We all agree that the educated African has his weaknesses, and pretty bad ones too, but though I have met hundreds of them, though I have read volumes of material they have written, I have never met one who claims the perfection in life and conduct that not a few of his critics assume. It seems to be mainly in British colonies that the educated native is such a bugbear, and if our educational system produces such evils, it is done after all under an autocratic and not a representative Government. Surely, therefore, we should lose no time in abolishing, root and branch, the cause of the mischief.
But is it a failure? If so, wherein has the African failed? Take first the elementary curriculum of mission and Government schools. Where would Africa be to-day without its thousands of coloured clerks and Government officials? In Southern Nigeria alone there are 5000 natives in the British Government service, all of them more or less educated. In every colony, too, you meet cultured natives trained at these schools who are now devoting their lives to the education of the rising generation.
EDUCATION AND THE AFRICAN
We are told that the education of the African has been too largely concentrated on a purely literary and spiritual curriculum. Beyond question there is some force in this criticism, but the Missions and Governments are surely more responsible for this than the natives themselves. The Government particularly so, for missionary committees are after all only trustees for the funds placed at their disposal, and such are almost entirely given for purely missionary propaganda. But even this criticism is unjust in ignoring the existence all over West Central Africa of the educated native carpenters, bricklayers, engineers on steamers, engine drivers and guards on railway trains.
Crossing the Kasai territory I met an American Bishop, who had also travelled not a few thousand miles in Central Africa, and this charming old Divine could not cease exclaiming, “Well, the way you English are covering this continent with educated native carpenters, bricklayers and engineers is just marvellous.” Go where you will, you meet these men. In the upland cocoa roças of San Thomé, in the workshops of German Cameroons, in the trading factories of almost every island, you will always find the Accra or Sierra Leone trader and mechanic who has received a fairly liberal general education at the mission schools. A thousand miles north in the Congo, away south towards Rhodesia, you will hear frequently the welcome salutation, “How do you do, sir!” Welcome then indeed is the claim to one Throne one Empire; more welcome still is the kindly assistance with baggage, the clean hut, the generous gifts of fruit and provisions.
“May I pay you for your kindness?”
“No, sir, I am too glad to see you. God bless you, sir. Goodbye.”
The traveller thus refreshed goes on his way and vows that when he gets home he will send a subscription to those missionary societies who are sending forth this stream of men to the distant parts of the dark continent.
The principal openings for the sons of native chiefs are the medical and legal professions. First let it be remembered that the enlightened chiefs fortunately saw that by giving the flower of the race scientific European education the power of the witch doctor, who, throughout African history has been both medical and legal quack, would be broken. Not only so, but the sick and afflicted among the race would receive the best alleviation that science could provide.