L. E. Blaze

A tribute to a great and visionary educationist of an era when secondary education in the English medium was limited to a few schools and with access available only to a selected few.

Mr. Blaze, being a person with a mission, founded one of the best schools in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), with traditions, expectations and attitudes being quite different to the then existing schools. Kingswood College continues to uphold these even to this day.

Twenty ninth of September this year
Kingswoodians past and present commemorate
The one hundred and forty eighth year
Of birth of L.E. Blaze, the school's founder great.

Born to be an exemplary educator
Had education at Trinity and in India
LE Blaze was destined to be a founder
Of a school of his choice and idea.

After secondary schooling in Trinity, Kandy
He had a stint teaching at his Alma Mater
Before going to Calcutta to do the degree,
After which he taught in Lahore and Calcutta.

Being educationist, he studied whilst tutoring,
He found out teacher-student relationship
Not the same as in Ceylon while studying
But closer and binding together in friendship.

In addition to curricula and syllabi
He learnt the points in the game of Rugby.
This brought fame and made him happy
When he founded the boys' school in Kandy.

'Twas on the fourth day of May 1891
That Blaze founded the Boys' High School
With eleven boys to start on day one,
On Pavilion Street in heart of Kandy cool.

Later school shifted to Brownrigg Street
As pupil numbers on roll gradually swelled.
And 'twas there Rugby was begun in earnest
First match versus Trinity did in a draw end.

In 1898 school was renamed Kingswood College
To keep standards same as an English public school.
Later shifted to Randles Hill, the present frontage
Thanks to donor Sir John Randles,
MP in Blighty Old.

Blaze's aim was not for boys to pass exams only
But learn other things of value later in life,
So as adults, they be not a burden to society
But do whatever given willingly sans strife.

Gentlemen of Kingswood was what he sought
To make of all boys passing thro' the portals
Loyally, manfully everything done and thought
KFE, Kingswood For Ever, was made immortal.

Blaze established traditions no other could better
Reciting of Prologue at prize day,
penned by him earlier
Tradition continues to this day year after year,
Giving details of events around the world and here.

Blaze's boys' school had first lady teacher on staff
At first, other boys' schools frowned
on and were critical
But later, as this move did prove good enough
Other boys' schools too followed suit
as 'twas practical.

Louis Edmund Blaze was indeed without dispute
In the sphere of secondary education in then
Ceylon Educationist and Historian par excellence of
great repute
And, we salute him even to this day for
what he has done.

- H.M. Nissanka Warakaulle
(An old boy of Kingswood College, Kandy 2009)