Celestial Reasoning

Picture this, if you will. A man walks down a street... in an episode that sounds a lot like:

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says 'Amen!' and 'Hallelujah!'

This is of course the third verse from Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al. But it actually happened, in 1885...

On one day in that year, a man named Oldham has recently arrived in a distant Third-World country. As he walks down the street, he sees a mysterious sign, announcing the presence in a shophouse on Amoy Street of 'The Celestial Reasoning Society'. It is completely fortuitous, for this man has been seeking a sign from God as to how to proceed in his quest.

He enters the open room, and finds himself surrounded by foreign skintones (in this era, there are such things) and alien sounds. Inexplicably, as his ear strains to resolve the voices, he realises that they are speaking his own language, but in an oddly formal and rhythmic pattern.

It turns out that this Society was formed specifically for its members to learn to speak his language better, through discussion and debate (hence, 'Reasoning'). Intrigued, he engages them in such exchanges, and they are impressed by his scholarly demeanour. By the time they're done, he has been asked to provide schooling for their children.

On St David's Day, 1 Mar 1886, the new school is opened. There are 13 students, and within a year, there will be 104. 123 years later, there are more than 10,000 students each year in the institutions that spawned thereafter from this event.

I suppose we could do a lot worse than have schools that begin as a Celestial Reasoning Society.