Paul Roos het onlangs Blou Gedenkplaat-status gekry, net die tweede skool buite die Kaapse skiereiland wat op hierdie wyse vereer word.
Blou Gedenkplate is ʼn internasionaal-erkende simbool van geboue en plekke wat van groot belang in die geskiedenis en erfenis van die plaaslike gebied is.
Die Blou Gedenkplaat-program is ʼn projek van die Simon van der Stel-Stigting. Skole is tot onlangs in groot mate oor die hoof gesien en onderverteenwoordig met die toekenning van Blou Gedenkplate.
Die Stigting, saam met die Sentrum vir Bewaringsopvoeding, het die projek onder die aandag van ‘n paar skole gebring sodat skole wat van mening is dat hulle vir ʼn Blou Gedenkplaat kwalifiseer, daarvoor aansoek kon doen.
Die toekenning van ʼn Blou Gedenkplaat hou verskeie voordele in; onder meer verleen dit erkenning aan die skool vir die bydrae wat hy tot onderwys in die gemeenskap en tot onderwys in die algemeen gemaak het.
Die bewoording van Paul Roos se gedenkplaat word tans gefinaliseer en drie plate sal aangebring word op die voorkant van skoolterrein vroeg aanstaande jaar.
Dit het soos volg gelui:
Motivation for Blue Plaque status 2019
The age of Paul Roos Gymnasium
In March this year Paul Roos Gymnasium celebrated its 153rd birthday. The school is situated on the old Welgevallen farm which is the oldest farm in the country situated in the oldest town outside of Cape Town. In 1690 Simon van der Stel granted the farm, Welgevallen, to Steven Jansz Botma .
The decisive step to make Stellenbosch a centre for higher education was taken with the opening of the Theological Seminary in 1859. This created a demand for an institution where future theology students could be trained so that they could complete their preparatory studies needed for the Seminary. The first two professors of the Seminary were Professors John Murray and N J Hofmeyr, assisted by the minister of the local Dutch Reformed Church Reverend J H Neethling.
They were the founder members of this school which was already named in December 1863: ZA Gymnasium te Stellenbosch. On January 28th 1864 these men, who called themselves ‘eigenaren’ or shareholders of the Stellenbosch Gymnasium, met in the old Reading Room in Dorp Street as formal founders of the ‘Stellenbosche Gymnasium’. The school was officially opened in the Dutch Reformed Church on the 1st March 1866 which is also the date that Paul Roos Gymnasium takes as its official birthday. On this day 88 boys enrolled. The name had been officially noted as: Het Stellenbosch Gymnasium and /or First Class Undedominational School. The first five boys matriculated in 1870.
But the founder members had more in mind than just an ordinary high school in Stellenbosch. It was to be an institution that would offer something more in the line of an university education. Therefore in 1874 the Arts Department, the forerunner of the later University of Stellenbosch, was founded as part of the school. In 1881 this Arts Department became known as the Stellenbosch College and in 1887 it was renamed the Victoria College (so named because it was Queen Victoria’s 50th year on the throne). Eventually in 1918 it became known as the University of Stellenbosch, which celebrated its centenary under this name in 2018.
In 1946 the Stellenbosch Gymnasium and, from 1910 the Stellenbosch Boys’ High School, was renamed the Paul Roos Gymnasium after the young man, Paul Roos, who matriculated here in 1899 and who, in 1906, became the first Springbok rugby captain. It was also Paul Roos who gave the name Springboks to our national rugby players. In 1910 he became the rector of his old school, a post he held for 30 years up to 1940.
In 1866 the school started with humble beginnings. Today,with 1228 boys, it is truely one of the top schools in South Africa with a motto Semper Splendidior: Always brighter.
This is still the tradition after 153 years.
Mariena Kotze
PRG Archives
