It has been said, times out of number, in Nigeria and in many other lands, that the net result of even secular missionary education in most instances spoils the natives; that their innate reliable qualities are destroyed, and only the rote, not the practice, of ethics adopted instead. I merely express what is stated by opponents of the movement, without confirming or denying. But it is proper that the other side of the question should be given at a place where I had a better opportunity than anywhere else of learning what was being done there. The station at Lokoja is in charge of Archdeacon J. L. Macintyre.
The allegation of denationalising the native is warmly repudiated, as is that of spoiling him by unduly indulgent treatment and by overpaying those who may be employed and thus making them discontented for service with anybody else. I give a plain statement of the educational scheme carried out at Lokoja. No child is allowed to learn English till he or she can read their own language, i.e., Nupé, Yoruba, or Hausa. When passed in vernacular reading, children enter Standard I. and begin to learn English, though all the teaching is in the native tongue. On emerging satisfactorily from Standard IV., which is as far as is taught in the C.M.S. schools, a boy of good character may be engaged as a pupil teacher for three years. He is paid 7s. 6d. a month during the first year, increasing to 10s. and 12s. 6d. monthly in the second and third years respectively. A simple, native dress is provided. The pupil teachers teach five hours a day in school and receive two hours’ instruction out of school hours. They are given quarters and shown how to play cricket and football. At the end of the three years’ course the boys are free to leave. The majority go as clerks to Government offices or merchants’ stores, but some stay as assistant schoolmasters at £1 a month, that amount rising annually 2s. 6d.
These details are set out for the reason stated above, and, I am informed, far from young natives being spoilt by the C.M.S., the grievance of the officers of that body is that their efforts to retain and conserve the simple habits of the country are frequently nullified by the action of those who disseminate the complaints.
Elsewhere I have been so severe a critic on the lay issues of missionary work that the least I can do, in the attempt not to be one-sided, is to pay a tribute of reverence to those who labour in what they regard as a sacred purpose. An example of their self-sacrifice is Archdeacon Macintyre. When with him he was in anything but robust health. Really, he should go to Europe to recuperate. The doctor urged that course, but Mr Macintyre was trying his utmost to avoid peremptory invaliding orders. A few days earlier he had got up from a sharp and trying attack of malarial fever, and was about to take a trip down the Niger, to be followed by a week on an Elder-Dempster liner at anchor off the mouth of the river, in the hope that the double change would patch him up for the remainder of his term. Twice he has had the dangerous blackwater fever. Disagree as one may from the outlay and the result of missionary efforts in West Africa, one must admire and honour the spirit shown by the noble men and women who give health and life for the cause, sacrificing these precious possessions in silent and obscure countries as freely as a soldier dies in a blaze of glory and renown.
I had several talks with Mr Macintyre, who, of course, had been made aware of my views on the subject of his work. We discussed it unreservedly. I said the position seemed to me that he was wearing himself out to small attainment, when there were so many heathens of our own colour, so much pain, poverty and misery in the great cities of Britain. Why, I asked, could not he and others look there instead of perceptibly putting themselves into the grave in malarious West Africa?
Mr Macintyre, whose age is probably about the thirties, replied that there were plenty of regenerating agencies in England if properly systemised and organised. He had been a curate, he related, in a poor district, and the various religious and philanthropic bodies tumbled over each other there in discharging their several tasks. There were more than enough persons to do all that was called for in England. There was no opportunity to break new ground. In West Africa, however, a man could feel he had fresh, untouched, unspoilt material to work upon and consequently facilities for tangible achievement; a man could be sure of doing something.
To do this something you see splendid fellows, of whom J. L. Macintyre is a type, sacrificing strong frames to a wasting condition, enfeebled and weak. He is paying still higher, for I gather that he has the happiness of a wife and a home in England. He is here on what he looks upon as his duty. I repeat, splendid. But, with much admiration and personal esteem, I remain unconvinced.
Four clear days were spent at Lokoja. In no corresponding period of the journey did I make more friends; at no place experienced a greater willingness to assist in obtaining information. Nowhere did I receive more individual kindness in the time; nowhere met better fellows. The four days were strenuous ones, spent amidst a torrid, damp atmosphere, but each hour was fully enjoyable and I said au revoir with regret at parting.