Holland

This chapter examines Amir Sjarifoeddin's life in Holland. In the summer of 1921, just fourteen years old, Amir boarded a big ship sailing from Batavia to Amsterdam. Arriving in Europe in time for school, Amir became a lodger in Leiden, closer to the Leiden City Gymnasium where he enrolled. On September 25, 1922, however, he moved to Haarlem and got himself admitted to the City Gymnasium of Haarlem. The institution of Gymnasiums, throughout Europe since the nineteenth century, was a standard and highly competitive preparatory school for students to advance to universities. The Classical Gymnasium, which Amir attended in Haarlem, focused almost exclusively on classical languages and cultures. The chapter then describes how, in summer 1927, Amir failed the final examinations of his class at the Haarlem City Gymnasium: the matura, “maturity test.” He eventually passed the test in a second attempt in July 1927.