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The tiny seed was
planted by Fr Benjamin Stolke in 1941,
when he undertook to tutor a few Convent
boys in Latin, thus preparing them for
admission in North Point. Local students
joined in. Father Stolke was soon found
holding, in his own bedroom, classes of
12-15 boys ranging from Kindergarten to
Matriculation and Senior Cambridge! Then,
the threat of Japanese bombardment over
Calcutta induced anxious parents to
evacuate their children to the hills and
some of them came to swell the ranks of
the nascent school. Mgr. Gianora, who had
long been eager to set up a high school at
the headquarters of the Sikkim Mission,
readily gave his blessing to the new
enterprise and even consented to take up a
class. The school and the Fathers were
then housed in the old Prefecture
Apostolic
In 1945, it
was shifted to the present presbytery. Fr.
Eberhard had taken over as Principal and
opened the first Admission Register with
27 entries. Foreseeing future developments
Mgr. Gianora purchased 14 acres of
adjacent land and leveled up a piece of
building ground, but funds remained
stubbornly scarce and, for another thirty
years, the ‘New Land’, as it used to
be called, was handed over to the Swiss
Dairy. Meanwhile, an application for the
school’s recognition was turned down by
the Board of Secondary Education as the
Government of West Bengal was itself
contemplating the establishment of a
Government High School in Kalimpong. We
had then about sixty students, whom we
naturally felt reluctant to disband.
Fortunately,
Fr. Albert Lee, who had succeeded Fr.
Eberhard at the helm, calling upon all
the diplomacy he was capable of, secured
the good offices of Mr. Staynor, the
Inspector of Anglo Indian Schools, and
obtained the school's affiliation to
the University of Cambridge. Our first and
lone candidate appeared in 1952. Fr.
Eberhard returned from leave, but soon
again handed over charge to Brother Peter
Grobety, who, in two years, so enhanced
the popularity of S.A.S. that it became
urgent to find a solution for its
extension.
By adding
an aisle and a top floor Mgr. Gianora
managed to contrive a very sensible
increase of available space and the new
dormitory could then boast of 75
economically spaced beds. The kitchen and
refectory were promoted by being
transferred from the present garage to the
old church, no longer in use for religious
purposes. Most of the classroom, however,
could not hold more than 10 or 13 seats,
so that, by the time the students were
sieved up, the top classes were reduced at
best to three or four boys. This abnormal
situation was further aggravated when
provisions were made for a variety of
streams in the I.S.C. Exams. To have
limited ourselves to a single stream might
have meant sacrificing two thirds of our
total student strength, whilst the burden
of maintaining at least two of them for
handful of students was a financial
impracticability.
There
seemed to be no visible hope of any
solution when suddenly, out of the blue,
came a certain Swiss gentleman who was
commissioned by a Swiss Government Agency
dubbed SWISS TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION. Mr.
Mentha’s visit at once set the wheels
clicking; a detailed project was prepared;
an architect and an engineer were summoned
from Switzerland to discuss plans and
scrutinize every little detail concerning
the project. The Swiss Government grant
was finally sanctioned when our Ambassador
obtained ‘non-obstat’ from the Indian
Ministry for External Affairs. In the
autumn of 1965, the first spiteful of soil
was dug up, thereby triggering of a period
of hectic work that was to continue for
the next five years and culminate in the
beautiful campus we have just inaugurated.
Such was the rush for admissions in 1967
that the first building had to be occupied
before its completion and we spent the
monsoon that year without a roof over our
heads! This building won the admiration of
Mgr. Caprio, former Internuncio who
hallowed it in the month of April 1968.
Meanwhile, under capable and energetic
supervision of Fr. Ruckstuhl and later,
Fr. Martin Rey, work was progressing
steadily and in 1970, the new hostel was
in turn ready to welcome the students on
their return from the winter holidays. By
the end of the same year, the exterior of
the hall was also completed. Both hostel
and hall were blessed by Mgr. H Salina,
newly elected Father Abbot, in the month
of November of the same year.
The School was affiliated to the Council
in the year 1970 and Fr. Edward Gressot,
Fr. Thomas D’Souza, Fr. Felix Baretto,
Fr. Paul D’Souza, Fr. Samuel Lepcha and
Fr. Valerian Viegas have led the
Institution efficiently, being its head.
Fr. Lawrence Monteiro is the present
Principal of the school. Fifty years after
the formal inauguration of the school, the
first batch of ISC appeared for their
examinations of March 1995. The school had
its humble beginning and it has done it's
best to instill among its student the
motto of the school PER ARDUA AD ASTRA
- translated literally, it means
"THROUGH HARD WORK TO THE
STARS". That is to say, it is by hard
work and perseverance that we can succeed.
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