray his pain. While they did not cry, their eyes were red-shot.
and after I had picked it up, the caller would warn me to be careful, and this
would be followed by a string of obscene and abusive words. These calls would
be made on different days of the week. After the first few calls I decided to
respond.