Commonwealth and Foreign

EDUCATING THE AFRICAN

By CLELAND SCOTT

[Sir Donald Cameron, formerly Governor of Tanganyika and of Nigeria, will put the case for Native Education in THE SPECTATOR next week]

Nanyuki, Kenya.

To the onlooker the spectacle of native education in East Africa is chaotic and far from reassuring. It is difficult to understand what the British are really aiming at: there would appear to be two main alternatives; a contented class of agri- culturists and pastoralists, tribal in the main; or a discontented collection of detribalised third-rate clerks.

Today the African travels considerably, no longer on his flat feet as of old, but in motor-cars, lorries, 'buses, and trains, which, of course, is good for general revenue. In his travels, even in the three East African territories of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika, he finds each country's methods different from the others; when it is remembered that Kenya is a Crown Colony, Uganda a Protectorate, and Tanganyika a Mandated territory, this is hardly surprising. Should he go further afield he will find other nations with entirely different methods of administration and with diverse views on education. For instance, the French and the Belgians believe in forcing the great mass of black people to speak their language, whereas the British learn the native ones. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages, yet on the whole, when dealing with a primitive and backward people, it would seem sounder for the supposedly more intelligent race to learn the native language, rather than the " back-veld " peoples he forced to learn a more complicated one. On the other hand, in British territory administrative officers rarely stay long enough in each area to master the various individual tongues; consequently they have to work in Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa, and are therefore dependent on interpreters, a far from sound principle.

The latest effort on the part of the British is to lavish money on the new Makerere college in Uganda. The idea is that it is to be a sort of university for Africans. Kenya has been forced to contribute £5o,000 and Tanganyika £too,000 when money in both territories was extremely short for many other urgent requirements. In the Legislative Council of Kenya only one of the European Elected Members had the courage to vote against this barefaced extortion. In actual fact, had every elected member voted against, the result would have been the same, thanks to the dictatorial methods of Crown Colony Government, where that can never be defeated. Pre- sumably the unofficials failed to vote against the comman- deering of this sum because they feared public reaction in England. At once cries would have gone up in the House of Commons, and vituperative articles would have appeared in the home Press denouncing the feudal settlers for grudging the African " his chance in life." It would have been con- veniently forgotten that there existed no university, nor talk of one, for the Europeans who have made their homes in Africa and are unable to afford the fees to send their children to England. It seems peculiar that Africans at Makerere are to be taught in classes far smaller than those of the white children in the schools at Kenya; and by men who are to earn a salary three times as great.

It was noticeable once again that the Indian-elected mem- bers voted with the Government. It must not, however, be assumed that they have the interests of the African solely at heart, but rather that it made one more lash in the whip for scourging White Settlement. The strange part is that in time one may witness a change of heart on the part of the Indian representatives when Africans fill many of the posts at present occupied by Indians and Goans. If the African is really to advance it is obvious that it is he who should fill the posts of stationmasters, postmasters, goods clerks, guards, and office jobs in the Government services to the detriment of the Indian fraternity.

From this costly venture at Makerere how many Africans will benefit? At most an infinitesimal percentage. Whereas had the same sum of money been expended differently far more would have gained. Half the amount could have gone to teach Africans a trade useful to themselves and to the corn- mmity in general. The unfortunate part is that today almost any African who can read and write considers himself to be

a full-fledged karani (clerk or manager) and worth high wages. But no one wishes to employ half of them, since in an agricul- tural country clerks are not in great demand. Again, un- fortunately, the general attitude of what might be called the semi-educated African is insolent and of no help to him in life. The passionate educationist forgets first and foremost the material on which he is so zealously working; he will not realise that forty years ago the vast majority had neither seen nor heard of the white man and his weird inventions, nor had he dreamt of education at all. His father was a savage, very likely a nice savage, but a savage nevertheless; in the space of a little over one generation, and in many cases far less, he is being turned into a factory output and is expected to be unaffected by this heady wine. It is completely ignored that we have taken two thousand years to reach our present stage of progress; even thirty years ago how much was done in the way of education for half the Europeans of the world? The African is being pitchforked, willy nilly, from barbarism into a strange civilisation without any background of his own, long before he can possibly be ready for such sudden change. Instead of Makerere it would have been sounder to have expended this money on benefiting a much larger proportion of natives. This could have been done by improving the primary schools and by starting far more agricultural and pastoral colleges for the ordinary " man in the bush." Today, encouraged by Government to grow cash crops, he is ruin- ing some of the finest land in the world by his wasteful and inefficient farming methods ; by cutting down good forest and denuding the headwaters of the rivers and streams of natural covering, he is reducing the permanent water levels of nearly all the rivers, in order to scratch away the soil for a bag or two of maize; the top soil is washed away and merely silts up other rivers to the detriment of the country in general. Tribes in the drier parts in consequence suffer from lack of water and as a corollary their grazing is spoilt.

The native pastoralist is just as much a menace to himself and to the land. He does not harm the natural veld by culti-

vation, yet his methods of destruction are just as bad. He runs too much stock on his land, and the result is soil erosion which has snow-ball-like effects in rapidity and harm. He does not try to produce quality, but goes in solely for quantity.

Most of his beasts are useless save for the purchase of addi- tional wives. Worse than cattle in their harmful effects, and of even less use save to witch-doctors, are his hundreds of

thousands of goats. As is well known, the goat is the eternal enemy of young trees and shrubs, which help bind together

the soil and prevent it being washed away during the heav}• rains that Africa usually experiences. It has no equal at turning a path into a yawning chasm in which and through which tears flood-water.

All native tribes do untold harm each year by setting alight the country, resulting in the destruction of the forests. Why does he delight to start fires? There are three reasons; honey

hunting and lack of trouble to put out his fire once the bees have been smoked out. To obtain fresh green grass for his voracious sheep and goats. To begin the cultivation of one more mealie patch. Never does he bother to burn fire-breaks in order that his original conflagration can be controlled; when burning he does not do this in the evening when there is less risk of the fire getting out of control, but in the heat of the day when the wind is high.

Surely it would be more sensible to teach the African the folly of such behaviour and instil into him that in the end he will be the loser. He can see animal husbandry as it should be carried out on any European-owned farm today; the relent- less culling of inferior beasts and the feeding of good breed- ing stock. A sound and prosperous native farming community is a better basis for general happiness than a collection of restless, detribalised, undisciplined, semi-urban natives, owing allegiance to none, with a smattering only of education, and an inability to do any job well. Festina lente would be a far wiser motto where education of the African is concerned.