The Education of the African The report of the Commission
which early this year studied the question of Higher Education in East Africa, published on Tuesday, is a document of far-reaching importance, for it raises, in regard to a much wider area than Uganda and Tanganyika the fundamental question of the nature and purpose of education in Africa, and the relation in that connexion between the Government and the mission-schools. Of the efficiency of the latter Dr. John Murray, the Principal of Exeter University College, formed a high opinion, and embodied it in a minority report, feeling that his colleagues leaned unduly to the idea of " direct " Government educa- tion, whereas considerations of justice and efficiency favoured increased subsidies for the educational work the various missionary societies are already carrying on. So far as primary education is concerned the majority recommends that it should be in the hands of the missions and Native Administrations, while secondary education is to be divided between the missions and the existing Makarere College. Vocational education is to be in the hands of the Government. Higher education is to be entrusted to a new organisation, and Makarere, which is a Government institution, kept to second- ary school work. As for the purpose of education, on its practical side its aim must be to fit pupils for what will in the vast majority of cases be an agricultural life, but there is evident a real desire for an introduction to the wider outlook which contact with European culture provides. Mr. Ormsby- Gore will find much to guide him in both reports.
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