The Changing Face of Colonial Education in Africa : Education, Science and Development [1 ed.] 9781928314929, 9781928314912

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THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND DEVELOPMENT

Peter Kallaway

The Changing Face of Colonial Education in Africa: Education, Science and Development. Published by African Sun Media under the SUN MeDIA imprint All rights reserved Copyright © 2021 African Sun Media, Peter Kallaway The editor(s) and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyrighted material. Refer all enquiries to the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, photographic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording on record, tape or laser disk, on microfilm, via the Internet, by e-mail, or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission by the publisher. Views reflected in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. First edition 2020 (Routledge) ISBN 978-1-000048-67-4 South African Edition 2021 ISBN 978-1-928314-91-2 ISBN 978-1-928314-92-9 (e-book) https://doi.org/10.52779/9781928314929 Set in " 12/14 Cover design, typesetting and production by African Sun Media Cover image: Native Teachers’ Journal XXXII (no 11) Jan 1953 SUN MeDIA is an imprint of African Sun Media. Academic and general works are published under this imprint in print and electronic formats. This publication can be ordered from: [email protected] Takealot: bit.ly/2monsfl Google Books: bit.ly/2k1Uilm africansunmedia.store.it.si (e-books) Amazon Kindle: amzn.to/2ktL.pkL Visit africansunmedia.co.za for more information.

FOR my teachers Winnie Maxwell, Rhodes University, and Shula Marks, SOAS, my family Julia and Pierre Vanessa and Danie Luc, Tim, Anya and Stella and all our children

Contents Foreword .........................................................................................................................

i

Acknowedgements ......................................................................................................

iii

Abbreviations ................................................................................................................

xi

Introduction: The genesis of educational policy in late colonial Africa: 1900–1950s .......................................................................................................

1

Chapter 1: The International Missionary Council and education in colonial Africa ....................................................................................................

41

Chapter 2: Conference litmus: The development of a conference and policy culture in the interwar period with special reference to the New Education Fellowship and British colonial education in Southern Africa .....................................................

89

Chapter 3: Welfare and education in British colonial Africa: 1918–1945 .......................................................................................................... 119 Chapter 4: Science and policy: Anthropology and education in British colonial Africa during the interwar years ............................... 139 Chapter 5: Diedrich Westermann: Linguistics and the ambiguities of Colonial Science in the interwar era ........................................................ 167 Chapter 6: Donald Guy Sydney M’timkulu: South African educationalist: 1907-2000 ........................................................................... 193 Chapter 7: The modernization of tradition? isiXhosa language education and school history: 1920–1948 – reform in the work of Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi .................................................. 259 Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 291 Appendix 7.1: The works of SEKM which were included in Imibengo .............................................................................................................. 291 Appendix 7.2: SEKM’s material included in the Stewart Xhosa Readers ......................................................................................................................

292

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 313 References ....................................................................................................................... 317 Index ................................................................................................................................. 345

Tables Table 1.1 IMC conferences which focused on education: 1910–1938 ............................................................................................

50

Table 1.2 Edinburgh Missionary Conference (1910): Study Commission III – “Education in Relation to the Christianization of National Life” .................................................

55

Table 1.3 Educational research projects and publications linked to IMC and other significant educational publications: 1927–1940 ............................................................................................

69

Table 1.4 IMC meeting at Tambaram, Madras: 12–29 December 1938 .....................................................................

73

Table 2.1 Imperial and Commonwealth Education Conferences .......

98

Table 3.1 Welfare and education initiatives in colonial Africa and South Africa: 1910–1948 ................................................................

130

Illustrations Achimota College, Gold Coast in the 1920s ......................................................

17

“The School in the Bush” ..........................................................................................

21

J. H. Oldham of the International Missionary Conference .............................

53

Edinburgh Missionary Conference 1910 ...........................................................

53

IMC Conference in Tambaram, India 1938 the first major meeting outside of Europe ............................................................................................

77

Fred Clarke .....................................................................................................................

91

E.G. Malherbe ................................................................................................................

92

New Education Fellowship conference in South Africa 1934 ...................

102

Bronsilaw Malinowski of the LSE .........................................................................

140

Diedrich Westermann ...............................................................................................

169

Lovedale Institution and Printer’s shop-1930s ..............................................

196

Donald M’timkulu ........................................................................................................

197

Y.M.C.A Buildings, South African Native College (Fort Hare), Alice.........

200

Commemoration stamps of the Fort Hare anniversary ..............................

201

Donald D. Jabavu .......................................................................................................... 204 Z.K. Matthews ................................................................................................................ 206 Charles Loram, Selby Ngcobo and Nathaniel Hathorne, .............................. 210 University of Toronto/Yale University Conference ....................................... 211 West African Students Union, London 1930s .................................................. 222 The Loram Library, Adams College, Amanzimtoti, Natal ............................ 224 John Dube ........................................................................................................................ 227 Samuel E.K.Mqhayi 1938 .......................................................................................... 262 Mqhayi as imiBongi addressing the Prince of Wales in Kingwilliamstown ........................................................................................... 262 The new and old monuments to S.E.K Mqhayi at Ntabazuko (2018) ..... 263 Memorial to Africans who died in France during World War I ................ 283

Foreword Peter Kallaway has written an ambitious and wide-ranging analysis of education policy in the first half of the twentieth century that bridges the African colonial world and South Africa. He explores many fascinating issues and debates that shaped educational provision for African people. Kallaway focusses especially on the gradual formulation of ideas and practices that underpinned education for development. He explains how key thinkers and agencies moved away from more traditionalist approaches, which offered an education conceived to be appropriate to African contexts and moved gradually towards more universalising approaches. Kallaway himself is clearly sympathetic to this latter approach and includes illuminating discussions on some key protagonists, such as Victor Murray, who published The School in the Bush (1929, 1938). In his time, Murray was a radical and especially critical of the theory of adaptation. He argued that ‘to educate a man along his own lines was meaningless’. But Kallaway is intent on exploring the diversity and complexity of all the intellectual lives of educationists who brought passion and commitment to these debates. Kallaway’s deep knowledge of the diverse colonial governments, missionary institutions and philanthropic organisations involved provides a rich resource. As he notes, there never was a single bureaucracy that made policy. Many of the key individuals met within particular colonies and at a series of international conferences but did not always agree. We learn valuable detail about their philosophies and preoccupations as well as background to the many books that educationists wrote about Africa. We can better understand their contributions, the messy the terrain they traversed, as well as the extent of their achievements. There is a fascinating discussion of the routes through which two African protagonists negotiated the world of South African educational institutions. An outstanding chapter on Donald M’timkulu charts his experience as a student at Fort Hare and Yale and then as the head of Adams College and Ohlange Institute in Natal. He was a committed supporter of a single, national education system and advocated in 1938, as segregation was being entrenched, that it i

Foreword

is ‘in the best interests of South Africa as a whole that there be no differentiation in the aims of the education of both the Black and the White races of this country.’ In later years he emphasised the importance of English as a medium of instruction, in part for its universalising potential and in part as a reaction to the ideology informing Bantu Education. Throughout, the book links policy and practice and emphasises that M’timkulu’s major concerns remained the everyday business of teaching or managing the institutions he served. By contrast Samuel Mqhayi in the Eastern Cape was a powerful protagonist of Xhosa culture and literature as part of a modern educational system. He was a significant author as well as oral imbongi who also connected strongly to educational institutions such as the flagship mission school and the publishing press at Lovedale. He made a particular contribution to vernacular teaching texts, developing material for volumes such as the Stewart Xhosa Readers which at the time provided the backbone for a literate culture in the language. Kallaway encourages policy makers in South Africa and beyond to discuss and understand these debates. Reading this work reinforces a view that it is impossible for either black or white Africans to imagine themselves outside of the colonial legacy. A better historical background may have helped the ANC to negotiate its troubled school education strategies with greater success. Readers are offered a strong dose of realism: quoting Weiler, Kallaway warns that without strong historical and analytical frameworks education can be ‘a weak instrument for engineering societal change and to expect it to make miracles is to invite disillusionment’. Yet a universalising and effective educational system remains perhaps the most powerful strategy for African countries as they become increasingly significant on the global stage. In this context, the book also speaks to contemporary debates about the distinctiveness, or otherwise, of African knowledge. William Beinart, St Anthony’s College, Oxford.

ii

Acknowedgements I lived through the last phase of colonial rule in Africa, so it is not surprising that in my chosen career in history of education I should have an enduring interest in the educational history of this continent as it was colonized and decolonized. I attended racially segregated schools and universities in the era of apartheid. My children were part of the last generation of South Africans who attended racially segregated schools. This collection attempts to see the links between education in the colonial village of Berlin in the Eastern Cape, where I grew up, and the great centres of colonialism, London, Berlin and Paris. It tries to understand the changing educational policies and practices during the first half of the twentieth century that were such significant aspects of modernization, colonialism and globalization. It also attempts to engage with the debates about colonialism and education manifested in the recent Rhodes Must Fall movement at the University of Cape Town by exploring the complexity and ambiguity of many of the issues raised. I would like to thank my parents, Harry and Jinny, who were unstinting in their support for my education, and all my teachers for their dedication and care during my long career in education. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the role of my father, Harry. He grew up in pre–World War I London and left school at an early age to become one of the first generation of motor mechanics. Although not formally educated beyond elementary school, I learned from his experience as artisan and trade unionist the great lesson of the twentieth century: respect for the concerns of the common man, with socialism and the welfare state the fundamentals of a just order. He was a secular man but never expressed hostility to religion. After World War II we lived in a village where most of the white population was of German descent, but I never heard him express any hostility to Germans or indeed to the Afrikaans villagers who were predominantly poor-white and beneficiaries of the new apartheid policies of the National Party to which he was strongly opposed. In relation to the mass of Xhosa people who lived in the surrounding areas, my father’s view, based on his long stay in the Transkei in the 1920s and 1930s, was that they must be treated with dignity and fairness. As far as I can remember, he stuck to that code with his iii

Acknowledgements

employees and customers at the Berlin Garage. In the 1950s, when apartheid policies were beginning to unfold, I remember him saying that this would all end in disaster. He affirmed my half-brother Don’s membership of the Torch Commando, an ex-serviceman’s group which opposed apartheid. I must at an early age have acquired a sense of the values embodied in opposition to apartheid, values which I gradually came to understand and embrace in the 1960s as a student at Rhodes University and through membership of the Student Christian Association (SCA) and the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). My somewhat informal Christian commitment at that stage opened the door to the political and professional challenges of life in South Africa. I conclude that the focus in this book on the role of the Protestant churches in colonialism is a legacy of that early experience.1 I would also like to acknowledge my debt to those who taught me during the ten years of my initial schooling in Berlin Secondary School and De la Salle College in East London. In Berlin most of my teachers were trained at the Anglican Grahamstown Training College for women or the Cape Education Department Graaff Reinet Teacher Training College for men. My headmaster, Mr Eddie Bartel, who had been at the University of Stellenbosch with Hendrik Verwoerd, the National Party leader who became prime minister, was a staunch supporter of the National Party in those early days of the apartheid regime, though he never allowed this to intrude on his duties as a headmaster. I am forever grateful for the hidden curriculum to which I was exposed at that modest village school. In a world where “English” and “Afrikaners” were often regarded as enemies, I had the privilege of experiencing everyday life with Afrikaans and German children in a dual-medium school. At De la Salle College in East London I encountered Irish Brothers as teachers. They seemed far removed from the world in which I grew up, but Brother Leo (we never did know their real names), who taught me English and history, was the first “European” I had ever encountered. Although his teaching of history was mundane and from the textbook (Fowler and Smit, History for the Cape Senior Certificate and Matriculation, Cape Town, Maskew Miller), in the style of the time, his knowledge of the world, as a European who had lived through the mid-twentieth century, provided a memorable base from which I was to work later. My real education began in the History Department at Rhodes University, under our wonderful Oxford-educated Professor Winnie Maxwell. She has nurtured many distinguished historians. Along with iv

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

Mike Nuttall, Norman Bromberger, Keith Hunt and Clem Goodfellow, she gave us all a solid sense of the craft of the historian and prepared us to impart it to others. Winnie Maxwell’s 1964 Honours class of eight white boys was a rigorous and gruelling exercise, but it provided us with the personal supervision that enabled us to enter the academic world with confidence. While at Rhodes I was also able, through my association with the SCA and NUSAS, to establish relationships with African students at Fort Hare and the Federal Theological Seminary in Alice, gaining some understanding of the wider world in which we were living. Many of the African students I met, like my lifelong friend Steven Gawe, were jailed for their membership of the ANC Youth League and their involvement in politics and went into exile. Steve’s father, Reverend Walker Gawe, had been an ANC leader and activist and a Treason Trialist. I owed much to Steve for the insights he gave me into what it was like to be an African under apartheid. He went on to become South African ambassador to Norway and Denmark after 1994. Those years at Rhodes in the early 1960s coincided with the Civil Rights movement in the United States, the John Kennedy presidency and the Vietnam War, and the beginning of resistance politics in South Africa. The experience of teaching at Simonstown High School and Wynberg Boys High School in Cape Town in the late 1960s, and at schools in London thereafter, provided me with an entrée to the profession with which I have identified throughout my life – a kind of universal brotherhood and sisterhood which is a vital ingredient to my subsequent career in teacher education. I moved to the United Kingdom to study further at the Institute of Education (IoE) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at London University. School teaching in London and courses at the IoE at the time of the great debates on comprehensive schooling gave me invaluable insights into the links between the welfare state and education. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICS) seminar under the mentorship of my SOAS supervisor, Shula Marks, was a further intense learning experience. We were inducted into the new African history and Marxist revisionism on South African history through the work of many exile scholars such as Martin Legassick, Harold Wolpe, Baruch Hirson, Ben Turok and Colin Bundy. Along with many others they helped shape a whole new direction for the study of history and inspired many of us to return to our homeland with a vision of research and teaching based on understandings of class v

Acknowledgements

rather than race. Shula Marks was an exceptional mentor and friend who provided me with the confidence and understanding to obtain a lectureship in the History Department at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1972, where I was responsible for the training of high school history teachers. At Wits I was again fortunate to find myself among talented and supportive colleagues like my department head Noel Garson, Phyllis Lewsen, Richard Cope, Bruce Murray, Graham Neame and Phil Bonner. The revisionist climate promoted interdisciplinary cooperation with colleagues like David Webster, Patrick Pearson and Deborah James (from social anthropology), Eddie Webster (from sociology) and Jonathan Paton (English). The reach and sense of purpose of our project made it possible to become close friends with other historians in the region, like Jeff Guy, Jeff Peires, Neil Parsons, Charles van Onselen, Ian Phimister, Patrick Harries, Seán Morrow, William Beinart, Chris Saunders and Brian Willan. I am extremely grateful to all of them for providing me with extraordinary opportunities for learning and friendship. The interdisciplinary nature of revisionist studies on South Africa provided a platform for understanding the history of education in Africa, which is the focus of the present work. My life was always split between history and education. In 1982 I made a key shift from history education (the training of history teachers) at Wits to history of education when I moved to the University of Cape Town (UCT) (1982–1993) and subsequently to the University of the Western Cape (UWC) (1993–2007). My teaching and research shifted towards history of education and cognate areas like comparative education, sociology of education and educational policy studies, not only at teacher training level but also for postgraduate Bachelor of Education and research degrees. As a member of the team of Joint Matriculation Board (JMB) examiners for history, I had the opportunity to edit an innovative history textbook for schools (History Alive 9 and 10: [Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter, 1986/7]) and Johannesburg: Images and Continuities: A History of Working Class Life through Pictures: 1885–1935 (with Patrick Pearson, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984). Teaching my field in South Africa in the context of the focus on education in the wake of the 1976 Soweto uprising led to a number of edited collections: Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984), The History of Education under Apartheid: The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened (New York: Peter Lang, 2002/Cape Town: vi

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

Pearson, 2002), Education after Apartheid: South African Education in Transition (Cape Town: UCT Press, 1997) and Education and Empire in Africa (New York: Peter Lang, 2016/Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2019, with Rebecca Swartz). I am indebted to all of those who contributed to these collections and assisted in establishing a research culture around these issues. At UWC most students were African and Coloured and were extremely motivated by the prospects for education in the postapartheid era. We learned a great deal from one another in the stimulating, inclusive and caring environment created by the dean, Wally Morrow, during those years. I would like to thank all my colleagues from that time for their friendship and collegiality – Crain Soudien, Andrew Paterson, Sue Krige, David Gilmour, Maureen Robinson, Glenda Kruss, Seán Morrow, Judy Harris, Sam Govender, Clive Millar, Tony Morphet, Peter Buckland, Jeanne Gamble, Aslam Fataar, Azeem Badroodien and many others. Because of the influx of students from elsewhere in Africa, we had to revise our curriculum to accommodate the wider framework of colonial and postcolonial Africa and to consider the linkages between colonial education policies elsewhere in Africa and in South Africa. This book project arose from that experience. Membership of educational research associations and the privilege of attending a variety of regional and international educational conferences introduced me to a circle of highly motivated researchers in a variety of fields. The Kenton Education Conference in South Africa was the first initiative to draw together all critics of apartheid education. These annual conferences were usually held at rural venues to avoid the attention of the security police. They provided memorable experiences. In the 1990s a group of us who wished to focus on African and Third World policy and comparative studies and forge closer links with colleagues elsewhere in Africa broke away to form the Southern African Comparative and History of Education Society (SACHES), which then became a member of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), an NGO under UNESCO. We established the Southern African Review of Education to promote this kind of research in the region. In the new atmosphere of democratic South Africa, we sought links with international colleagues by holding conferences in Windhoek, Maputo, Dar es Salaam, Lesotho and Botswana. I attended WCCES and Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conferences in Pittsburg, Montreal, Seattle, New Orleans, Sydney, Havana, Istanbul and London. vii

Acknowledgements

I also spent sabbaticals at Yale South African Research Programme (SARP), the University of South Carolina, the University of Ohio, Oxford (St. Anthony’s College), Paris (EHESS École des hautes études en sciences sociales;) and Basle (Historische Seminar). In 1998 we hosted the WCCES conference at UCT and UWC with nearly a thousand delegates as a celebration of South Africa’s re-entry to the world of international scholarship and policy debate.2 On occasions I also attended conferences of the International Standing Committee on History of Education (ISCHE) and the American History of Education Association. Through these networks I was fortunate to encounter many key people in the field. There is space here to acknowledge my debt to only some of them. First and foremost are my long-time friends and mentors, Michael Young at the University of London Institute of Education and Ruth Jonathan at Edinburgh University. They never ceased to inspire me with the socialist ideals of education and provided firm and exhaustive critiques for my work. In addition, I would like to thank Richard Aldrich and Gail Kelly (both now sadly passed on), Beatrice Avalos, Kenneth King, Ivor Goodson, Harold Silver, Martin Carnoy, Roger Dale, Gary McCulloch, Alan Wieder and many others for their support and encouragement. During those years I visited many libraries and archives and was always treated with professional care and friendliness. I would in particular like to mention my indebtedness to the unfailing courtesy of the librarians at the African Studies Library at UCT, including Ingrid Thomson, Sandy Shell Rowoldt, Sue Ogterop, Isaac Ntabankulu, Clive Kirkwood, Belinda Southgate, Beverley Angus, Laureen Rushby, Busi Khangala and Daniel Ndzitshe. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the wonderful computer services team at UCT (Information and Communications Technology Service - ICTS) who were amazingly patient with my many woes! I will not mention individuals in other libraries for fear of offending those who might be omitted. In South Africa other invaluable sources for historical research are the South African National Library, the South African National Archive, the Cory Library at Rhodes and the Killie Campbell Library at UKZN. Further afield I must mention the British National Archive in Kew, the SOAS library and archive, and the IoE library, along with the Rhodes House Archive in Oxford (now incorporated in the Bodleian Library), the LSE Library and the Wellcome Library at King’s Cross. While resident at Yale in 1989, I was able to use the excellent collection at Yale Library and at the Schomburg Centre for

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Research in Black Culture in Haarlem, and later at the Rockefeller Archives near New York. I thank them all for their assistance. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Faculty of Education at UWC and the School of Education at UCT and the National Research Foundation (NRF) for supporting my work. In particular, I am grateful to Crain Soudien for facilitating my attachment to UCT beyond retirement age, which has made this work possible. Many thanks to Rudi Laughsch, Pam Christie and Cathy Kell for continuing support. Thanks also to Emily Coin, Aiyana Curtis, Will Bateman, Swapnil Joshi, Chris Mathews and Janet Remington at Routledge/Taylor & Francis for their support over the editing and publishing of this volume. I would also like to extend special thanks to Wikus van Zyl at African Sun Media and Aslam Fataar at the Faculty of Education of Stellenbosch University for supporting this South African edition. Above all, I would like to thank my wonderful daughters, Julia and Vanessa, and Pierre and Danie, for all their support over the years. Their children, Luc, Tim, Anya and little Stella, have always given me faith in the future. Also, particular thanks to Rose Jackson for her friendship and unfailing support and enthusiasm for my work.

Notes 1

2

A recent reading to the remarkable autobiography of Karel Schoeman, Die Laaste Afrikaanse Boek (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 2002), and the autobiography of Samuel Mqhayi, Patricia E. Scott (ed.) Mqhayi in Translation: A Short Autobiography of Samuel Krune Mqhayi, translated by W.G. Bennie (Grahamstown: Communication, No. 6, Department of African Languages, Rhodes University, 1976), has been of great help in understanding those links. See International Review of Education 45(5–6) (1999): Special Issue: Education, Equity and Transformation based on conference proceedings.

ix

Abbreviations ABCFM ACEC ACNETA ANC BMS BPP BSHC CATA CO CMSGBI DF DNB DSIR GEAR IAI IDAMF IIALC IMC IRM IoE LoN NBTU NEF LSE RDP SAIRR SANC SAP SOAS WCC

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa African National Congress (South Africa) Berlin Mission Society British Parliamentary Papers British Social Hygiene Council Cape African Teachers Association Colonial Office Conference of Mission Societies of Great Britain and Ireland Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Dictionary of National Biography Department of Social and Industrial Research (IMC) Growth, Employment and Redistribution (policy) (South Africa) International Africa Institute Interdenominational African Ministers Federation International Institute of African Languages and Culture International Missionary Council International Review of Missions Institute of Education, London University League of Nations Natal Bantu Teachers Union (later African Teachers’ Union) New Education Fellowship London School of Economics Reconstruction and Development Plan (South Africa) South African Institute of Race Relations South African Native College (Fort Hare) Structural Adjustment Policies School of Oriental and African Studies World Council of Churches

xi

Introduction The genesis of educational policy in late colonial Africa: 1900–1950s

“When we speak of educational reforms, we mean planned efforts to change schools in order to correct perceived social and educational problems” in society, and such reform “usually entails a long and complex set of steps: discovering problems, devising remedies, adopting new policies and bringing about institutional change.”1 Charting the nature and course of such changes in advanced capitalist states has been an extremely complex task. The field of history of education has seldom provided adequate guidelines for an enquiry that would link the study of history of education to the search for solutions to contemporary problems of educational reform. The most successful attempts to engage with that task are to be found in the American literature from the great renaissance of history of education during the revisionist era of the 1970s. Authors like Lawrence Cremin, David Tyack, Larry Cuban, Michael Katz, David Labaree and others provided an impressive library on the contested and contradictory nature of educational reform in the United States during the twentieth century.2 Among the few attempts to chart the terrain of comparative historical reform are Andy Green’s Education and State Formation: The Rise of Education Systems in England, France and the USA,3 Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon’s, Mass Education and the Limits of State Building, c1870–1930,4 and Harold and Pam Silver’s An Educational War on Poverty.5 The excellent Oxford Handbook of the History of Education, edited by John Rury and Eileen Tamara, provides the most recent update of the field.6 As far back as the Special Reports on Educational Subjects by the British Board of Education (1897-1914) and the 1930s Yearbooks of Education, there have been 1

Introduction

attempts to engage with such an examination of comparative literatures.7 Yet the emergence of the formal study of comparative education failed to produce a policy blueprint. As Nicolas Hans pointed out, the general conclusions which can be drawn are few, but important for the study of Comparative Education. Whereas philosophy, sociology, and economics, by comparing education in different countries, attempt to establish principles underlying the evolution of educational theory and practice, the historical approach tries to investigate the past causes of individual and group variations among religious or national communities. The differences of denominational attitudes, of national aspirations or so-called “national character” go deep into the past and sometimes subconsciously determine the present. Only historical investigation can bring them to the surface, illuminate their potency in the cultural lives of nations and make Comparative Education really educative.8

This collection attempts to extend that enquiry to the domain of colonial education in Africa during the first half of the twentieth century as a follow-up to the Workshops on Colonial Education held at the University of Cape Town in 2013 and 2016.9 The history of educational reform in colonial Africa needs to be understood within the long history of humanitarian and philanthropic effort from the Emancipation of the Slaves and the Aborigines Protection Society (APS) from the 1830s to the transition to development discourses in the first half of the twentieth century, in the context of the global history of education.10 As Joseph Hodge has demonstrated so convincingly in relation to the British African Empire in the 1930s, the relationship between education and society needs to be associated with a range of wider policy issues. This entails placing educational changes in the context of broad social and economic trends, which were shaped by the move from a policy which focused exclusively on extractive capitalism and the enlargement of the “Imperial Estate” to the cautious shift to the “Human Side of Development” in the 1930s with an emphasis on trusteeship under the watchful eye of the League of Nations. This included the beginning of “development policies,” which placed a degree of emphasis on “Native” agriculture, health, nutrition, welfare and education. The role of science, missions and philanthropy in those changes was fundamental, and the complex response by the Colonial Office (CO) to these trends needs to be

2

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

recognized. These issues have provided the key focus for recent research.11 By 1938 Lord Hailey’s An African Survey was able to list CO advisory committees and consultants in fields as diverse as agriculture and animal health, health and medicine, economics, labour, law, finance, fisheries, forestry, nutrition, tsetse fly and locust control, in addition to the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies (ACEC).12 These initiatives are to be understood within the wider brief of the Colonial Development Advisory Committee, which first reported in 1930.13 Metropolitan initiatives focused on research and training in the colonial areas included the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the International Institute of African Languages and Culture (IIALC) (later to be called the International Africa Institute [IAI]) based at the London School of Economics (LSE), the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and the Oversea Division of the IoE at London University.14 As Hailey pointed out in 1938, “Africa today presents itself as a living laboratory, in which the reward of study may prove to be not merely the satisfaction of an intellectual impulse, but an effective addition to the welfare of the people.”15 It is in this context that the scaffolding of what later came to be called “development” was assembled from a variety of disparate sources. This accumulated expertise from the interwar period provided a background for African “development policy” in the post– World War II era. Yet the history of the relationship between development and education in Africa has not been well explored. A curious feature of the new development studies literature on Africa in the 1960–1970s is that it gave little recognition to the foundations of policy that had been laid in the pre-war era. A cursory examination of the vast literature on these issues reveals little regard for the history of knowledge and policy experience from the earlier time, despite the involvement of many of the same people in the construction of the new “development” dialogue. I found little on this topic in a selection of key contemporary writing by Guy Hunter,16 L. Gray Cowan, James O’Connell and David Scanlon (eds.)17 and Richard Jolly.18 The landmark studies by C. Arnold Anderson, J.R. Sheffield and A.R. Thompson fail to provide a comprehensive picture of this background.19 Nicholas Hans’s pathbreaking lectures on comparative education at the IoE, delivered in 1945–1947, pay scant attention to the colonial context.20 Even specific historical works intended to give insights into the colonial education policy, like those of Philip Foster, Kenneth King and Clive Whitehead, largely neglect the emergent 3

Introduction

policy culture which linked education to wider development policies.21 Following on the work of John Cell, Joseph Hodge and Helen Tilley, I hope this work will go some way to bridging that gap. This collection seeks to interrogate a broad range of sources and perspectives on the relationship between education and history over the course of the first half of the twentieth century with specific reference to the African colonial world and to explore the implications of those changes. At the time of the celebration of the “Mandela century” it explores the relationship between educational policy and politics, economics and social transformation between 1910 and 1945. Although there will be only passing reference to the post–World War II era, the goal of the study is to present readers with a set of sources for understanding the nature of the discourses about educational development in the last phase of colonial rule and during the “Development Era,” which coincided with the formal end of colonialism from the 1950s. The passing of that era with the onset of the new “Capitalist World Order” under the so-called Washington Consensus during the time of Thatcher and Reagan, marked in Africa by the imposition of World Bank Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP), signified a break with the earlier development policies and led to the widespread abandonment of the commitment to the politics of social welfare and poverty reduction in favour of a market-orientated order that highlighted economic growth over welfare considerations. I am concerned to explore the significance of historical research for our understandings of the rhetoric and reality of policy production – both in the past and at the present time. More specifically, I wish to explore the “distinction between the context of policy formulation and the context of policy realization” – between what people said (discourse) and what people actually did in the practice of educational policy development in a colonial context. I seek to explore the “networks, exchanges and relations among a range of public, private and voluntary organisations through which change was instituted in relation to the production of regulative and governing practices.” 22 The construction of such knowledge at any particular time is to be understood with regard to who can speak with authority and why their opinions are given priority by those with the power to frame policy. A key element in this enquiry is therefore to explore how particular interpretation of policy emerged as part of an intertextual and institutional context that made the texts “reasonable” for those with power – and more generally in the common sense of a broader 4

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

social/political community. “In this sense, our attention is directed to systems of reason (images, narratives and discourses) through which the objects of schooling are classified and ordered over time, providing the way to think about change.” As Thomas Popkewitz notes, what is considered to be “reasonable” policy from a governmental point of view at any particular moment is therefore something sanctioned not solely by reason but by what might be possible in the social, political and economic circumstances of the time and place.23 The historical context being explored here is not easily subjected to the usual procedures of the historian. The focus of the study is on the emergent, fragile discourse of development in the late colonial context relating to Africa, with special reference to the field of education. This review has drawn from multiple historical and archival sources that present the challenge of understanding a variety of contexts and the careful selection of evidence that must often be advanced as tentative and fragmentary. This is not the story of a specific enquiry into a particular educational project or policy. It does not relate to a specific set of documents or regional circumstances, individuals or groups of historical actors. It represents an attempt to construct a loose framework through which to understand educational change networks and outcomes on a wide stage of the late colonial world. A key issue to keep in mind in relation to this work has been what Popkewitz calls “the doubleness of knowledge” – namely that this work explores not only how policy knowledge is constructed or verified but also how some kinds of knowledge come to be prioritized over others. Such an approach does not lend itself to a single approach to research. It requires an amalgam of methodologies ranging from an understanding of Imperial History or the shifting nature of what has sometimes been called “the Imperial Mind” to the expanding role of missionary and government representatives, scientific “advisors” or local responses to policy proposals. It also requires appropriate weight be given to the changes in missionary policy and the priorities crafted by philanthropic foundations in supporting or restricting specific kinds of research and enquiry at particular times. Those who constructed the initially informal, but later formal, scaffolding of colonial education in the first half of the twentieth century constituted a new scientific network that embraced various spheres of influence. Yet in relation to the British Empire in Africa they were never constituted into an official 5

Introduction

bureaucracy that wielded significant influence over policy. This loose network was made up of government officials (at the COs in London, Paris, Brussels and the Colonies themselves). It included academics, missionaries and scientists (educationalists, anthropologists, linguists, economists and philanthropists) of various stripes. Their work was funded by missionary organizations and secular bodies, including government and philanthropic foundations, the latter mostly based in the United States (Carnegie, Rockefeller, PhelpsStokes, Jeanes), and later the Nuffield Foundation.24 I also approach the field from the point of view of a South African. Much of my previous work has focused on attempting to understand the nature and history of apartheid education and its effects on the history of “native education” in my country. That history has usually been presented as something exclusive to this context. This project is an attempt to write that history into a broader narrative of colonial education on the continent in general and to get away from the exceptionalism that has tended to dominate educational history here. I am trying to write South African history of education into the more general script of African colonial education.25

Colonial empires and education Colonial empires are about domination, exploitation and control, and the key markers of imperial domination in Africa during the nineteenth century were those of brutal conquest and annexation. In many places trade and the missionary endeavour paved the way for the social and political changes that were to follow. By the 1830s there had been signs of a different commitment to the “civilization” of the colonized peoples – however that notion might be articulated. Despite the annexation of most of the continent, the actual degree of transformation of the lives of most rural peoples remained relatively limited by the early twentieth century. The degree of change or modernization outside of industrial hubs like South Africa was extremely limited beyond the missionary/philanthropic experiments designed to bring indigenous peoples into the realm of colonial government and the capitalist labour market in the Cape Colony or in West Africa. Government action related to the modernization of African peoples or their inclusion within the body politic of core institutions of the colonial state was limited. The “civilization” or “modernization” or “Christianization” or education of the “natives” 6

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

was in large measure to remain the exclusive domain of the missions until well into the twentieth century outside of the very specific context of the Cape Colony, where there was a Department of Education from as early as 1839 serving the whole population. Within that context there were some attempts to construct a non-racial society from the mid-nineteenth century in the context of the AntiSlavery Movement, Aborigines Protection Society and Ordinance 50, however fragile these might appear with hindsight.26 The earliest initiatives relating to the research in the field of education in Africa were located within an extensive research exercise based on the English Board of Education, mentioned previously. These Special Reports on Educational Subjects, compiled under the general editorship of Sir Michael Sadler, were published in numerous volumes between 1895 and 1913, included a variety of comparative studies of European and American educational systems,27 relied heavily on comparative research and were to set the standards for educational planning independent of state control and educational research. One volume of this epic undertaken was dedicated to “The Education System in the Chief Crown Colonies (including the Cape Colony and Natal)” and the “Training of the Native Races.”28 This initiative informed the debate about educational policy from the time of the Education Act of 1902 (the Balfour/Morant Act), which extended the scope of public education in Britain. In South Africa, as part of post Anglo-Boer War reconstruction and “modernization,” the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) initiated a major investigation of native policy which highlighted the system of education that existed and how it might be “modernized” and reformed.29 A junior member of Milner’s Kindergarten, Edmund Sargant, produced a voluminous report on Education and the Law in relation to Native Education in South Africa and reports on education in Basutoland and Bechuanaland.30 The High Commissioner, Lord Selborne’s “Memo. on Education in South Africa”31 represented the policy outcome of this work and the beginning of a new system of educational policy formation which engaged with issues of language and culture, if only to accommodate the Dutch/Afrikaans traditions of the former Boer states.32 According to Malherbe, these measures also established for the first time in the Transvaal “a separate legal provision … for schooling for native children.”33 These initiatives point to an important and often forgotten issue in relation to colonial education in Africa – that in educational history 7

Introduction

South Africa is in part to be understood in terms of its double identity, as a settler colony or Dominion and as an African “dependency.” In the case of the former, it can be identified as a modern capitalist industrial state. In the latter case it needs to be understood as essentially comparable to other African colonies or “dependencies” where government confronts the necessity of catering for the difficulties of colonial government relating to a large, heterogeneous population in a wide variety of social and economic circumstances at very different stages of development or assimilation into the mainstream of modern global society. The attempts by the Reconstruction government to grapple with these issues have not been adequately acknowledged or researched in relation to the education policy issues under investigation here. As Helen Tilley remarks, Milner and his Kindergarten/Round Table realized the importance of being able to offer coherent arguments for policy to the various audiences within South Africa and in Britain and “the necessity to take greater notice of the competing claims of their various imperial subjects”34 – hence the need for more coherent policy planning and formulation. The Education Act of 1902 formed the bedrock of the modern, state sponsored education system in Britain, building on the 1870 Education Act and paving the way for the Hadow Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926). The revival of an intense debate about the values of state planning in Britain during the 1930s culminated in the Beveridge Report in 1942 and the post-war social security measures on health and welfare, a prelude to the 1944 Butler Education Act, which finally secured mass secondary education. These events provided a backdrop to educational thinking and debate in Africa.35 It was only from the time of the great international ecumenical Protestant Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910 (see Chapter 1) that broader focus on issues relating to the welfare of African peoples came to be formally acknowledged as part of the function of the missions – and to be introduced to the agendas of government through Church/state cooperation. On the basis of these early initiatives, patriarchal networks began to be established between missionary agencies, imperial governments and philanthropic organizations with the goal of promoting what later came to be called “development” under the general umbrella of the League of Nations. As mandates of the former German African Empire (Schutzgebiete) came to be placed under the rule of Britain, France, Belgium and South Africa after the Treaty of Versailles (1919), those 8

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

victorious powers were obliged to sign up to a long-term program which was committed not only to the rule of colonial peoples by a system of government constrained by international law but also “to promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and social progress” of the inhabitants,” as part of a preparation for future self government in keeping with the Charter of the League. This surveillance through the mandates system had the overall effect of internationalizing and institutionalizing the notion of trusteeship and “made a formal statement of what the international community regarded as the minimal requirements for European colonialism in Africa.”36 In that sense the mandates system set the fragile parameters for the wider framework of social change to be dealt with in this enquiry. There is no disputing the continuation of the harsh nature of colonial rule in general. In relation to Kenya, the Fabian, Leonard Woolf’s argument that “our professed principles (of ‘African paramouncy’) and our political practices have contradicted each other ever since the beginning of the century.” He argued that the notion of colonial rule as “a sacred trust” to ensure progress and prosperity for Africans was a “hypocritical lie.”37 Yet as Joanna Lewis38 and Joseph Hodge have demonstrated, between the passing of the 1929 Colonial Development Act under the short-lived Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald and the advent of its successor, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act (1940), it is possible to identify a variety of initiatives and networks of experts – whether they were comprised of government officials in Europe or the colonies, Church or mission personnel or activists, scientists and researchers, technical experts or commercial enterprises, which were rethinking policy in the colonial situation. As Nicholas Deakin points out, European and North American governments in the interwar era began to “engage in social politics but as yet they did not have social policy as such.” It was only from the mid-1930s that enthusiasm for planned expenditure and Keynesian view of social reform expanded to a broader political programme.39 In that context it should not be surprising that the ground for social planning in the fragile states of the African colonial world was hardly amenable to large-scale innovation in the interwar era. What we can explore are the elements of policy that emerged as points of focus and contestation at the time – thereby providing the platform for later changes or the planning for change – or, more soberly, the lack of changes as it turned out!

9

Introduction

This study focuses on the general climate of that debate that emerged during the interwar years and the gradual, if erratic, advances that were achieved in the fields of health care, welfare and education, tentatively reflecting the gradual emergence of welfare policies in the Europe. Despite the tensions that emerged between those who sought political solutions that would constrain and contain radical politics in the colonial sphere and those who embraced the policies that sought to strengthening traditionally liberal and welfarist politics in the face of challenges from Fascism and Communism, and resurgent African nationalism, a new climate emerged in the form of patchy policies which set the foundation for a degree of welfare research and provision in Britain’s African colonies by the late 1930s. In the interwar era the vague policy of Indirect Rule had dominated CO policy thinking. It was initially fashioned by Lord Lugard in relation to the specific problems of government in West Africa.40 The focus was on rural communities or tribal units as a mechanism for stabilizing colonial society in order to prevent what was referred to as the immanent “breakdown” of traditional society with the erosion of customs and traditions that were held to provide for social cohesion. That search for stability was linked to notions of population decline, the dangers of urbanization and the rise of a class of “detribalized” subjects who would pose a threat not only to the traditional tribal order but to the colonial order itself where African nationalism was emerging as a significant force. The stress on adaptation to the “needs” of the tribal/rural community environment in the field of education, endorsed by the Phelps-Stokes Commissions on African Education in the early 1920s,41 reflected the translation of the political agendas of Indirect Rule into the policy realm of education. These recommendations reflected a subtle blend of Progressive Education, with its focus on the lived world of child and the immediate physical and cultural environment, in the consideration of curriculum choice in Africa. The positive side of these recommendations, informed by the emergence of social anthropology and linguistics as fields of scientific enquiry, was the emphasis on mother-tongue education and on African culture. There was also a focus on the need to “understand the African mind” in order to frame appropriate policy and practice in education.42 The curriculum was to be crafted to demonstrate an appropriate match with the future of African children in relation to the rural context, which was deemed to be the “natural environment” in which they were destined to live and work. 10

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

Hodge sees the tentative and sporadic “scientific” policies that were developed for various sectors at this time as “in many ways … forming the nucleus of a whole new way of thinking about the nature of colonial development.43 Although he sees many of these ideas as being “paved with good intentions” and often “lost in translation,” he acknowledges in his chapter on the “Human Side of Development” that in the course of the bumpy road to understanding the relationship between science and government some achievements can be recorded. This collection attempts to chart an understanding of these. The origins of “development” in Africa and its relationship to education Within the plethora of issues that needed to be engaged with by missionary organizations and state institutions in relation to the transformation of African society, the question of educational policy was to loom large and entailed an engagement with a variety of networks – missionary, scientific, philanthropic and government. The debates that marked the period were informed by a wide variety of overlapping fields of knowledge and expertise and by contests between the earlier generation of missionary/government advisers and the new policy “experts.” The former often considered their onthe-ground local knowledge of the African context to be superior, and they tended to resent “expert” outsider advice driven by wider “scientific” debates about the nature of the relationship between society and education.44 Precisely how this experience came to influence the CO or to impact on individual “dependencies” remains to be comprehensively explored, but it is clear from the work undertaken here that the boundaries of debate and dialogue flowed easily across colonial borders. The formalization of this work took shape in the ground breaking research initiative which culminated in the African Research Survey of the 1930s. This was published in consolidated form in Lord Hailey’s An African Survey issued by the Committee of the African Research Survey under the auspices of the Royal Institute of African Affairs (Chatham House) in 1938. It represented a comprehensive attempt to bring science to an understanding of social, economic, ecological and governmental issues and to locate education within that wider framework of concerns. It is only as a result of the work of Cell, Hodge and Tilley, referred to previously, that it has been possible to see this in the wider framework of imperial policy and begin to 11

Introduction

appreciate the nature and extent of development policy in the interwar era.45 There is no space here to explore the details of conferences that contributed to the early infrastructure of educational debate and policy development related to CO policy, but it is important to note that from 1907 onward a series of Imperial Education Conferences were held parallel to the more general British Imperial Conferences (held between 1907 and 1937) and a number of Imperial Economic Conferences. The primary business of these meetings was related to the formal establishment of modern systems of education along the lines of those evolving in Europe and the United States with dominant representation from the major white colonies of settlement – Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The first major event was the Federal Conference on Education hosted by the League of Empire in London in 1907 which paved the way for the first Imperial Education Conference in 1911.46 This was followed by a series of official events held under the auspices of the CO in 1923,47 192748 and 1930/31.49 The 1952 Conference in Cambridge on African Education: A Study of Educational Policy British Tropical Africa represented a remarkable comprehensive consultative forum and the report back of an extensive investigation related to African education sponsored by the Nuffield Foundation at the end of the colonial era.50 The first Commonwealth Education Conference took place in Oxford in 1959.51 These all contributed to the forum of research referred to in this study.52 The genesis of these debates on colonial education can be traced to two specific contexts: (a) British India and (b) the Southern states of the United States. India The complex history of education in British India has been given considerable attention,53 but it has seldom been systematically related to the history of education in the rest of the Empire and Commonwealth. Educational policy was constructed against a political and economic background that was in many ways radically different to Africa. The diversity of the language and culture might have suggested superficial similarities, but the deep historical traditions of Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim societies represented unique challenges to the policy-makers. One parallel seems to lie in the general embrace of decentralization policies. Despite over a 12

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century of policy development, the British Raj failed to develop coherent plans for educational policy by the interwar era. Equally notable was the failure of Congress leaders’ initiatives to wrestle with issues of national identity and the relationship between linguistic, social and religious differences in the search for a unified educational policy in the backdrop to independence in 1947. Another significant contrast was the presence of a significant middle class in India which had been able to contest conditions for capital accumulation – and assert their specific needs for education – in a way that was not substantially replicated in Africa, where education was still in the hands of missionary societies in the 1930s.54 Only on rare occasions were parallels drawn between the African and Indian experience in educational policy, and these tended to be in the form of critical comment rather than systematic investigation of policy trends. Despite the work of key educationalists like Michael Sadler,55 Alek Fraser56 Arthur Mayhew57 and John Sargent58 who had considerable experience of educational policy development in India and Africa, there was never a formal attempt to investigate the parallels. My concern has been to understand the extent to which the British experience of educational policy in India was to influence the African context in the twentieth century. For Victor Murray, one of the most perceptive critics of African educational policy between the wars, the main lessons to be learned from the Indian experience was that the long experience of British rule in India had demonstrated that the rulers could not expect to rule without the consent of the people – and that it was essential that forms of education be pursued that manage to bridge the gap between the model which prepared a small elite for roles in colonial society and the needs of the majority. This meant that the English curriculum from the time of Macaulay’s Minute of 1833 and Wood’s Despatch of 1854 had to be replaced or supplemented by mass education with a focus on vernacular languages and culture or forms of vocational education for the majority. Such reforms were to be part of agreement for Dyarchy in 1919 (the Montagu/Chelmsford Reforms and the Government of India Act).59 Although the British had supported indigenous forms of education associated with Hindu and Muslim traditions under the East India Company, the harsher form of colonial rule that emerged in the wake of the Indian Uprising in 1857 led to an embrace of what came to be known as the “filtration theory.” This marked a turn away from an educational philosophy which had embraced local culture and 13

Introduction

languages to policy which emphasis the creating “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in words and intellect.”60 In the wake of the English educational reforms of 1870, 1902, 1918 and 1944, there were parallel moves to reform education in India. The 1882 Hunter Commission established a Department of Education in Central Government and sought to further encourage the expansion of primary education. After 1898 the English Board of Education played an important role in informing those initiatives. As referred to previously, Michael Sadler was a central figure in the special enquiries and reports on education by the Board from 1898 to 1913. Having promoted a comparative education research culture at the Board, he was selected to chair of the influential Calcutta University Commission of 1917, which produced an extensive account of the state of secondary and higher education in India informing the educational aspects of the Dyarchy agreement of 1919.61 The authors of the Abbot and Wood Report (1937) on general and vocational education were also seconded from the Board of Education. John Sargent, the principal author of the influential pre-independence report on Post War Educational Development in India, was president of the Association of Directors of Education in England before becoming an adviser to the Indian government on educational policy between 1938 and 1948.62 Many of the reforms mooted in these reports were discussed at Imperial Education Conferences and at the Commonwealth Education Conference, which was to follow in 1931, and provided the educational scaffolding for the Indian Round Table Conferences in 1930, 1931, and 1932.63 There were five commissions of enquiry into education between 1900 and 1948, marking key moments of political change and heightened political protest,64 but from the time of the Government of India Act in 1919 (Dyarchy) the control of education was devolved to the provinces so the central planning that had been a feature of the Indian Education Service (IES) was largely disabled. A Central Advisory Board on Education was only re-established in 1935. The issues raised in relation to India often had relevance to the African context, such as state versus private responsibility for education, grants-in-aid to schools, community involvement, the medium of instruction, curriculum (moral education, language, science education), the education of harijans (untouchables), the education of women, religious education (including the relationship between Muslim, Hindu and Christian tradition and state schooling), 14

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

the degree of emphasis on primary, secondary or higher education, rural education and the promotion of indigenous skills and crafts, and industrial and agricultural education.65 The long history of adapted education associated with the Phelps Stokes reports and the 1925 Memo on Educational Policy in Tropical Africa has sometimes been associated with the view put forward by Edwin Smith in 1927, that “India has much to teach Africa – by her mistakes.”66 The solution to the problem – in terms of the policy in Indirect Rule in West Africa – was to promote decentralized forms of education that were thought to be appropriate to rural life and traditional culture, thus preventing “detribalization” and the decay of “traditional values.” This tended to ignore the emergence of a “new elite” who supported a modern “colonial” curriculum. As Nicholas Hans noted, “the tempo of industrial revolution in Africa … (overtook) the gradualness of British educational policy” requiring new approaches.67 It was only by the end of the 1930s that these tensions began to be addressed in Indian and African contexts. This collection addresses the extent to which new scientific approaches to policy were gradually evolved in the light of the emergent development policy issues in Africa. The extent to which these processes were apparent in India during the 1930s is something I will have to leave to other researchers. Black American experience and African colonial education Another key theme that dominated these debates related to the notion that the experience of black education in the American South in the period since the Civil War (1861–1865) provided a template for educational policy in Africa. From the time of the Phelps-Stokes Commission’s report on Education in Africa 68 this focus on adapted education – designed to equip youth for life in rural communities – was to hold a good deal of sway as it fitted neatly with the policy of Indirect Rule.69 Much of the literature on Foundation support for education in the South has focused on the relationship between Northern philanthropists and Southern blacks, which was held to have been influential for subsequently shaping educational policy in the African colonial context. The best analysis of these issues is to be found in Kenneth King’s Pan Africanism and Education.70 A prime example of the simplistic use of this literature is Donald Spivey’s work Schooling for the New Slavery 1868–1915.71 Spivey seems to take rhetoric for reality throughout his work, giving little 15

Introduction

consideration to the times and spaces in which actors played out their role in complex contexts. While there were alliances of interest along these lines which were demonstrated in ways that are often offensive to modern educators (and indeed to critics at the time), it is important to acknowledge the diversity of the contexts in which reformers worked and the world of politics, ideas and work which they informed. That legacy of Foundation support for Southern education and colonial education in Africa therefore requires careful analysis. (Chapter 6 provides one perspective of the ambivalent responses from Africans to these recommendations.) None of this is intended to refute the assertion that educational programs were “political,” but I seek to place those initiatives in the context of their times and in relation to the complexity of the educational terrain – both in relation to white or Northern education or Southern black education in the United States and in relation to other proposals for education in the African context. This collection is aimed at decoding some of those debates – muddying the waters as it were – in order to allow the complexity of education proposals and reforms to be appreciated in relation to specific times, places and circumstances. My focus – in relation to black education in the South or African/South African education – highlights the Janus face of policy debate, as alluded by Popkewitz earlier, and the roles of the actors who often moved cautiously in an untidy world of politics and policy. As Michael Bieze points out with regard to Booker T. Washington, the controversial head of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, the many facets of such a man “do not emerge from a conventional narrative biographical approach.” It is only when we acknowledge how Washington “presented” himself (consciously or unconsciously) to different audiences (educational experts, Southern educators, Northern philanthropists, rural black folk, Tuskegee alumni, etc.), in this case through photographs, that we begin to understand the multifaceted nature of his life, career and success.72 I wish to suggest that it is only though an equally nuanced approach to the lives and careers of other key actors in the sphere of colonial education who met at conferences, held membership of various organizations committed to educational goals or shared ideas on a variety of platforms that we may be able to understand their contributions, the messy terrain they traversed, as well as the extent of their achievements.

16

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Individual actors In the pages that follow many individuals will be identified who navigated that complex terrain of education and development in Africa. Some were representatives of missionary societies in Europe and North America and others from missions in Africa (J.H. Oldham);73 CO officials “at home and abroad” (Lord Lugard, Hanns Vischer,74 Arthur Mayhew,75 Frank Ward);76 philanthropists (Thomas Jesse Jones); educationalists (Charles T. Loram [see Chapter 6], Fred Clarke [see f. 33], Victor Murray)77 and “scientists,” including Diedrich Westermann (linguist and orthographer, see Chapter 5), Bronislaw Malinowski (anthropologist, see Chapter 4), Julian Huxley (biologist);78 and Africans who engaged in the limited spaces available for them in the colonial world. Among these, James Aggrey occupied an influential position in the International Missionary Council (IMC) and went on to be the headmaster of flagship colonial educational institution in West Africa, Achimota College.79

Achimota College, Gold Coast in the 1920s (Source A.V. Murray, The School in the Bush (1929)

Other relatively unknown figures, such as the South Africans Donald M’timkulu and Samuel Mqhayi (Chapters 6 and 7), are highlighted to 17

Introduction

demonstrate the significance of the roles played by Africans in a colonial education policy context despite their limited access to political power or to the forums of formal policy debate. All of these individuals need to be treated with considerable care in relation to their ambiguous roles. Often they play multiple roles which overlap as they navigate diverse worlds. For example, C.T. Loram (see Chapter 6) carves a career that spans the world of colonial officialdom (in Natal and South Africa), American missionary and philanthropic networks (Phelps-Stokes and Carnegie Foundations) and the academic world (he was Professor of Education at Yale from 1934 to 1942) where he often addresses different audiences in varying registers. The same could be said of Samuel Mqhayi as he attempted to negotiate issues of Xhosa language, cultural identity and education in the context of an increasingly racially segregated South Africa. It was the very complexity and multidimensionality of many of the characters who appear in this story that intrigued me. They all, in their own ways, and in their own contexts, challenge the historian to dig deeper and seek to understand the multifaceted nature of everyday life for everyone engaged in the field of colonial education in Africa. One of the most prominent figures that emerge repeatedly in the following pages is J.H. Oldham.80 He was a key networker who played a particularly significant role in the construction of a policy thinking from his position as secretary of the IMC located in London, with his strong links to the CO and American philanthropic organizations. From this position he was able to influence thinking related to African education for over two decades.81 His links to German missionary organizations through the IMC meant that he was able to promote the return of German missions to the African colonial context during the 1920s and thus constitute a framework of cooperation between British, German and French officials, missionaries and scientists. His recruitment of Hanns Vischer, a Swiss missionary with experience in colonial government in Nigeria, as secretary of the Colonial Office ACEC, and the securing of Diedrich Westermann, a member of the Berlin Missionary Society (BMS), missionary and linguistics expert, Professor of African Studies at Berlin University, as director of the IIALC and editor of the influential journal Africa, was vital to those networks. This ensured an international vision of the organizations that were to promote the development debate about Africa in the new climate of League of Nations influence. Oldham, through his links to North American missionary and philanthropic networks and the ecumenical movement among 18

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Protestant churches, was able to provide influential support for the establishment of the Phelps-Stokes Commissions of Enquiry into African Education in the 1920s and play a key role in the establishment of the IMC’s Department of Social and Industrial Research.82 He also assisted in securing Rockefeller Foundation funding for the IIALC, which promoted anthropological research in Africa under Bronislaw Malinowski at the LSE. The establishment of the Overseas Division at the IoE in the 1930s under the directorship of Fred Clarke, with Rockefeller/Carnegie funding, also formed part of the professional education and research network that was designed to contribute to the scientific understanding of educational policy and practice in Africa and the colonial world.83 Oldham is just one of many figures that inhabited these interlocking networks contributing to the shaping of the development thinking which was to be embodied in the African Research Survey of the 1930s and was conveyed to a wider audience in An African Survey in 1938.

A scientific approach to African colonial education The body of knowledge that was produced in relation to African education in the period between 1910 and 1945 is very limited in quality and quantity and was only sporadically connected to the spread of state education and the great progressive educational debates that were occurring internationally. The significant gatherings of educational experts at the conferences of the time which gave some attention to African education usually met on the margins of the meetings that were focused on broader issues either relating to missionary endeavour (e.g. the IMC Conferences at Edinburgh [1910], High Leigh [near Cambridge, 1924]; Le Zoute [Belgium, 1926], Jerusalem [1928], Tambaram [India, 1938]), Progressive Education (i.e. the New Education Fellowship [NEF] conferences; there were twelve conferences between 1914 and 1939)84 or the framing of broad imperial policy on education (see Chapters 1, 2 and 3). Lobby groups were also significant in this context. These included the Empire League, the Fabians, the British Social Hygiene Council (BSHC) and Loram’s Yale conferences, which contributed to that framework of ideas and policy that make up the context of this enquiry. There is an extensive literature on British colonial education for this period in the form of books and articles which appeared in journals such as the International Review of Missions (IRM, the journal of the 19

Introduction

IMC), Africa (the journal of the IIALC/IAI) and Oversea Education (a joint CO/IoE publication). Although there is no space here for a detailed account of this literature, a few key publications can be mentioned. I have listed them by author in chronological order: Charles T. Loram, The Education of the South African Native (1917);85 Thomas Jesse Jones, The Four Essentials of Education (1926);86 Edwin Smith, The Golden Stool: Some Aspects of the Conflict of Cultures in Modern Africa (1927);87 A. Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (1929/1938);88 Albert D. Helser, Education of Primitive People (1934);89 Bryant T. Mumford, African Learn to be French (1935);90 Basil A. Fletcher, Education and Colonial Development (1936);91 E.G. Malherbe (ed.) Educational Adaptations in a Changing Society (1937);92 W. Bryant Mumford, “A Comparative Survey of Native Education in various Dependencies” (1937);93 Arthur Mayhew, Education and the Colonial Empire (1938);94 Margaret Read, Africans and their Schools (1953) and Education and Social Change in Tropical Areas (1953);95 L.T. Lewis, Education Policy and Practice in British Tropical Areas (1954);96 C.G. Wise, History of Education in British West Africa (1956);97 Lionel Elvin, Education and the End of Empire (1957);98 F.H. Hillard, A Short History of Education in British West Africa (1957);99 R.J. Mason, British Education in Africa (1959);100 W.E.F. Ward, Educating Young Nations (1959);101 and L.J. Lewis, Society, Schools and Progress in Nigeria (1965).102 In relation to school management and pedagogy the most widely circulated texts were Harold Jowett’s The Principles of Education for African Teachers and Suggested Methods for the African Teacher103 and Alban J.E. Winter’s African Education: Suggested Principles and Methods for African Students.104 In retrospect, the most outstanding of these is Victor Murray’s The School in the Bush. It is a tribute to his independence of mind in critically rejecting the recommendations of C.T. Loram and the Phelps Stokes reports, and Jeanes model of rural schooling, for the adaptation of African education to the rural community and the cultural norms of traditional society. His thinking was in alignment with radical colonial reformers like Norman Leys, in Kenya,105 Leonard Wolff of the Fabians106 and W.H. Macmillan, a South African living in Britain, who gained a degree of influence on thinking about colonial Africa by the late 1930s,107 but none of them were embraced by the CO as experts or official advisers even in relation to the work on An African Survey. I will refer to Murray repeatedly in this work as he provides a

20

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consistently critical voice. Unfortunately, we have no comprehensive account of his life and career.108

“The School in the Bush” as depicted in Victor Murray’s book of that name. (Longmans, 1929/1938)

Another key figure who deserves more attention is Arthur Mayhew.109 Writing in the context of this extensive experience of educational issues in India,110 and his position as joint-secretary (with Hanns Vischer) of the ACEC from 1934, he provides a comprehensive overview of British colonial education and a sense of the changes in policy over the years between the publication of the 1925 Memo and 1938. He emphasizes the role of networks and conferences in creating a climate for policy development. In the context of his report on Loram’s conferences at Yale (1934) and Hawaii (1936, see Chapter 6) he distinguishes marked differences between the “American approach” to policy supported by the Foundations, “influenced by a curious mixture of progressivism and uniformity,” while he claims the British approach has been more laissez-faire, allowing for the wide variations of context and conditions to be found across the empire. He emphasizes the need for educational policy to be synchronized with other kinds of policy relating to economic growth, welfare and health provision and the role of science on educational policy development in the manner indicated by Hailey’s report. As an influential voice at the ACEC, he undertook the role of spokesman for the CO in mission and Foundation networks. He also defended the work of the IIALC, and his colleague Diedrich Westermann, in relation to the recognition of language and culture as a key component of educational development, including the promotion and publication of indigenous language texts

21

Introduction

and textbooks.111 He provided an important link to home-based lobby groups like the BSHC as he reported to their 1938 conference on the progress of the program for a “Biological Approach to Education” in East Africa.112 These works all provide an excellent insight into the issues faced by educationalists at the time and attempt to describe the context of educational policy development as seen by those engaged in the shaping of policy. But few manage to capture an analytical approach to policy or locate it in the wider developmental framework that was evolving in the context of the IAI project that produced Hailey’s An African Survey (1938), which marked the beginning of an analytical and scientific approach to the politics of development.113 The gradual turn away from the hegemony of “Indirect Rule” and “adaptation” was a slow process, with Loram and Mumford championing the older approach until the late 1930s. Anthropologists like Malinowski promised “scientific” answers to the policy needs of the CO, but as Macmillan and Murray protested, they failed to come up with a comprehensive approach to policy issues and often lapsed into the language of Indirect Rule in their defence of what were understood to be the “cultural needs” of Africans. In doing so, they failed to locate education policy discourse within the wider framework of political, social and economic changes that provided the rationale for Hailey’s Survey and the subsequent Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940. In effect, the approach taken by Hailey embraced the new politics of the times and the search for scientific solutions to the problems of development in Africa. But Hodge argues that none of this moved away radically from the focus on agrarian or “rural development as a mechanism for stabilizing the society in a modern era,”114 nor did it conceive of African society as being part of the modern industrial society that was evolving in Europe and North America. This emphasis on the rural or traditional society had unforeseen consequences for the shape of development policies that were to emerge with the selfconfident new generation of post-war development experts who sought to regenerate the notion of “development.” Many of the experiments and innovations projected during the period 1920–1940 that are the subject of this study were not to reach completion in that era. Yet as Hodge notes, based on the experience of scientific planning for development in the interwar years “the selfassurance and the faith in science, technology and the ability of the state and international organisations to manage development were 22

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

perhaps never greater” than in the Development Decades after World War II. As Frederick Cooper has demonstrated, the change from a colonial discourse about development to a national development debate after 1945 did little to change the dynamics of poverty and welfare in Africa. Indeed, one of the fundamental reasons for advancing the date of African independence was the gradual realization by the CO and the British government that the challenges of new, comprehensive notions of development or social welfare that were unfolding in Europe in the late 1930s – which included notions of inclusive state welfare, health and education policy – were beyond the scope of anything the colonial powers were willing or able to tackle in the colonial empire.115 The task of the “development” of Africa was thereafter reconstituted within the frameworks that were evolved by the agencies of the United Nations Organization and the World Bank. Within the optimistic atmosphere of postcolonial politics of the 1950s and 1960s a new infrastructure of “development studies” was constructed with the backing of generous donations of foreign aid – much of it coming for the former colonial powers. Yet as Hans Weiler noted graphically in his landmark paper of 1978, that project was best understood as an aspect of an “Age of Innocence” that characterized the postcolonial era. Looking back from what he sees as an “Age of Scepticism” in the late 1970s, he sought to understand how the dreams of increasing equity had failed to be realized and why education failed to contribute to goals of equity in ways that had been taken for granted during the heyday of the “Development Decades.”116 In South Africa, the last African “colony” to achieve democratic rule in 1994, the tensions that emerged during the first decade of President Mandela’s time in office illustrated how that history came to impact on policy development. In the first flush of excitement about the birth of the “rainbow nation,” the Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP) reflected a strong commitment to the welfare politics of the Development Era with an emphasis on equity and welfare, but by the end of the first decade the ANC government under Thabo Mbeki had abandoned that track in favour of the Growth, Equity and Reconstruction (GEAR) policies which broadly embraced neoliberal political agendas and the continued integration of South Africa into the global capitalist order with an emphasis on the free market/global capitalism and privatization in keeping with the general norms of neoliberal policies elsewhere.117 The educational policies that followed, linked to the neoliberal political agenda that was embraced, 23

Introduction

had a strong emphasis on vocational education and made a radical attempt to change the nature of curriculum and learning in keeping with a pseudo-progressive system of Outcomes-Based Education, which had not been trialled elsewhere. The outcomes were predictably disastrous, and the promise of “People’s Education” as a means of promoting equity has had disappointing outcomes.118 As had occurred in postcolonial Africa 40 years earlier, the new African nationalist ANC government which came to power in 1994 was faced with the same set of conundrums as earlier postcolonial states, though it failed to explore that context for potential solutions to its own policy issues. Just as the new development practitioners of the Development Decade had failed to understand the lesson of the 1930s, so the new government of South Africa neglected the lessons to be learned for the post-Uhuru experience in Africa. Although the welfare state and mass quality education had been promised – the new state could not deliver. This collection of chapters does not pretend to offer solutions to any of these problems – but in keeping with much of the aforementioned critical comments – it suggests that educational policy needs to be understood in terms of the complex webs of interests that will in the end inform its outcomes. To proceed without this analytical framework is to court the kinds of scepticism that Hans Weiler identifies. The field of education is a weak instrument for engineering societal change, and to expect it to make miracles is to invite disillusionment. This collection is offered in the hope that the insights of those who battled to engage with the key aspect of the colonial education system in Africa during the interwar era might be able to offer some clues on how to understand the complexities of educational change and how modern systems of scientific thinking might be brought to bear on the issues at stake. Although many of today’s educational challenges are different from those of a previous era, the hope is that, despite the intrinsic interest of the events outlined in the context of the history of education, their exploration might also throw light on contemporary educational policy issues or at the very least help us to rethink those issues with the advantage of hindsight. Writing in 1978 in relation to the previous two decades, Hans Weiler’s words seem to have particular relevance to the context being considered here:

24

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA An exercise of this kind capitalises on the benefit of hindsight: it allows us to discern developments which, at the outset, were everything but clear to those setting out to shape policies for the period on which we are looking back. As to what lies ahead, we share their predicament, but we increase the probability of our being better prophets (or planners) to the extent that we understand the dynamics of the processes of economic growth and social change that have affected, and have been affected by, the direction and pattern of educational development… . At the same time, however, many of the “surprises” in the development history of the last two decades reflect more the innocence of our ideas of the development process and the forces determining it, than genuinely unforeseeable events… . Inadequate knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of development processes, both within and outside the educational system, have accounted for a good portion of the casualties in the educational development effort of the last two decades.119

In the first five chapters I explore the broad background to the emergence of a research and policy culture relating to education during the era of mass education and Progressive Education that was a major, if often underestimated, feature of international political economy in the interwar era. My specific focus is on colonial development and education, in relation to both Christian mission and secular/state education and the role of philanthropic institutions. The goal in these chapters is to map out the changing international landscape which shaped thinking about colonial education under the influence of the new philosophy of education influenced by Progressive Education, managerialism, secularism, science and the expansion of an educational research culture in institutions of higher education and philanthropic foundations. This broad shift in the understanding of modern schooling had a strong, if uneven, influence on debates about colonial education in Africa. Within the IMC, the nature and purpose of missionary education was gradually reframed. The proselytizing ethos of the previous century gradually came to be influenced by Progressivist ideas which gave greater emphasis to curriculum development that emphasized the context of schooling and its relevance to the host societies. The nature of vocational or industrial education was re-evaluated and the significance of local culture and languages was recognized if education was to be successful and meaningful to local contexts. Collaboration between church and state over educational policy required a much more systematic approach to educational management and policy than had been the case in the past. Missionaries increasingly realized 25

Introduction

the importance of research and policy development if they were to be able to influence government initiatives, and they turned to modern research techniques and to the language of policy in an attempt to remain relevant to policy-makers. All these trends were manifested in the increasing attention given to education in the great IMC mission conferences held in Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1926) and Tambaram (India) (1938) and the increasing collaboration between the missionary bodies, philanthropic foundations and colonial governments with regard to educational policy. The leading role of J.H. Oldham in relation to African education is highlighted given his crucial role in linking missionary and state policy and promoting scientific approaches to educational policy in relation to colonial education. These initiatives meant that the increasing emphasis on Progressive Education needed to be recognized. The second chapter throws the spotlight on one of the foremost influences – NEF – in promoting this ethos internationally. The relationship between education and democracy was identified as a key element of educational planning through the broad influence of the League of Nations. New networks were forged to promote links between progressive educators in America and Europe and African educators, in order to promote the centrality of child or community-centred modes of education influenced by sociological and psychological approaches and also the importance of the individual in society to counter the rising influence of totalitarian politics in the 1930s. Again, the influence of international conferences and scientific networks was significant. The third chapter highlights the tentative links between the emerging international politics of welfare and the provision of education in the colonial context. Although the gains in this regard were extremely limited given the weakness of the colonial state and lack of funding for development programs due to the Depression and World War II, there are indications of an emergent policy culture during the 1930s that was to provide elements of a foundation for the post-war Development Era. In particular, I explore the significance of these debates for the emergent policy focus on welfare and education in the colonial context with an emphasis on health, hygiene, nutrition and the role of women in society. The strengths and weakness of these initiatives are examined. The influence of science in shaping policy debates is then explored, with an emphasis on the emergent sciences of social anthropology (Chapter 4) and linguistics (Chapter 5). The work of the IIALC, with its 26

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focus on anthropological fieldwork and on issues of culture and language as a key aspect of educational reform, reflects the German experience from the nineteenth century. Diedrich Westermann provides a crucial link between the missionary and scientific work in his engagement with issues of African language and literacy. His career demonstrates the international nature of these research initiatives and the extent to which they were able to engage with the international political context of the interwar years. Throughout the previous exploration of issues related to education in the broad African colonial context, I have sought to identify the responses of Africans to the changing landscape of colonial education policy in the new era of emergent African nationalism. In the last two chapters I shift the focus to the South African context, where I attempted to link the broader colonial education issue to the local context while keeping within the general analytical framework of the investigation in order to highlight the similarities and differences of these contexts. Given the neglect of black South African educationalists in the literature, the focus on the relatively unknown South Africans, Donald M’timkulu and Samuel Mqhayi, is aimed at demonstrating how representatives of the colonized were obliquely engaged with the wider context outlined in the rest of the study. Even if they had limited power to influence the formulation of “policy,” an examination of their careers demonstrated the extent to which their lives and careers were shaped by colonial education (in its multiple manifestations) and the extent to which they were able to frame alternatives to official policy or use international debates to promote alternative agendas. M’timkulu was a model student, graduate of Adams College, Lovedale and Fort Hare, and teacher, headmaster of Adams College and Ohlange Institute, academic and leader in teacher organizations, who studied on a Carnegie grant at Yale University during C.T. Loram’s tenure as Professor of Education. On the basis of that experience, he was to become a major influence on education in South Africa and in due course an important critic of apartheid education up to the point where he departed for self-imposed exile in 1959. Mqhayi was a cultural patriot, an imibongo (praise poet), a journalist and a novelist/author, who was critical of colonial education in general but engaged in a lifelong battle to preserve Xhosa culture and tradition – both within and without the confines of the formal system of mission and state education. Both M’timkulu and Mqhayi engage vigorously

27

Introduction

with the issue of language and culture as key aspects of the colonial education experience. In Chapter 8 I attempt to place these initiatives in the context of a wider understanding of the literature. The story is complex and the strands are multiple – but it is hoped that they will provide some new ways of thinking about African and South African education – then and now!

Notes 1 2

3 4 5 6 7

8 9

28

David Tyack & Larry Cuban, Tinkering Towards Utopia: A Century of Public School Reforms (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995): 4. See, for example: Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876–1957 (New York: Vintage, 1964); David B. Tyack, The One Best System: The History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); Tyack & Cuban (1995); Michael Katz, The Irony of Early School Reforms (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970); David Labaree, Education, Markets and the Public Good: The Selected Reading of David Labaree (London: Routledge, 2007). For the British context, see Harold Silver, Education as History; Interpreting Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Education (London: Methuen, 1983); Brian Simon, Education and the Labour Movement 1870–1920 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1974); Gary McCulloch & Barry Franklin, The Death of the Comprehensive School? (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007). London: Macmillan, 1990. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. BPP, UK Board of Education, Special Reports on Educational Subjects (see f. 22); The Yearbook of Education (University of London, Institute of Education [London: Evans Bros, from 1932]); Educational Yearbook of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University (New York: Teachers College, from 1928). Nicholas Hans, “The Historical Approach to Comparative Education,” International Review of Education 5(3) (1959): 1299–1309. See Peter Kallaway & Rebecca Swartz, Empire and Education in Africa: The Shaping of a Comparative Perspective (New York: Peter Lang, 2016/Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2019); Felicity Jensz, “The 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference and Comparative Colonial Education,” History of Education 47(3) (May): 362–367 on

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10 11

12 13

14

15 16 17

Imperial, Global and Local Histories of Education: editorial comment: Author with Rebecca Swartz.” Also see Damiano Matasci, Miguel Bandeira Jeronimo, & Hugo Goncelves Dores (eds.) Education and Development in (Post) Colonial Africa (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Alan Lester & Fae Dussart, Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Joseph Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007); Brett M. Bennett & J. Hodge (eds.) Science and Empire: Knowledge and Networks of Science Across the British Empire, 1800–1970 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); John Cell, Hailey: A Study in British Imperialism, 1872–1969 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Patrick Harries, The Spiritual and the Secular: Missionaries and Knowledge about Africa (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2012); Helen Tilley, Africa as Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge 1870– 1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). London: Oxford University Press, 1938: 161. See also Hodge (2007): 9–11. BPP, Colonial Development Advisory Committee: Command Papers reports from 1930 to 1941. See Stephen Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy, 1914–1940 (London: Frank Cass, 1984): 309. The only research facility established in Africa during this period was in Northern Rhodesia. See Richard Brown, “Anthropology and Colonial Rule: Godfrey Wilson and the Rhodes – Livingstone Institute, Northern Rhodesia,” in Talal Asad (ed.) Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (London: Ithaca Press, 1973): 173–198. Wilson’s attempts to engage with critical research in labour relations on the Copper Belt demonstrated the difficulties of conducting what was perceived to be politically sensitive research. See Sean Morrow, The Fires Beneath: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African anthropologist (Cape Town: Penguin, 2016): Ch. 8. The Institute did not initiate research on educational issues. The Institut Francais d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) was established in Dakar, Senegal, in 1938. It had its origins in the Comote d’Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l’Africque Occidentale Francaise established in 1918. Hailey (1938): xxiv–xxv (also see title of Helen Tilley’s book). Guy Hunter, Education for a Developing Region: A Study in East Africa (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1963). James O’Connell & David Scanlon, Education and Nation-Building in Africa (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966).

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19

20 21

22 23 24

30

Planning Education for African Development (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1969); (ed.) Education in Africa: Research and Action (East Africa Publishing House/Heinemann Educational Books, 1969). See C. Arnold Anderson & M. J. Bowman (eds.) Education and Economic Development (Chicago: Aldine, 1965); C.A. Anderson, The Social Context of Educational Planning (Paris: IIEP, 1967); P.J. Foster & J.R. Sheffield (eds.) Education and Rural Development (World Yearbook of Education) (London: Evans, 1974); J.R. Sheffield (ed.) Education, Employment and Rural Development (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1967); A.R. Thompson, Education and Development in Africa (London: Macmillan, 1981). One of the most comprehensive reviews of the field, Jeanne Mouton, Karen Mundy, Michel Welmond, & James Williams, Education Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa: Paradigm Lost? (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), largely neglects the background to which I am referring. Subsequently published as Comparative Education (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949/1950/1958). Philip J. Foster, Education and Social Change in Ghana (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965); Kenneth King, Pan-Africanism and Education (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971); Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: The British and Indian Colonial Education Service, 1858– 1983 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003). Thomas S. Popkewitz, Miguel A. Pereyra, & Barry Franklin, Cultural History and Education: critical essays on Knowledge and Schooling (New York: Routledge Falmer, 2001): 26. Popkewitz, Pereyra, & Franklin (2001): 238. American motivation for such extensive involvement in African colonial education awaits comprehensive investigation. Robert F. Arnove, Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980); Edward H. Berman, The Ideology of Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation on American Foreign Policy (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983): Merle Curti, American Philanthropy Abroad (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963): Richard D. Heyman, “The Role of the Carnegie Corporation in African Education” (Ed. D. diss., Columbia University, 1970); Frank Salamone, “The International African Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Development of British Social Anthropology,” Transforming Anthropology 9(1) (2000): 19–24. The only significant engagement by a British charitable foundation in the field of African education seems to have been the Nuffield Foundation funding of the 1953 Cambridge conference on African Education: A Study of Educational

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25

26

27

28

29

30

Policy and Practice in British Tropical Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953). See Peter Kallaway, Apartheid and Education (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984); The History of Education Under Apartheid: 1948–1994 (New York: Peter Lang, 2002); Kallaway & Swartz (2016): Introduction. BPP. VII 538(1836), 425 (1837): Parliamentary Select Committee on Aborigines (1835–7); Privy Council Report on Education Policy for the Coloured Races BPP, 1847 [866]. See Rebecca Swartz, Education and Empire: Children, Race and Humanitarianism in British Settler Colonies (London: Palgrave, 2019); Helen Ludlow, “Shaping Colonial Subjects through Government Education,” in Kallaway & Swartz (2016): 81–109. See also Lester & Dussart (2016); Tim Keegan, Dr Philip’s Empire: One Man’s Struggle for Justice in Nineteenth Century South Africa (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2016). Sadler was appointed to the Office of Special Inquiries and Reports and the Board of Education between 1895 and 1913: https://archive.org/details/n1specialreports05greauoft. See also Kevin J. Brehony, “The School Master’s Parliament: The Origins and Formation of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education, 1868–1916,” History of Education 23(2) (1994): 171–193; H. Steedman, “Michael Sadler and the Campaign for an Educational Council, 1893–1903,” Research in Education 2 (1969): 76–87; Lewis A. Selby-Bigge, The Board of Education (London: Putnam & Co., 1927/1934). He was subsequently Professor of Education at Leeds University and Master of University College, Oxford. Between 1917 and 1919 he headed a major enquiry into education in India, published in 13 volumes (see what follows). House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1900, Vol. XXI; BPP. Col. 2378 Africa/Cmd. 416, 417, xxi.). See the Special Report on Educational Subjects: The System of Education in the Cape Colony and Natal Volume 4 and 5 (London: HMSO, 1901) (London: Dawsons, 1968). BPP. G236/Cmd. 2399. South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC), 1903–5; see Donald Denoon, A Grand Illusion: The Failure of Imperial Policy in the Transvaal Colony during the Period of Reconstruction 1900–1905 (London: Longman, 1973); Walter Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men: The “kindergarten” in Edwardian Imperial Affairs (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1968); Shula Marks & Stanley Trapido, “Lord Milner and the South African State,” History Workshop 8 (1979): 50–80. Edmund B. Sargant, Report on “Native Education in South Africa” Vol. 1: Education and the Law” (pp. 1–107) and Vol. 2 “Agencies for the Change of Law and the Education of the Natives” (pp. 108–173); Report on Education in the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Mafikeng,

31

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31 32 33

34 35

36

37 38

32

1905–6) and A Report on Education in Basutoland (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1906). He subsequently became the Acting Director of Education in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony from 1900. For more on Sargant, his background in educational reform and his association with Toynbee Hall, see Philip Gardner, “ ‘There and not seen’: E.B. Sargant and educational reform, 1884– 1905,” History of Education 33(6) (2004): 609–635. His South African career has not been researched. BPP: Confidential Print Africa No 814. See also E.G. Malherbe, Education in South Africa Vol. I: 1652–1922 (Cape Town: Juta, 1925): 335–345. A.J. Aucamp, Bilingual Education and Nationalism with Special Reference to South Africa (Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1926); Malherbe (1925). Malherbe (1925): 341. Two other key Englishmen who played a prominent role in the construction of a modern system of education in the Union of South Africa were (a) John E. Adamson, who had been the minister of education in the Transvaal prior to the Union and was subsequently the Director of Education from 1905 to 1924; see Peter Kallaway, “John Adamson: South African Educator,” in New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); and (b) Fred Clarke, who was Professor of Education at the University of Cape Town from 1911 to 1929, subsequently moved to McGill University in Montreal, and in 1935 he was appointed to take charge of the Overseas Department at the Institute of Education, London University, where he played an important role in promoting colonial education. See F.W. Mitchell, Sir Fred Clarke; Master Teacher 1880– 1957 (London: Longmans, 1967); Peter Kallaway, “Fred Clarke and the Politics of Vocational Education in South Africa 1911–29,” History of Education 25(4) (1996): 353–362. Tilley (2011): 222–223. It is important to note that as far back as 1914 the Hamburg Colonial Institute had produced an impressive report by Martin Schlunk, on Die Schulen für Eingeborene in den deutschen Schutzgebieten (Hamburg: L. Friederichsen & Co, 1914). Penelope Hetherington, British Paternalism and Africa 1920–1940 (London: Frank Cass, 1978): 4–7, 45–60; Michael D. Callahan, Mandates and Empire: The League of Nations and Africa 1914–1931 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999). Leonard Woolf, Kenya: White Man’s Country? (London: Fabian Publications, 1944): 3. Joanna Lewis, Empire State-Building: War and Welfare in Kenya, 1925–52 (Oxford: James Currey, 2000).

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40

41

42 43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50

51

52

Nicholas Deakin, The Politics of Welfare (New York: Harvester/ Wheatsheaf, 1994): 30, citing B.B. Gilbert, British Social Policy 1914– 39 (London: Batsford, 1970); Harry Hendrich, Child Welfare: Historical Dimensions, Contemporary Debate (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2003). Lugard Frederick, The Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa (London: Cass, 1965 first pub. 1922); “Education in Tropical Africa,” The Edinburgh Review 242 (July 1925): 1–19; Margery Perham, Lugard: Vol II. The Years of Authority (London: Collins, 1960). Phelps-Stokes Fund (ed. Thomas Jesse Jones), Report on Education in Africa (New York: 1922); Education in East Africa (New York: Phelps Stokes Fund, 1924). Also see Report on Education, Native Welfare and Race Relation in East Africa (New York: Phelps Stokes Fund, 1934) Saul Dubow, “ ‘Understanding the Native Mind’: The Impact of Anthropological Thought on Segregationist Discourse in South Africa: 1919–1933,” History Workshop paper, 1984. Hodge (2007): 134–317; Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J.H. Oldham (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999). As Victor Murray put it, “the last great refuge of conservatism is the belief that the situation as between black and white is something quite unique, so that in the absence of precedents the ‘practical’ man on the spot must be trusted to know what is best. On such a complacent heresy a dispassionate study of history ought to have a solvent effect, and it is with this hope that I have suggested these historical comparisons.” A. Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1938): 397. See f. 11. BPP. Col. 5666. Online access. There was no specific reference to issues relating to the education of indigenous peoples. CO Cmd. 1990. CO Cmd. 2883–4. CO. Cmd. 3628–9 or W. Rawson, Education in a Changing Commonwealth (London: HMSO, 1931). Oxford: Oxford University Press & Nuffield Foundation, 1955. It is worth noting that the infamous report of the Commission on Bantu Education in South Africa 1945–51 (The Eiselen Report) was released in 1951. UG. 53–1951. Commonwealth Relations Office, Report of the Commonwealth Education Conference, by Sir Philip Morris, 20th Century House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1958–9, Vol. X, p. 1 or Cmd. 841; 1655; 1962 of 1959. For an overview, see F. James Clatworthy, The Formulation of British Colonial Education Policy, 1929–1961: Final Report (Washington, DC: Office of Education (DHEW); Ann Arbor: Michigan University, 1969).

33

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54 55 56

57

58 59 60

61

34

Aporna Basu, The Growth of Education and Political Development in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1974); S.N. Mukerji, History of Education in India: Modern Period (Baroda: Acharya Book Depot, 1966); John Sargent, Society, Schools and Progress in India (Oxford: Pergamon, 1968); Eustace Percy, The Yearbook of Education (London: Evans Bros., 1932): 1–560, 563–818; R.N. & R.K. Sharma, History of Education in India (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2012). Judith M. Brown, “India,” in J. Brown & W.M. Roger Louis (eds.) Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 420–446. See f. 27. Alek Fraser began his educational career by establishing the Church Missionary Society’s King’s College, at Budo in Uganda (1900–1903). From 1904 to 1924 he was principal of Trinity College, Kandy, Ceylon, and from 1924 to 1935 he was the founding headmaster of Achimota government secondary school, the pathbreaking initiative of Governor Guggisberg in the Gold Coast. He also chaired an IMC commission of enquiry into Village Education in India (London: Oxford University Press, 1920). For his work in Africa, see William E.F. Ward, Fraser of Trinity and Achimota (Accra: Ghana University Press, 1965) and Shoko Yamada, “Dignity of Labour” for African Leaders: The Formation of Educational Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School in the Gold Coast (Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG, 2018). Arthur Mayhew was “pivotal in maintaining and extending the influence of the ACEC in the 1930s”; see Whitehead (2003); Arthur Mayhew, The Education of India: A Study of British Education Policy 1835–1920 (London: 1926); “A Comparative Survey of Educational Aims and Methods in British India and British Tropical Africa,” Africa 6(2) (1933):172–186; Education and the Colonial Empire (London: Longman Green, 1938). Sargent (1968). A. Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London: Longmans Green, 1938 – first published in 1929): 263–264, 414 (see also f. 108). See Suresh Chandra Ghosh, “English in Taste, in Opinions, in Words and Intellect,” in J.A. Mangan (ed.) The Imperial Curriculum (London: Routledge, 1993); Tim Allender, Ruling Through Education (New Delhi: Sterling, 2015). Sadler was to become a member of the Colonial Office’s ACEC, chaired by the secretary of state for the colonies, William Ormsby Gore, which advised on educational reform in tropical Africa and was responsible for the recommendations that led to the establishment of Makerere training college for East Africa. Roy Lowe, “Michael Sadler,” Oxford DNB 48 (2004): 562–564.

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 62 63

64

65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72

See Sargent (1968). There was substantial Indian representation at these conferences, first by British officials and later by Indians. There were 14 representatives from India at the 1923 Imperial Education conference, 24 in 1927 (four of whom were Indian) and 11 at the British Commonwealth Education conference in 1931, most of whom were Indian. The Indian Universities Commission (the Curzon Report, 1902); the Calcutta University Commission (the Sadler Commission, 1917); the Hartog Committee report on education which was an auxiliary to the Indian Statutory Commission (the Simon Commission, 1929); the Abbot and Wood Report on General and Vocational Education in the wake of the Government of India Act (1935); and the Report of the Central Advisory Board of Education on “Post – War Educational Development in India” (the Sargent Report) (1944). See B.D. Bhatt & J.C. Aggerwal, Educational Documents in India 1813–1977 (New Delhi: Arya Book Depot, 1977). These investigations also need to be seen against the background of Gokhale protests (1911–1913); the crisis surrounding Dyarchy; and the Wardha Scheme of Education (1937). N. Jayapalan, History of Education in India (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008): 78, 80–85, 91–95.) See Tim Allender, “‘Lessons’ from the Subcontinent: Indian Dynamics in British Africa,” in Kallaway & Swartz (2016): 29–52. Edwin W. Smith, The Golden Stool (London: Edinburgh House, 1927): 291. Nicholas Hans, Comparative Education (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958): 22. See f. 41. There is an extensive literature on the history of Black education in the South from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. See, for example, Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: The Autobiography if Booker T. Washington (New York: Carol, 1902); W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Signet, 1969 originally pub.1903); Carter G. Woodson, Mis-education of the Negro (Washington: The Associated Publishers Inc., 1933); C.W. Dabney, Universal Education in the South, 2 Vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936); James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988). King (1971). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978. Michael Bieze, Booker T. Washington and the Art of SelfRepresentation (New York: Peter Lang, 2008). A recent example of a similar study of the complexity of a colonial life in Africa is to be

35

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73

74

75 76 77 78 79

80 81 82

83

36

found in Brian Willan’s excellent account of the life of Sol Plaatje: A Life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje 1876–1932 (Auckland Park, Johannesburg: Jacana, 2018). Oldham was the secretary of the ecumenical IMC and editor of the influential International Review of Missions (IRM) from 1912. See his White and Black in Africa (London: Longmans, 1930); (with Betty D. Gibson) The Remaking of Man in Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1931); (ed.) The Modern Missionary: A Study of the Human Factor in the Missionary Enterprise in the Light of Present-day Conditions (London: SCM Press, 1935); also see Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J.H. Oldham (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999); Kenneth King, “Africa and the Southern States of the USA: Notes on J.H. Oldham and American Negro Education for African,” Journal of African History X(4) (1969): 659–677. There is unfortunately no comprehensive work which focuses specifically on Oldham’s extensive work on colonial education. See the excellent article by Sonia G. Parkinson, “Sir Hanns Vischer: Champion of African Cultures: a portrait of an adviser on colonial education,” in Whitehead (2003): 106–148. First published in Education Research and Perspectives 25(1) (1968): 1–45. See f. 57. See Whitehead (2003): 206–226. See f. 106. Julian Huxley, Biology and Its Place in Native Education in East Africa (London: HMSO, 1930). Edwin W. Smith, Aggrey of Africa: A Study of Black and White (London: Student Christian Movement, 1929); Kenneth King, “James E.K. Aggrey: Collaborator, Nationalist, Pan-African,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 3(3) (1969): 511–530. Yamada (2018). See f. 73. See his “Educational Policy of the British Government in Africa,” IRM 14 (1925): 421–427; “Recent Tendencies in African Native Education,” Royal Society of Anthropology 75 (1927): 657–675. See J. Merle Davis, Modern Industry and the African: An Inquiry into the Effect of the Copper Mines upon Native Society (in Northern Rhodesia) and the Work of Christian Mission (London: Macmillan, 1933); The Economic Basis of the Church [Report from the IMC meeting in Tambaram, India in 1938] (London: Oxford University Press, 1939). Eustace Percy, “An Empire Centre for the Study of Education,” Yearbook of Education (1934): 685–686. See Saul Dubow, A Commonwealth of Knowledge (Oxford: Double Storey, 2006): Ch. 5; Paul Rich, White Power and the Liberal Conscience (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984).

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

106

107

108

Celia Jenkins, “New Education and Its Emancipatory Interests 1920– 50,” History of Education 29(2) (2000): 139–151. London: Longmans Green, 1917. New York: C. Scribner & Sons, 1926. London: Edinburgh House, 1927. London: Longmans Green, 1927/1938. New York & London: Fleming Revell, 1934. London: Evans Bros., 1935. London: Methuen, 1936. Cape Town: Juta & Co., 1937. The Yearbook of Education (London: Evans Bros, 1937). London: Longman, 1938. London: Longman Green, 1953 & London: Nelson, 1953. London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1954. London: Evans Bros., 1956. London: Evans Bros., 1957. London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1957. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959. Oxford, Pergamon, 1965. London: Longmans Green, 1931, and various subsequent editions to the 1950s; London: Longman, 1933 > to 1950s. London: Longmans, 1939. See Kenya (London: Hogarth Press, 1926); A Last Chance in Kenya (London: Hogarth Press, 1931); The Colour Bar in East Africa (London: Hogarth Press, 1941). Also see Kenya: White Man’s Country? (London: Fabian Publications, 1944) with an introduction by Leonard Woolf. A notable quote from his writing captures the mood of some of this critique: “History, I think, teaches us one lesson at any rate – that great empires may be founded, but cannot be permanently base, on political cant and social hypocrisy.” Leonard Woolf, in Leys (1944): 3. W.H. Macmillan, Warning from the West Indies (London: Faber & Faber, 1936); Africa Emergent: A Survey of the Social, Economic and Political Trends in British Africa (London: Faber & Faber, 1938); West India Royal Commission Report, submitted Sept. 1939. Cmd. 6607, VI, 245. Pub.1944–5. Also see Hugh Macmillan & Shula Marks, African and Empire: W.M. Macmillan, Historian and Social Critic (London: ICS, 1989). Victor Murray was Lecturer at Selly Oaks Missionary Colleges in Birmingham and was appointed Professor of Education at University College, Hull, in 1937. He had been a war resister in World War I. He visited West Africa in 1927–1928 and 1931–1932 on Cadbury Travelling Research Fellowships and was appointed as the Protestant

37

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109 110 111

112

113 114 115 116 117

118

38

Missions’ Educational Adviser in West Africa. In 1934 he attended the NEF conference in South Africa. As Whitehead points out, Murray was especially critical of the theory of adaptation. He argued that “to educate a man along his own lines was meaningless” and “placed his faith instead in the often much – maligned ‘western educated African’ in the belief that African society could not stand still” (Whitehead [2003] 176). These radical views did not make him popular with the CO or the IMC and meant that he was never incorporated into Oldham’s inner circle of advisers. Professor Nunn, the head of the Institute of Education, London University, noted in his foreword to the second edition of The School in the Bush (1938) that Murray displayed admirable courage when he “criticises established persons and institutions, whatever their authority and prestige.” An extensive search has not yielded archival sources for Murray. Mayhew, see f. 57. Mayhew (1926); “The Educational Aspect of Indian Constitutional Reform,” Oversea Education VI (3) (1935): 112–122. See Margaret Wrong, Africa and the Making of Books: Being a Survey of Africa’s Need for Literature (London: International Committee on Christian Literature for Africa, 1934). Margaret Wrong was a keynote speaker at the conference on African literature held in Bloemfontein and Johannesburg in 1936. See Ch. 7. Arthur Mayhew, “The Place of Biology in the School Curriculum,” Report to the Annual Imperial Conference of the British Social Hygiene Council, June 1938 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1939); Oversea Education X (1) (1938): 39. The publication in 1928 of The Native Problem in Africa (New York: Macmillan) by Raymond l. Buell’s of Harvard University provided an impressive precursor to this study. Hodge (2007): 264–265. Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: UCLA Press, 2005). Hans N. Weiler, “Education and Development: From the Age of Innocence to the Age of Scepticism,” Comparative Education 14(3) (1978): 179–198. Hein Marais, South Africa; Limit to Change – the Political Economy of Transformation (London: Zed Press, 1998); Patrick Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (London: Pluto, 2000); William M. Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Soul of the ANC (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2007). See Edward B. Fiske & Helen F. Ladd, Elusive Equity: Educational Reform in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004); Linda Chisholm (ed.) Changing Class:

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA Education and Social Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa (London: Zed Books, 2004); Peter Kallaway, Glenda Kruss, Aslam Fataar, & Gari Donn (eds.) Education after Apartheid: South African Education in Transition (Cape Town: UCT Press, 1997); Jansen, Jonathan D., Spaull, Nic., South African schooling: the enigma of inequality: a study of the present situation and future possibilities (Cham, Switzerland: Springer 2019). 119 Weiler (1978): 179–198.

39

Chapter 1 The International Missionary Council and education in colonial Africa *

*

This paper was first presented at the History of Education Society (UK) conference at the Royal National Hotel in London, 3–5 November 2006. A version was first published in History of Education 38(2) (March 2009): 217–246.

A key challenge for the mission churches was to meet the increasing demand for schooling in the highly complex context of the educational politics of the times. This chapter is concerned to map the background to those international influences that shaped the policy and practices of mission education and the increasing engagement of colonial governments with the field of education. Church and state gradually expanded their cooperation in the field of colonial education as the costs of education outstripped the resources of the missions and the demand for mass education came to be linked to nationalist demands for political and economic rights. This chapter addresses the question of the worldwide Protestant mission church’s response to the changing political, social and economic environments of the first half of the twentieth century. It seeks to explore how mission initiatives helped to shape thinking about education in Asia, Africa, North America, Oceania and Latin America by the 1930s in the political framework established by the Covenant of the League of Nations. It also attempts to situate those issues within a wider educational framework by linking them to the emergent debate about pragmatism and utilitarianism relating to Progressive Education in the United States and the quest for social 41

Chapter 1

democratic forms of education in the United Kingdom and Europe as part of a policy response to socialism, nationalism and totalitarianism. In short, the chapter explores the influence of the Christian mission churches with regard to social policy, in general, and the provision of education, in particular, during the interwar years, with special reference to areas influenced by the work of the IMC. At a time when there was diminishing support for “foreign missions,” how did the policy disputes between those with “conservative views” of personal religion and those who were promoting a “social gospel” transform themselves into debates regarding the role of missions in “non-Western societies”? And how did these essentially ecclesiastical/theological issues come to influence public policy, specifically educational policy, in the long term? The conclusions are that mission churches had a very significant influence on the shaping of educational thinking in the colonial and imperial context at a time when state influence in the sector was still often quite weak. The origins of the conference and research culture that has informed educational policy since the establishment of the United Nations Organization had its roots in the broad context of the Charter of the League of Nations, with a meeting of religious and secular goals, prior to the outbreak of World War II. Between 1910 and 1939 there was a significant history of educational reform and community development that has only been partially documented in relation to its global significance. This is an attempt to build a framework for understanding the nature of those changes and what was achieved. The investigation is conducted through an exploration of the three great World Mission Conferences of the IMC held at Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928) and Tambaram, India (1938). The attempts of Christian churches to engage with dramatic social changes associated with industrialization, urbanization, poverty, cultural change and the rise of anti-colonialism, with specific regard to the field of educational policy, are documented and analysed.

History of education and mission education As David Bebbington has noted with regard to the pre-1914 era, “the standard literature of the history of the British Empire tends to relegate religion to the margins of the analysis.”1 Where religious issues are referred to they are often seen in rather static and reified 42

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terms. The approach leads to a neglect of the influence of the “home church” on imperial endeavour and a failure to adequately assess the role of the local or colonial church’s interaction with political, social and economic policies. This assessment would also seem to be applicable to the post– World War I era. Outside of isolated works like William Hogg, William Hutchinson, Adrian Hastings, Andrew Porter and Norman Etherington,2 historians do not seem to have adequately linked ecclesiastical history with mainstream social or world history. The transformation of Protestant Christianity from an evangelical endeavour focused primarily on individual salvation and “conversion” in the nineteenth century to a “social gospel” which “saw public authority and government as an instrument for building God’s kingdom on earth”3 seems to have been a key aspect of theological debate and policy reform in a transforming British political economy of the interwar years both at home and abroad. This shift was noticeable in theology and in public policy. In theology the European Protestant tradition which linked Frederick D. Maurice’s somewhat eccentric nineteenth-century Christian socialism to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s rigorous defence of religious freedom in the context of Nazi Germany asserted a link between Christian mission and engagement with the politics of everyday life, which highlighted the links between religious practice and the politics of equity and democracy. This tradition was also significantly linked to secular concerns by influential Christian socialists from the Fabians to R.H. Tawney and was coming to have a significant impact on British Labour politics by the 1930s.4 Tawney provided crucial link between the community endeavours of Toynbee Hall in London’s East End, the Workers’ Education Association (WEA), the Labour Party, the academic and research ethos of the LSE during the time of Beatrice and Sydney Webb, Lionel Robbins, Harold Laski, Bronislaw Malinowski, Richard Titmuss, T.H. Marshall, Lancelot Hogben, William Beveridge, Maynard Keynes5 and the “social gospel” wing of the Anglican Church.6 Tawney argued that “the general extension of educational provision was important if citizens were to be developed who would be satisfied with nothing less than freedom and would have the confidence to pursue it.”7 Within the mission churches this represented a radical and highly contested challenge to traditional policy and practice and impacted fundamentally on how they engaged with a new age of politics in the world beyond Europe and North America, through the mechanism of 43

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what came to be known as the “social gospel.”8 In the arena of public policy, ideas took shape regarding what later came to be called “community development” and gradually began to influence British Colonial Office policy and practice in Africa and Asia. The idea of trusteeship, applicable to the mandates, but increasingly read as applying to all colonial contexts, gradually came to influence colonial policy and welfare provision.9 For churchmen like J.H. Oldham, the secretary of the IMC for much of the period under review, the role of the Church in these issues of public policy was of fundamental significance.10 The influence of Thomas More, William Wilberforce, Thomas Buxton and John Philip in earlier ages was seen to exemplify the potential role of Christianity in the shaping of public life.11 The mutual benefit of cooperation between Church and State was pressed home at a time when the mission churches were being overwhelmed by demands for social, medical and educational support, and the colonial state was not geared for a major role in public social provision. If religion is an area of neglect by mainstream historians of the imperial age, this chapter is concerned to point to the even more significant dearth of research in the field of education. Mainstream historians seem to have been particularly reluctant to engage with the role of the educational policy and the school as a fundamental aspect of historical transition in the imperial colonial context.12 Despite increasing evidence that it is difficult to overestimate the significance of mission education and emergent mass education in the first half of the twentieth century, few major imperial historians have addressed themselves to this issue in any depth since the vogue for structuralist studies about “cultural imperialism” in the 1970s. This issue is of particular importance given the major shifts in educational theory and practice that were taking place in the late colonial period. Progressive Education in its many forms was to influence educational thinking in the mission field as well as the European and American educational systems. This chapter is concerned to investigate one aspect of that story: how the Christian Protestant churches13 were to take up the multiple and interrelated challenges of a “social gospel,” social development and education policy in the colonial context strongly influenced by the policy of trusteeship and resurgent African nationalism in the last decades of European imperialism. It attempts to explore the internal mission debate about the nature and significance of educational policy for the Church and to situate those developments in the wider context 44

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of evolving public policy. In charting the debate about Christian social engagement in a rapidly changing world and the extent of practical policy development, the chapter attempts to link the history of education more clearly to colonial history, mission history and general social history. In the long term these developments in the “mission fields” would seem to have also had a general influence on “home” social and educational policy, though this has not yet been documented with any precision.

The context The European and North American mission churches in the nineteenth century had a focus that was essentially evangelical and concerned with conversion experiences and increasing the size of the “flock.” “Civilizing the natives” to conform with Western ideas of social life and morality was also of significance. Missionaries who regarded “other” cultural and religious beliefs and practices with respect and tolerance were few and far between. Otherwise interpreted, Christian education at this time was in part an ideological aspect of imperialism through which indigenous peoples were orientated to Western languages, culture and scientific knowledge, and a participation in the capitalist free market of trade, industry and labour. Although there were already seeds of doubt about the mission enterprise in this form, there was still sufficient confidence among churchmen and missionaries at the great World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910 for the theme of the conference to be “the evangelization of the world in this generation,” with the implication that Christianity would become the universal religion. It also provided the initial template for educational thinking and implied a link between evangelization (“Christian education”) and secular education that was to become the cornerstone of thinking about missionary education in the twentieth century. With hindsight, it is possible to see the parallels between these confident and even arrogant expectations of the Christian mission and the imperial mindset of contemporaries. These linkages might not always have been as apparent to contemporaries. World War I led to crisis of confidence in the Western “civilizing” project and was in large part responsible for a dramatic departure from the assumptions of Edinburgh. In the wake of that war and in the context of the new compass of politics enshrined in the covenant of 45

Chapter 1

the League of Nations, there was a need to re-evaluate and to reconsider the norms and values propagated by the earlier missionaries. The increasing awareness of the ethical indefensibility of imperialism, or even capitalism itself, in an age of revolutionary change, called for a reappraisal of the role of Christian mission in the colonial “field.”

Broad themes of mission policy in 1920–1930s Christian mission churches were faced with a range of challenges in the interwar period that arose from the fundamental conditions that confronted European and North American society as a consequence of large-scale industrialization and urbanization, and the political challenges presented by the Russian Revolution. Many leading Christian missionaries to “foreign parts” were to become more introspective and interactive with regard to the political, social and economic changes taking place in the “home” societies as well as the “mission fields.” These wider themes, linked to the devastating economic and psychological experience of a whole generation with regard to the experience of World War I and the Depression years, reflected a loss of confidence in the project of imperial power and a search for new explanations of the role of Christianity in the modern world, which implied a re-evaluation of the values of life in Western capitalist societies as well as the role of mission in the colonial realm. The nature of Christianity itself was contested when the imperial relationship was increasingly being questioned. The changes in the broad political and ideological landscape required that the mission churches confront the issue of the relationship between Christianity and other mass religions in the changing political context of the colonies, especially in Asia where Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist religions represented formidable rivals to the Christian religion. That issue also raised the vexed question of collaboration and cooperation between the mission churches themselves, more particularly between the Protestant mission churches. An added factor, particularly in Africa, was the need to confront the question of relationships between Western mission Christianity and indigenous religions or indigenous Christian churches. In each case the religious issues were strongly linked to social, political and economic policy and educational issues. The aforementioned problems need to be understood in the context of the new challenges that emerged from changes in Christian 46

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theology which increasingly defined the role of the Christian church in terms of a “social gospel” – linked here to the transformation in political ideology in the secular politics of the West (i.e. the response of the Church to the challenges presented by the rise of socialism, Fascism and Communism). Whether the mission churches liked it or not, in a world increasingly beset by class and race conflict, revolution, economic depression and poverty, all but the most ardent evangelicals or staunch doctrinal conservatives embraced Bonhoeffer’s view that “if religion occupies itself only with ‘the sacred’ it ceases to be the Christian religion.”14 That change in approach was also strongly influenced by the rise of secularism in the West – due in part to the growth of materialism in modern industrial societies and to the emergence of secular religions such as nationalism, socialism, Communism and Fascism. In the face of this challenge to Christianity in the heartland, it was often seen to be of utmost importance that the mission churches present a combined and united effort to recruit membership and consolidate gains. The rise of the modern state and the state provision of social services, medical care and education all posed a threat to the traditional role of the mission and provided a solution to the overwhelming demands that were being put on the missions. This promoted greater cooperation between Church and state – but the question was increasingly about the terms upon which that cooperation would take place. The search for alternative approaches for foreign missionaries in this rapidly changing environment was spurred on by the rapid decline in “home” funding for missions and the need to economize and prioritize, plan, strategize and effectively manage the mission fields in new ways. In that complex of issues there was a rapid decline in the number of traditional European candidates presenting themselves for the mission field which, for many, pointed to the urgency of promoting indigenous people to higher ranks in the mission churches. The other side of this coin was that indigenous mission communities in the colonies or elsewhere would have to become increasingly selfsupporting and proactive if they were to survive at all in the new political climate. The context in which the colonial missionaries operated was increasingly defined by the politics of nationalism and modernization where the role of education was increasingly seen as fundamental to the success of individuals and communities in the emergent economic and social order. In that context the mission churches and mission schools often found themselves overwhelmed by the sheer weight of 47

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demand and forced to rely in new ways on government support. All of this led to an increasing degree of soul-searching by the mission churches which made itself evident at the major mission conferences of the times. When the leaders of these missionary societies met at a time of multiple crises for the Christian Protestant churches, what were the main issues that dominated their deliberations, and how did the issue of education feature in those deliberations? A broad policy to be followed by the missions began to emerge from the 1920s with the adoption of a new approach to research and development associated with scientific enquiry and modernized American management practices. In general terms, those goals of policy development were framed in terms of mission engagement with medical missions, welfare and community issues, economic policy and education.

The conferences and deliberations of the IMC as a window through which we can observe these shifts in policy As with Third World states in the post-independence era, where there was little or no capacity to research and innovate with regard to social policy and education, and where such innovation needed to be driven by agency research and loans to improve management, efficiency, access and curriculum reform, so in the era under discussion change and accommodation to new needs was driven in large part by the missions or the IMC in collaboration with the Colonial Office (UK) or US humanitarian Foundations like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Phelps Stokes and Jeanes. This led to various research initiatives and commissions, many with a focus on education. A range of enquiries investigated mission education in India, China and Africa, and the establishment of the IMC’s Department of Social and Industrial Research (DSIR) in 1930 marked a key moment in that process. In the field of education all of this led to a gradual systematization of mission policy and finances in an age of dwindling resources and a key element of change related to the borrowing of aspects of the American corporate organizational strategies for mission. These related to the promotion of “efficiency,” the adaptation of American pragmatism and utilitarianism – in the form of Progressive Education – to the colonial context, and various attempts to reshape and transform the field of education to accommodate new forms of rural 48

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education, industrial education, technical education and agricultural education in order to engage more effectively with the needs of these new societies. A shift from the use of martial language in relation to mission activity and strategy in the pre–World War I era (e.g. “conquest,” “campaign”), to a language of social reform and a “social gospel” thereafter, is a metaphor for the changes being signposted.15

Education as a key to mission policy At a series of IMC conferences from 1910 onwards (see Table 1.1) there is a gradual, systematic engagement with the definition of religious education and the role of the missions in colonial and African education. Although the major World Congresses of Edinburgh, Jerusalem and Tambaram do not always highlight education specifically, it is possible to identify a range of activities that demonstrate sustained attention to the issues. For the deliberation of these conferences to be fully understood, they should be read parallel to the ferment of educational ideas that was taking shape at the various conferences of international educational associations like the NEF and the British Imperial Education Conferences called between 1923 and 1931 (see Chapter 2). In all of these the hand of J.H. Oldham, the secretary of the IMC, was present and influential. The considerable nineteenth-century legacy of mission education policy in India and China was assessed for its relevance to the African context, though much of the critique was assumed rather than directly articulated. As indicated in the Introduction, the resistance to “academic education” by officials and many missionaries in Africa was largely a result of the negative backwash effect that such policies were often perceived to have had on India where they created a large group of “politically disaffected,” Western-educated school graduates who could not fit into the social and economic life of rural society but were also not seen as being technically equipped for the hard realities of employment in the newly emergent urban and industrial contexts.

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Table 1.1 IMC conferences which focused on education: 1910–1938 Date Place Relevant theme “Education in relation to the 1910 World Edinburgh Conference Christianization of National Life” “Christian Education in Africa”: A consideration of the Phelps1924 High Leigh, near Cambridge Stokes Reports on African Education linked to the British Colony The Education of African 1925 IMC conference Women and Girls 1926 Le Zoute, Belgium “Christian Mission in Africa” 1928 Jerusalem World Congress Rural Education Christian Education in East 1930 Nairobi Africa Oxford Conference of the Life “Church, Community and State 1936 and Works Committee in relation to Education” Education in relation to the “The 1938 Tambaram World Congress Economic Basis of the Church”

The themes explored in relation to African education included the education of women and girls, school governance, church/ community/state cooperation, curriculum development (academic versus industrial schooling, Western versus indigenous knowledge) the nature of the rural school curriculum, the use of indigenous language in school, the nature of science education in Africa and the training and supply of teachers (see Chapter 3). For the acute observer many of the themes explored with regard to colonial education had clear links to the prodigious development of the “science of education” globally at this time, as the 1920s and 1930s represent the first significant era of the professionalization of educational studies in terms of research agendas at places like Teacher’s College at Columbia University, the Institut J.J. Rousseau/ International Bureau of Education in Geneva and the Institute of Education at London University. In summary, the influence of Progressive Education, the NEF network, and the gradual pressure for widened access as part of social democratic reforms in Britain are fundamental to an understanding of

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the trends of educational debate that came to influence the mission field.16 What influence did those deliberations have on the shape of educational policy at the end of the colonial era, and what was the legacy thereof?

The development of education The development of education was one of the most outstanding features of missionary effort during the heyday of colonialism from 1858 to 1914, but the shape of that engagement alters fundamentally in the era under review.17 In particular, it becomes much more subject to an evolving policy ethos, to a managerial and financial audit and to an engagement with the secular authorities regarding access, governance, curricula, assessment, inspection and the supply and payment of teachers. The deliberations on educational policy by missions and governments during this period took place against the background of the construction of the whole twentieth-century mass education project.18 The redefinition of liberalism and democracy in the wake of World War I and the Charter of the League of Nations were fundamental to that project. The challenge to the traditional European curriculum by the Progressive Education movement emphasized child-centred education, a curriculum that sought to engage the child with critical thinking skills, and a focus on the induction of children to the skills of democratic citizenship, community conscientiousness and a climate of human rights (see Chapter 2). Here the question of education in its broadest sense was associated with an “evangelism of service” where the power of Christianity was interpreted in terms of social deeds and achievements. In assessing the nature of these priorities for the mission churches, William Hocking accentuates a pragmatic view of religion which reflected an accommodation between religious and secular goals for education with “a visible tendency to regard [education and other associated interests] as having a value of their own, and as being legitimate functions of Christian missions, apart from any explicit (goals of) evangelization.”19 By the 1930s these represented significant changes in the approach of the Church to its task in the “mission fields” and heralded a dramatic

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shift in the way in which the project was understood by the Church and government.20

World Missionary Conferences Although there had been a number of large-scale missionary conferences since the mid-nineteenth century, the three World Missionary Conferences held between 1910 and 1938 were significant in their representativeness and the range of issues that came under consideration. During the period the deliberations became increasingly “worldly” or outward looking, and less “theological,” as the missions became more aware of their social and ethical role in politics and government and as the missions were increasingly drawn into various kinds of partnerships with governments. The national composition of the conferences changed radically over this time, giving much space for self-reflection and reorientation in the context of a changing global political order. In 1910 there had been only 17 representatives from what later came to be called the “Third World” out of a total of 1400 delegates. This changed radically in 1928 and 1938 when far greater numbers of delegates were drawn from Asia, Africa and Latin America. At Tambaram nearly half the delegates (nearly 200) were from Asia.

Edinburgh: 1910 The conference called by the World Missionary Conference which was convened in Edinburgh in 1910 is widely held to have been a new beginning with regard to the institutionalized cooperation between the Protestant mission churches.21 While it was not strictly ecumenical, as it did not include the Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches, and neglected the development of what came to later be known as “indigenous churches,” it did provide a benchmark for the organization and coordination of major European and North American missionary efforts to “foreign parts.” Despite reluctant participation by some High Church Anglicans, the Continuation Committee, initiated at the conference, with J.H. Oldham as secretary, was to set the tone and the organizational structure for the later ecumenical movement. This movement finally came to its fulfilment after World War II with the establishment of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948. 52

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J. H. Oldham of the International Missionary Conference from Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier (1999):268

Edinburgh Missionary Conference 1910 from Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier (1999): 93

The conference marked a symbolic starting point of the contemporary ecumenical movement and a key step towards the institutionalization of cooperation between the Protestant mission churches and the development of social policy. 53

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While the general tenor of the conference was somewhat “conservative” and tended to conflate the proclamation of the gospel to the heathen with the spread of “Western civilization,” it did also begin an accommodation with non-Western religions and a new commitment to what would later be called “inter-faith debate.” This “inclusivistic theology” was to have long-term effects at the subsequent Jerusalem and Tambaram conferences. The role of the Church in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America was no longer seen solely in terms of evangelical calling. The “Life and Works Movement” that emerged from the conference carried out the specific task of relating Christian mission to the social and economic needs of the communities in which they operated. The focus of the mission was not solely about the conversion of individuals and their spiritual wellbeing; it was also to be about addressing the urgent social and economic needs of the communities. In due course that concern was to be extended not just to the well-being of the Christian communities in which they worked but to the general good of these societies. The conference also initiated a link between theological debate, missionary policy and the emergent welfare politics of the European heartland. These concerns were to have direct relevance to the colonial periphery in anticipation of a time of dramatic social and political change, and the challenges of equity and welfare in the postcolonial world. It is therefore not surprising that concerns about the medical, welfare and educational came to carry ever-increasing weight in relation to missionary policy from this time. Of the 1,200 delegates only 17 were from the “younger churches.” There were very few Africans present. Hogg notes that the dominant ethos was “patronizing and paternalistic” but that there were nevertheless significant contributions by some representatives of the “native churches,” such as V.S. Azariah from India and Cheng Ching-yi from China.22 The Edinburgh conference of 1910 marked, more than was realized by most of those present, the end of an epoch. It was the end of the “heyday of colonialism.”23 From a focus on evangelization and conversion to a form of Christianity that was largely uncritically equated with “western civilization,” there was the beginning of a realization of the need to respect and recognize wide cultural and even religious differences between faiths and between Christian churches, and “a need to work together.”24 The implications of these new perspectives were only beginning to be understood in relation to the field of education.

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Edinburgh and education The core of the conference proceedings revolved around its eight commission reports. Hogg notes that “never before had the paramount problems of world missionary enterprise been so thoroughly surveyed, studied and evaluated.”25 Education, Christian education and formal (“Western”) secular education, were identified as key aspects of the deliberations. The commissions established as part of the conference planning included one on “Education in relationship to the Christianization of National Life” (Commission III) (see Table 1.2) and another on the “Relation of Missions to Governments” (Commission V), which were both relevant to this field. Reports were researched and compiled by teams of experts and were made available to delegates, along with recommendations, prior to the conference. No less than 200 “correspondents” – “missionaries from India and Ceylon, from Japan, Korea and China, and from all over the continent of Africa,” replied to the survey sent out by Commission III. In addition to geographical overviews of the field, there were chapters on the history and philosophy of education, as well as others on topics including industrial training, literature in the mission field, the training of teachers and the education of women. The Conference Report was therefore recognized to be “the beginning of serious endeavor to arrive by joint consultation and survey methods at a policy.” This mode of procedure was very new to mission conferences.26 Table 1.2 Edinburgh Missionary Conference (1910): Study Commission III – “Education in Relation to the Christianization of National Life” 1. The importance of this subject 2. The Report of the Commission 3. Address by the Chairman of the Commission and Professor M.E, Sadler on the subject 4. Missionary Education in India 5. Missionary Education in Islamic Countries and Africa 6. Missionary Education in Japan 7. Testimony of the Prime Minister of Japan, Marquis Katsura 8. Missionary Education in China; speech by William Bryan

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The findings of the emergent “educational science” and the improvements in education methods in Britain, Europe and North America were to be drawn upon to strengthen education in the mission field.27 The schoolmaster was recognized as having an all-important role to play in shaping mission education policy and was identified as being of ever greater importance to the task of the missionary. It was recognized that educators needed professionals training parallel to the training for pastoral and medical work, something that had to date been largely neglected by the mission churches. The increasing demand for education was recognized by the conference. Significantly, the role of Church and secular education was signalled as being of the utmost significance in bridging the gaps between Hindu, Muslim and Christian in India, Turkey and Persia in the interests of promoting modernization and “westernization.” Where secular education had advanced rapidly, as it had in Japan, there was a sense of alarm at the impending consequences of statecontrolled education for the Christian missions. These circumstances prompted delegates to focus on the need for an investigation of current policies and to engage with the challenges of framing alternatives. All of the above was recognized as having the utmost significance for the creation of an educated local leadership sympathetic to the work of the mission churches if the work of the missions was to be secured in the future.28 It was at the Edinburgh conference that the issue of African education came to get the systematic attention that would pave the way for the future role of the IMC in British Colonial educational policy in the 1920s and 1930s. As Kenneth King points out, this was the first occasion upon which Thomas Jesse Jones presented the Southern model of adapted industrial education associated with Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee/Hampton that was to have such great influence on educational thinking from the time of the Phelps-Stokes Commission reports of the early 1920s.29

After Edinburgh The follow-up on the Edinburgh conference was placed in the hands of the Continuation Committee with J.H. Oldham as the secretary. The key organizational elements of this structure were the Life and Work

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Movement and the Faith and Order Movement, which came to play a key role in the work of the IMC during the following 30 years. A significant immediate development was the establishment of the International Review of Missions (IRM) in 1912, with Oldham as the editor. This was to be the major organ of communication in the mission field for the rest of the century. When the IMC was established in 1921, the IRM became its major medium for comment and debate, bringing policy issues to the attention of a wide audience. Key issues relating to educational policy and practice were debated in the journal throughout the era under review. Although the Edinburgh conference “exhibited little influence on missionary cooperation across Africa,”30 it did provide the broad scaffolding for IMC initiatives relating to education as the Lake Mohonk conference (1912) had authorized J.H. Oldham, as secretary of the IMC, to pursue further investigations into the relations between mission and education.31 In his paper on “The Crisis in Christian Education in the Mission Fields” he argued that there was a need for drastic change. It was important to rethink aims and improve quality.32 Keith Clements notes that for Oldham “the crisis consisted in the fact that few of those responsible for mission schools and colleges seem to be aware of the fundamental changes ahead and that there was a danger of complacency.”33 The critical developments that he identified were (a) that governments were everywhere assuming greater responsibility for education, (b) that as a result mission schools would have to be of a much higher standard if they were to be able to complete and (c) since the emphasis on government education programs was on secular education and the building of a common national cultural curriculum, there was a question about how this “state-imposed uniformity” would be engaged with by the mission schools.34 After the break in activities occasioned by World War I the social and educational initiative was pursued. In 1920 Alex Fraser, who had been the headmaster of Trinity College in Ceylon since 1904, headed a commission of enquiry sponsored by the Foreign Missions Conference of North America in collaboration with the IMC to investigate rural education in India,35 and in 1922 the IMC’s Committee of Reference and Counsel and the Conference of British Missionary Societies sponsored the China Educational Commission of 1921–1922 (The Burton Commission).36 In 1919 the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society requested the North American Missionary Conference to make a survey of 57

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education in Africa.37 As a consequence of this development Oldham was able to play a central role in crafting an alliance between the IMC, the British Colonial Office and the Phelps-Stokes Foundation in relation to the appointment of the Commissions on Education in Africa (1922) and Education in East Africa (1924).38 Once that task was completed Oldham was able to persuade W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, the under-secretary of state for the colonies, of the significance of this issue. On the basis of these reports Oldham drew up a draft memorandum presented on the 12th of April 1923 to the Conference of Missionary Societies of Great Britain and Ireland (CMSGBI) on “Educational Policy in Africa,” which was to provide the basis for future CO policy.39 In keeping with the general tenor of Oldham’s report, Ormsby-Gore made a statement in the House of Commons on 10 April 1923, during a debate on empire trade and the administration of the Crown Colonies in Africa, in which he stated that the first duty is to give the native a chance to advance on the scale of civilization and in moral and material prosperity … and in consequence far larger resources must be devoted to education than are at the command of the missionary societies.40

In 1924 Oldham’s book on Christianity and the Race Problem 41 confronted key contested issues for the mission field, paving the way for concerted linkages between missions and government, and provided a platform for the conference on missions. The book was aimed at promoting a debate about racial issues and social responsibility in the Church community. It placed those principles squarely within the context of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which emphasized the principle of “the care and advancement of the weaker races (as) an obligation and a responsibility resting on those who are more advanced” with regard to not only the mandates but to all colonial contexts.42 It sets out a clear analysis of the problems of race and racism and the social significance of the issue for Christians who sought to pursue a policy of “social equality” in the context of the British Empire. While it argued that the New Testament did not provide a social program to meet the needs of modern life, it claimed that the Church was obliged to give a lead on such issues.43 Although Oldham recognized racism as an enormous problem, he saw issues of trusteeship in wide terms:

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THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA The responsibilities of trusteeship are not discharged in securing to the Native population immunity from injustice and exploitation. The material and moral advancement of the people must be furthered by positive measures. A constructive policy of education is required. Its aims must be far wider that the provision of clerks for government offices and mechanics for railways and public works. It must include measures for elevating the life of the community through the improvement of agriculture, the development of Native industries, the promotion of health, the training of the people in the management of their own affairs and the inculcation of true ideals of citizenship and of service of the community. Above all it must aim at providing the people with capable, well-trained and trustworthy leaders of their own race.44

Later in that year (September 1924) a conference on “Christian Education in Africa” was called by the IMC at High Leigh, near Cambridge, and these documents formed the basis for systematic discussion. It was called to consider the reports of the two Phelps Stokes Commissions on African Education in the light of T.J. Jones’s memorandum on An Educational Policy for the African Colonies.45 This was substantially in line with the broad progressive principles of education that were widely accepted at this time: this document outlined the educational objectives to be discussed, defended to two stream approach to education (for elite and for the masses), suggested governance and management strategies, and requested state/ missionary cooperation over education.46 In March 1925 the final document representing the fruit of these discussions was published by the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa (ACNETA) under the title of Education Policy in British Tropical Africa.47 This probably marks the high point of missionary influence on social and educational policy in Africa. Oldham summed up his view of the significance of these moves in three articles in the IRM in 1924– 1925 relating to both the need for a “social gospel” approach to education, which included vocational and intellectual aspects, and attention to the evangelical aspects of Christian education, along with the importance of a joint initiative by governments and mission in this field.48 It is important to read these events within the wider framework of change in the English Church and society at this time. Norman argues that “the acceptance of radical attitudes towards social questions within the church’s leadership, was extended and given an internationalism by the Conference on Politics, Economics and 59

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Citizenship (COPEC) in 1924, and continued its ascendancy through the 1920s and 1930s”49 even if that position was constantly challenged in the English Church by the more conservative evangelical view of “the gospel as a message of individual moral and spiritual regeneration, not a form of social reform.”50 These issues were to be taken up during the 1930s and 1940s in the great debate between the followers of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and would oblige a fundamental reassessment of the relationship between theology and social commitment by all missionaries. Most significantly, within the British context, this led to a serious attempt to define “distinctly Christian principles of society”51 which recognized the strength of the anti-religious position of many socialists and Marxists and was based on the perception that “the Church has consistently aligned itself with organized injustice.”52 In the early 1920s those views were beginning to emerge in relation to the Church’s role in social reform issues in Britain, and that provided a platform for Oldham and the IMC to make incremental gains in the quest for social and educational policies applied to the specific conditions of the tropics. Together, these initiatives demonstrate a clear commitment to a “social gospel” in keeping with the challenges of the new post-war age where there was a wide perception that secularism was the key challenge to the Christian churches. Effective and efficient educational policy and practice was envisaged as a key element in strengthening the hand of the missions. The source of inspiration for much of that thinking was derived from the emergent and highly influential Progressive Education movement in the United States and Europe, represented organizationally by the NEF53 (see Chapter 2). This was part of a wider set of developments which placed the systematic study of social science and education in the spotlight as part of a utilitarian and pragmatic view of political and social reconstruction which sought to develop efficient management strategies for education. All these issues were increasingly seen to be key instruments of modern social reform.54 Such moves also need to be seen in the context of the emergent focus on educational reform in Britain from the time of the Education Act of 1902 to the Hadow Report on The Education of the Adolescent in 1926. R.H. Tawney, the spokesperson for the Education Advisory Committee of the Labour Party and from 1920 a lecturer at the LSE, was a member of the Hadow Commission who linked the ethos of Labour politics and the Christian reform movement.

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What Tawney and the Labour Party were mainly anxious to achieve was the improvement of primary education and the development of public secondary education to such a point that all normal children, irrespective of the income, class or occupation of their parents, (would) be transferred at the age of eleven plus from the primary or preparatory school to one type or another of secondary school, and remain in the latter till sixteen.55 They sought to do this within the framework of a social policy that was generally shaped towards social equality and shared a great deal with the “social gospel” lobby in the IMC. In general terms these principles relating to a “social gospel” were widely embraced among Protestant clergy by the 1920–1930s, but it became increasingly clear how difficult it was going to be to achieve these goals given the acute economic and social crises of those times.56 They were also often the ideas that were to inform the IMC proposals for education in the colonial context, but the circumstances in which they were to be deployed were very different. This new era of uncertainty and questioning was to promote the demand for social research which was expected to provide answers to these urgent and complex theological, social, economic and educational issues. The recommendations of the Phelps-Stokes Commissions on education in colonial Africa, and its Indian and Chinese counterparts, represented initial attempts to rethink mission or “native education” in line with these complex and sometimes contradictory principles which sought to promote education for life in “modern” society and at the same time advocate the integration of the individual into the community life of traditional local or rural societies. The CO memorandum on Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa provided broad guidelines for policy. This marked a clear shift to formalize the policy- making process, even if that policy was to have very limited purchase in the short term on everyday practices in the thousands of local schools of all kinds located in the British colonial context of missionary endeavour. It is worth noting, in the context of the widely accepted interpretation of the Phelps-Stokes Report recommendations for adapted education, that Oldham was only too aware that “if the noble work of education is taken in hand, its consequences cannot be evaded.” He argued that “it is idle to suppose that when efforts are made to promote the advancement and promotion of a subject people, they 61

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will be willing to remain permanently in a condition of tutelage.” Citing Sir Charles Lucas, he insisted that “if you give freedom and education and the Christian religion to coloured men, you cannot confine them to a future of permanent subordination.”57 He acknowledged that in this task the colonial governments had fallen short. It had been left to the missions “whose limited resources are insufficient to cope with the magnitude of the undertaking,” and he argued that “the time has come when the work of education must be conceived in a larger way and taken in hand with fresh vigour” through the collaboration of mission and state.58 The “scientific” approach to these issues, which was propounded by the advancement of a managerial approach to education in the Phelps Stokes Reports, was also taken up in the context of the parallel establishment in 1924 of the IIALC in London as a result of recommendations from the High Leigh conference. This initiative, headed by Arnold Warnhuis, the American secretary of the IMC, and Oldham, included in its membership government, philanthropic, educational groups and missions, and the Institute was intended to “serve as a clearing house for African information for the benefit of those engaged in official, missionary or other work in Africa.”59 With funding provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, it was particularly influential in advocating the teaching of vernacular languages in primary schools, a policy which had come to be widely acknowledged as a necessary condition for effective learning at the initial stage of concept formation.60 In keeping with the new perspectives and challenges that were emerging, the conference on “The Christian Mission in Africa” called at Le Zoute, Belgium, in September 1926 proved to be something of a landmark.61 This was an international conference attended by over 220 missionaries and other “Consultative Members” – “African experts” of various kinds drawn from an extensive network of contacts that had been established by the IMC leadership.62 The papers from the conference, edited by Edwin Smith,63 reflect a wide range of perspectives on what would today be called “development problems”: community development, land and labour issues, race relations, medical issues and education. Oldham’s paper on “The relations between Christian missions and the New Forces that are reshaping Africa” carries forward the themes explored earlier. With regard to education the contemporary review of the field is noted and the need to clarify objectives was affirmed along with the need for missions “to define their attitude towards Government’s 62

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policy, and make concrete proposals as to the curriculum and other matters.”64 The recommendations of Charles T. Loram, a South African “expert” on “Native Education” and author of the influential book The Education of the South African Native,65 for adapted education for rural Africa were heartily endorsed and understood to be in keeping with the findings of the Phelps-Stokes Commissions.66 It was left to Victor Murray to spell out the problems and ambiguities with this philosophy of education in his masterly review of the field in 1929, The School in the Bush.67 This issue will be explored further later on. Speakers like Reverend A.W. Wilkie, with 25 years of missionary experience in West Africa, expressed the reservations that would persist throughout the rest of the century with regard to mission education work in Africa. He questioned the extent to which the Church’s attention and resources were being absorbed by schooling and argued that “the cost of supporting teachers for schools is disproportionate and that evangelization is therefore hindered.”68 Others, like Oldham, tended to blur the distinction between “Christian education” and secular education and to promote a general argument for schooling in and of itself as part of the general process of modernization. The Le Zoute treatment of education underlines the need for better management of schools – the need for “inspection and supervision” and a “division of labour” between government and missions regarding the funding of schools.69 In short, there was a recognition that the mission schools “fell short of the highest levels of efficiency.” The curriculum recommendations reflected the influence of American educationalists with a strong “message” regarding the advantages of “adapted education” associated with Hampton and Tuskegee Colleges, and with the person of Booker T. Washington, as a model for African education.70 The “Four Essentials” of Jesse Jones’s educational creed – which emphasized health and sanitation, an appreciation and use of the environment, the household and the home, and recreation – leaned heavily on the best principles of Progressive Education. They represented a reaction to “book learning,” which was held to lack relevance to the lives of poor Southern blacks or rural Africans, and emphasized that “the curriculum in all types of schools should be drawn up with complete awareness of the life of the community.”71 Much subsequent debate has followed regarding the intentions of these recommendations and whether they were indeed as philanthropic or progressive as they at first appear or whether they 63

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were part of a concerted plot to deliver low-quality education for second-class colonial citizens. That interpretation fitted neatly with reproduction theories of education in the 1970s or with the economistic analyses of colonialism that were popular at that time,72 and it is difficult to deny that Progressive Education was indeed used as part of a mechanism to bend education to political needs. Yet there were ambiguities about the project even at the time. Ironically, the major advocate of the policy, the South African, Loram, admitted at the conference: If I were a native I would look very closely into any attempt to differentiate (the curriculum) … how do you persuade the Blacks that the New Education is the better when the Whites cling to the old?73

It is undeniable that there were ambiguities around these policies on the part of government and on the part of the Church, but what is clear with hindsight is that there was a systematic attempt to get community development, medical care and education onto the agenda of the mission churches and the British Colonial Office from the 1920s and that the efforts of a broad coalition of churchmen, philanthropists and government officials managed to broaden the initiative substantially by the end of the 1920s to embrace a “social gospel” for churchmen and “community development” for secular politicians. This provided a platform for a more aggressive engagement with these issues in the following decade.

The Jerusalem conference: 1928 The second IMC World Mission Conference which met in Jerusalem in 1928 faced very different circumstances to those encountered in 1910.74 The venue itself was indicative of the new world that had been created by the War, with Palestine now a British mandate. The bubble of enthusiasm, confidence and optimism for the success of “western civilization” had burst with the disillusionment of World War I. As the meeting convened there were fresh signs of crisis due to looming economic depression, the threat of unemployment and civil war in China. In those circumstances the conference theme was particularly appropriate: The Application of the Christian Message to Religious and Secular Life. With hindsight, the deliberations associated with this conference, and its recommendations, which included the establishment of the IMC’s DSIR in 1930 and the endorsing of the 64

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American Layman’s Foreign Mission Enquiry, Rethinking Missions,75 established a new set of goals and directions that were to come to fruition ten years later at the Tambaram conference. There were clear changes in theological climate at that time. Stephen Neill remarks that; it is strange to contrast the confident tones of the Edinburgh pronouncements with the almost hesitant accents of what was said at Jerusalem. Clearly a comprehensive change was taking place in theological climate, in attitudes to other religions, and in the understanding of the missionary’s task.

The challenges of liberalism in Christian theology, and the call for a “social gospel,” were becoming more substantive.76 As Hogg points out with 50% of the personnel coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it was hoped that for the first time the insight, experience, and devotion of the older and younger churches could be brought together to consider questions of missionary strategy and the bearing of the costs of mission.

These challenges were to include questions of positive engagement with indigenous churches and communities, dealing with questions of the nature of modernization in a society in which Christians lived, including issues of race relations, industrialism, labour conditions and relations, and urbanization. It was hoped that Jerusalem would be able to redefine the modern missionary enterprise in terms relevant to the nature and terms of the times.77 Despite the conservative challenge that was summed up during the ‘1930s by the theology of Karl Barth, which reasserted an evangelical or fundamentalist view of Christianity to challenge the liberal, social gospel approach of the reformers, it proved impossible to go back to the earlier point of view in the major mission churches. As Neill notes, the kind of propaganda on behalf of mission which had been acceptable in the nineteenth century now (made) little appeal to the more cultivated and thoughtful circles in the [Western] Church. Western man (had) learned how much there was in his colonial record of which he had to be ashamed. He was much less sure than he had been of the uniqueness and finality of the Christian Gospel, and of his right to impose on the heirs of the other great traditions what might prove to be, after all, no more than a Western myth. Tolerance was coming to be the most popular of virtues, and conversion to be regarded as an outmoded phenomenon of religious experience.

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These developments rather undercut any straightforward notion of what it would mean to promote “Christian Education.”78 The three major questions inherited from Edinburgh dominated the proceedings but did not give rise to any consensus – namely, the relations between the Christian message and other religions, the application of the Christian message to secular life and the theological interpretation of Christian social and political involvement.79 Nevertheless, the need for the regeneration of the Church was increasingly seen in broad social terms. An assessment of the Jerusalem conference clearly reveals a striking difference in tone from Edinburgh. The conference call emerged from the sense of urgency identified by John Mott, general secretary of the American YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation,80 and Oldham regarding mission reform in a radically changing world. The call was to service rather than conversion – an emphasis on a social gospel. To meet this challenge, it was agreed to enlarge the Council to include representatives in large numbers from the so-called receiving churches.

Jerusalem: education The Jerusalem conference placed an emphasis on “Christian Education,” but this was not yet linked to a comprehensive reassessment of the role of the missions in the broader reform of education for a changing world. Despite the engagement of the IMC with aspects of this problem in the early 1920s, as referred to previously, and increasing collaboration with the British Colonial Office regarding educational issues, the general reappraisal of policy was still in its infancy. “Missionary Education” had in the past been seen to be largely synonymous with “Religious Education” – and was still seen primarily as a means of winning recruits to the Church – as a means of evangelism – and little space is granted to the project of secular education, vocational education or adult education.81 The challenge, as William Paton, the associate secretary of the IMC, put it in the IRM pre-conference edition, was as follows: (Education) is not only a matter of the school and the teacher but also of the home and the preacher. Religious education, its principles and practices, relate not only to the school, but to the whole future of evangelistic work. The growth of the science of education offers the 66

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA missionary movement a weapon of great power and one whose potency is not yet fully understood. Along with this challenge to the Christian educator to avail himself more adequately of the resource of modern psychological study goes the other challenge that comes from without, from the growing national systems of education, creating, whether by difficult regulations or by heavy competition, situations in which it is vitally necessary either to define with great clearness our purpose in religious education or cease to play any important and distinctive part within those systems.82

There was an increasing recognition that education in the broader sense was a vital component of the work of the missions. The arguments for a concerted international effort in regard to education were convincing given the increasing demand for Christian education and “the far higher costs of education; the demand for highly specialized teaching staff; the fact that all subjects taught in school were capable of a national or sectarian interpretation, and the competition from state or government schools,” all made it vital for a systematic plan to be sought for education if the best interests of education were to be met. It was considered of great significance that the change in government policy towards the provision of education in colonial contexts required an urgent reappraisal of the goals and objectives of Christian education and the nature of Church/state cooperation in the field. Given these circumstances, the report points to the need to take advantage of “the considerable practical experience already available by which we can profit.”83 The report notes that there is a need for the Protestant missions to choose between a relatively small number of strong interdenominational institutions with adequate funding or many weak denominational institutions. This amounted to a call for a more ecumenical approach to education among the Protestant churches in a harsher economic climate. It also recommended a focus on youth work – both evangelical and in terms of secular adult education outreach. The search for curriculum relevance applied to questions of religious education, to custom and tradition, to ethnicity, to rights (adult education and literacy) and to the relevance of education to the world of work (i.e. industrial education, technical education). This represented the challenge of training local teachers and equipping them with the skills required to deliver quality education. In the light of these discussions it was again recommended that the reports

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commissioned during the previous decade on Indian, Chinese and African education be “given effect.”84 These strategies were vital if the Christian church was to gain the required “influence on the leadership of nations” in a context where rapid change was taking place. To achieve these ends a united effort was required. It “was essential not to simply think of transplanting American and European institutions from the West,” but rather to blend the best thought and experience of the West with that of the indigenous churches in the development of Christian education “true to the genius and best life of the peoples to be served.” The Report asked: Why should we, as intelligent Christian administrators, facing the greatest educational need which the Christian churches have ever confronted, continue, as is still being done in so many cases, the present ineffective, plan – a plan which, if continued, must be doomed to failure.85

That challenge led to various initiatives that were to have the greatest influence on the shape of mission policy in the following decade and to have a significant impact on the nature of education policy for the missions themselves, as well as helping to define the nature of wider policies in education through their influence on emergent state policy. In the East, it was reported that Christian education was everywhere losing ground to government education and government schools and it was necessary to meet the challenge. In order to attract Christian or non-Christian children to mission education, these schools had to be able to compete in the marketplace. In Africa, where the majority of schools remained under the control of the missions, with an increasing degree of state supervision or oversight, and some funding, the challenge was to provide the kind of education that would be “relevant.” There was a focus on the idea of “Rural Education” as an alternative to the traditional pattern of formal education.86 On the one hand education was not seen in the strictly denominational terms of earlier generations. This was in part driven by questions of cost and the greater need for specialization in the competitive framework of state funding for education. It was also part of the overall realization that secularism was the common enemy and that the Christian education project needed to seek to influence the general direction of policy rather than isolate itself in ghettos of Christian education if it was to maintain an influence. 68

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All this implied an increased focus on educational work in the mission churches and a greater degree of professional awareness of the particular role of teachers in the evolving colonial political and social contexts, but the fact that only 13 of the 226 delegates were educationalists seems to imply that there was not yet sufficient realization of the need to engage teachers with the question of reforming and redefining education. Although the Protestant churches were demonstrating an increasing awareness of the Church’s role in “general education work” as part of their basic charter, the conference endorsed the view that educational theory and practice needed to be much more scientific and thoroughly supervised, in keeping with the new efficient professionalism of formal education.87

Post-Jerusalem conference The period following the Jerusalem conference was a time of major political, social and economic changes. The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 had global effects with economic instability, widespread unemployment, the devaluation of major currencies and the rise of totalitarianism, all having direct and severe effects on the mission churches and the societies in which they operated. In that context the IMC continued to make a range of key responses to these events, only some of which can be indicated here (see Table 1.3). Table 1.3 Educational research projects and publications linked to IMC and other significant educational publications: 1927-1940 1927 East African Missionary Survey (McLeich) Report on Rural Conditions and Sociological Problems in South Africa 1928 (K.L. Butterfield) 1929 IMC The Christian Mission in Rural India (K.L. Butterfield) 1930 J.H. Oldham, White & Black in Africa 1930 est. of Agricultural Missions Foundation 1931 Conference on the African Childa IMC, The Christian Mission of the Church in Rural Asia (K.L. 1931 Butterfield) 1931 J. H. Oldham & B. Gibson, The Remaking of Man in Africab 1932 Hocking report, Rethinking Missions

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b

Establishment of IMC’s Dept of Social and Industrial Research (DSIR) Merle Davis – Modern Industry and the African (DSIR) The Christian Enterprise among Rural People (K.L. Butterfield) Establishment of the Institute of Education, London University Davis M (ed) The Economic Basis of the Church (DSIR) [Tambaram]

[See Dominique Marshall, “Children’s Rights in Imperial Political Cultures: Missionary and Humanitarian Contributions to the Conference on the African Child of 1931,” The International Journal of Child Rights 12 (2004): 273–318. J.H. Oldham and Betty Gibson (1933). This was a comprehensive view of the field.]

There were two of these initiatives which were of the greatest significance for the present purposes. Firstly, the appointment in 1932 of the (American) Layman’s Foreign Mission Enquiry entitled Rethinking Missions and, secondly, the establishment of the DSIR under the directorship of Merle Davis. Together they played a central role in reassessing the role of the missions in the changed international political and economic contexts through the use of research and survey techniques that were gradually coming to be used as part of a new scientific approach to “development issues.” Most significantly, the consideration given here to the complexities of rising industrialism in Asia and Africa and its largely deleterious effect on Christian missions represented the first attempt by an international missionary gathering to grapple with the problem of “Missions and Social Conscience.”88

In this context the commission of the American Layman’s Foreign Mission represented a bold admission that “there is a growing conviction that the mission enterprise is at a fork in the road and that momentous decisions are called for” if the relevance and significance of the enterprise were to be ensured. The Commission’s report, edited by William Hocking, an American theological and educationalist, which was published in 1932,89 “challenged the relevance of much traditional mission work and represented a search for a ‘practical programme for today.’ In the context of arguments for more cooperation between the Protestant churches in relation to Christian mission work, it recommended that there should be a commitment to the sympathetic study of changing local culture, trying 70

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA to preserve what is valuable in the past of the people, and to minimize the strains of an abrupt break with tradition” or conflicts with those traditions.90

This implied greater acceptance of other religious traditions and a critical stance to the notion of “mission fields” or “non-Christian lands” in favour of a view that saw Christianity as part of a global battle against secularism, extreme forms of nationalism and totalitarianism. It also implied a critical stance with regard to the rapid modernization of Asia which was disrupting the lives of millions of people in the process of industrialization, urbanization and rural land reform. These initiatives also had a significant influence on the nature of thinking about educational policy. There was a commitment to the continuation of educational and medical missions as an aspect of evangelization and the building up of a Christian community, but a great emphasis was now to be placed upon pioneer and experimental work in education, medicine, rural development and other “social applications of the Christian view of life, primarily in view of the needs of the foreign land.”91 A key element of this project would be the education and training of locals who would in time replace the missionaries. This would imply an emphasis on excellence in education that would be achieved through a much more efficient use of mission resources. A key recommendation of the report was that “the aim of (mission schools) should be primarily educational, not evangelization, and that teachers and administrators should be chosen with this standard in view.” There was therefore a recommendation that an interdenominational board of educational specialists be established by missionary societies and that there be greater interdenominational professional support for the field of education from home societies in order to enhance the quality of the education offered. Greater cooperation with governments was also recommended.92 In that context the report highlighted particular aspects of educational work in India, including the need for schools and teachers who were able to undertake the work of education in vernacular middle and normal school within rural areas which were seen as “the keystone of the arch of educational reform” and the focus on girls’ schools as a key aspect of social change. It was recommended that the work of mass rural education and the city school (particularly boy’s schools) be left to the government because the financial demands and extensive needs were beyond the scope of mission agencies; that the 71

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present curriculum in mission schools in India should “make more use of the customs and traditions of the local traditions” with limited stress on Westernization in schools; and that more focus should be placed on “the proper training and supervision” of teachers and the spread of modern progressive methods of pedagogy.93 In addition, the Jerusalem conference had also set in motion a process which led to the establishment of the IMC’s DSIR, under the directorship of Merle Davis, with an office established in Geneva in 1930.94 This led to significant research initiatives into the rural and urban contexts of Asia and Africa. Davis first undertook to engage with research related to the social, economic and educational aspects of African life in the urban and industrial context of the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia. This was published as Modern Industry and the African (1933).95 The subsequent two and a half years of intensive fieldwork was conducted in China and India and was collated into Volume V of the Tambaram (conference) Series under the title of The Economic Basis of the Church.96 The combined influence of Hocking’s Report and the work of the DSIR gave support to the tendency among reformist missionaries to regard education [and other associated social projects] “as having a value of their own, and as being legitimate functions of Christian missions apart from any explicit goals of evangelization.”97 It provided a significant backdrop to the next World Missionary Conference which met near Bombay in 1938 in the shadow of a new world war.

The Tambaram conference: 1938 The third World Missionary Conference of the IMC at Tambaram, near Madras in India, in December 1938 has often been regarded as a significant moment for the modern ecumenical movement which paved the way for the establishment of the WCC after the disruptions of World War II, and a significantly different engagement with education by governments in an era of declining missionary influence in education.98 The venue was again symbolic of the theological shift away from the baggage and assumptions of the imperial heartland exemplified in the first IMC conference in Edinburgh in 1910. As a key moment in the history of Protestant ecumenicalism it marked a further shift from the Jerusalem conference of 1928. It reflected a wider theological and 72

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sociological transition which, although not uncontested, came to redefine missionary endeavour more specifically in terms of the context of the broad social policy objectives that had first been strikingly outlined in Rethinking Missions in 1932 and J.H. Oldham and B. Gibson’s The Remaking of Man in Africa (1931) as a response to the challenges of the Jerusalem IMC conference in 1928. For the British Empire it took place on the eve of major political change on the Indian sub-continent. Equally important as a study of missionary education, it marked a significant milestone in terms of the redefinition of aims and strategies and the general social democratic concerns of the 1930s so challengingly presented by R.H. Tawney and Fred Clarke’s analysis of the economic and educational challenges to the Church in an age of totalitarianism at the Oxford Life and Works conference on “The Church and its Function in Society” in 1937.99 This “enlarged meeting” of the IMC, with over 463 delegates from 70 nations, for the first time included a majority of representatives from the “younger churches.” It emphasized “the Church as an instrument of world evangelization and a close relationship between evangelism and social involvement.”100 Since the majority of the delegates came from Asia, it was thought to be worthwhile to examine them with greater care in relation to the question of educational expertise. Table 1.4 IMC meeting at Tambaram, Madras: 12–29 December 1938 Total Total HeadTeachers and REGION Delegates educators teachers other educators Africa 35 8 3 5 Asia 197 48 20 27 Australasia + Pacific 15 4 1 39 2 0 Europe 23 3 1 2 Latin America 19 4 2 2 Near East 43 7 1 2 North America 6 Co-opted Members 92 4 2 2 & others [These figures are drawn from Tambaram Series, Vol. VII: 181–202.]

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What emerges is that 197 out of the total number of 463 delegates were from Asia. Of these 48 were identified as educators and 20 of these were head-teachers. Few were professional researchers or professors in the field of education. Nearly half were women, and they comprised a mixture of local women and European/Americans to judge from their names. A careful study of these women might give fascinating insights into the educational world of the missionaries in 1938.

“Evangelicalism” The “larger evangelicalism” of Tambaram broke radically with the past and accepted that Christianity was one among many religions. Not only was there a need to improve relations between Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist, but for many of those present there was also great urgency in gaining increased ecumenical collaboration and educational cooperation. The conference recommendations were simultaneously conservative and radical in terms of theology. In the end the conference represented a compromise between the theological conservatism of Edinburgh (1910), which made a sharp geographical distinction between the Christian and non-Christian worlds in keeping with the norms of mission work in the imperial context of the nineteenth century, and the modernist/relativistic/ radical views expressed in Jerusalem in 1928 with a wide acceptance that Christianity was one of many significant world religions which were all engaged with the challenges of an increasingly secularized world.

Social involvement Most significantly, the changes promoted the views that had their origins in the Edinburgh conference regarding the need for a close relationship between evangelism and social involvement. In recognizing the need to understand the role, place and agendas of the “younger churches” or “indigenous churches” and the societies in which they were located, the ecumenical movement began to realize its strength as a social force in what was slowly emerging as a “development community.” As Hocking pointed out in the 1934 report, “if the church or mission embarks upon a policy of social help (e.g. in this case for the peasantry of the Orient) it cannot stop short of 74

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questions of general justice and the moral foundations or world order.”101 In short, the Protestant churches were realizing that, in a politically dangerous world, it was going to be very difficult not to be involved in political struggles. Expanding on its contribution to the Hocking report of 1932, the IMC’s DSIR, which had been one of the outcomes of the deliberations at Jerusalem, presented a comprehensive review of the challenges to the Church in the East in its publication on The Economic Basis of the Church and argued that the Church should take on “its responsibilities to include a concern for health, education and living conditions, economic empowerment and the civil welfare of the community.” It argued that given the enormous scale of transformation in the rural and urban areas of Asia under the impact of modernization and industrialization, the churches needed to “take practical steps to make their environment a place in which it is more possible to live the full Christian life,” and it was necessary therefore to engage with issues of poverty, social change (“the breakup of old societies”), cultural issues (“the bonds of caste and clan,” “language”), rural development, urban crisis, employment and skills development, and the challenges of nationalism and Communism.102 These commitments to address urgent social issues were also driven by a new social gospel developed in response to the challenges of Fascism and Communism in Europe and Asia. They represented an attempt to seek new understanding of the essence of Protestant Christianity while at the same time seeking to make it relevant as a world religion in changing times in order to draw new members and support. As an agent of change the Church and the missions had to reassess their role in modern society and decide more clearly on the basis of research where their priorities lay. One aspect of these reforms highlighted the significant role of youth (male and female) and the commitment of the Church to education – both religious and secular – as an aspect of social change – even if the nature of that engagement and education was increasingly in dispute. The author of the report, J. Merle Davis, introduced the volume by attempting to situate the work of the Christian mission church in terms of evangelization and education within the unfolding political, social and economic circumstances of East Asia. The research was conducted in cooperation with higher education institutions in the region, focused on the dilemmas of the Church and societies in the rural and urban contexts of rapid modernization in East Asia.103 Davis was more forthright than most in his analysis of the issues. In keeping 75

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with the new tone of deliberations in the IMC, he summarized the complex circumstances and declining popularity confronting the Christian Protestant churches in Asia in radically new terms. He argued that the alliance of the foreign religion with the foreign military and political power lent itself to misunderstanding and doubt concerning the singleness of purpose of western mission. The presence of the foreign religious enterprise and its representatives, together with the right to propagate Christianity, were secured not through the goodwill of the people, but under compulsion as an expression of western imperialism.104

Another delegate captured the political dilemmas of the Christian mission churches in colonial contexts in Asia, Latin America and Africa: We in the West have been an imperial race for the most part. Africa knows what it means. Asia also knows what it means. We have divided the world into the white and coloured races and we have often thought that we who belong to the former are the world conquerors, and that we of the white race must rule and others must be subject. The terrible tragedy of imperialism is twofold. It sets aflame a burning indignation in the subject races of the world, and it engenders a racial arrogance that few imperialists can escape.105

Such awkward truths had immense significance for interpreting the religious, social, and cultural implications of the conference for the field of education and were in part responsible for the concrete changes which followed, beginning the long process of adjusting educational policy to the needs of the new world. From an African perspective, the presence at the conference of significant future political and religious leaders is worth noting. Albert Luthuli, the future leader of the ANC in South Africa, and Thompson Samkange from Southern Rhodesia were of particular note.106

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IMC Conference in Tambaram, India 1938 the first major meeting outside of Europe (from Web)

Tambaram and education In emphasizing the fourth sphere of missionary activity – the social sphere – the conference challenge was for theological and educational thinking to measure up to these new goals.107 Faced with the threat of further financial cuts from government and uncertain “home” funding in the future, with a real threat of an end to the mission era in China, the question of self-supporting local institutions was identified as a priority.108 In the context of dramatic social and economic changes the conference pointed to the need to address the isolation of Christian communities and missions from the general society and to take stock of the implications of the emergence of the new secularism and nationalism which was resulting in pressure for the universalization of provision in relation to mass state education. Given these changing circumstances the conference gave some consideration to options that were available to keep the mission schools in a position of strategic advantage.109 It was noted that there was a decline in the numbers of students enlisting at mission education institutions in the rural and urban contexts. Young people were not coming to church nor were they attending Christian schools as “nationalism has become the religion of the large number of finest minds and boldest spirits among oriental youth”110 with the city church also losing the support of the new elite and intelligentsia in government and educational centres. There was also an acknowledgment of the need to address the issue of the emergence of the new indigenous churches and the implications 77

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for education, in addition to the challenge of providing for an adequate link between school and work.111 Although the significance and the challenges of social engagement through education are presented, there is little of substance in the voluminous seven volumes of proceedings to indicate a clear plan of action. None of the specialist reports deals specifically with education. This is something of a contrast to the papers for the Le Zoute (1926) and, Jerusalem (1928), conferences and is need of further explanation. What engagement there is in relation to education is largely confined to the questions of school governance and educational curricula. With regard to governance and funding, the increasing trend to withdraw state funding from church schools meant that there was a need to focus on local support, fees, grants and endowments to retain the level of desired involvement. But it was clear that in many circumstances Christian communities in Asia were comprised of poor people who could not afford such expenses. In some areas, like China, there had been something of a mission retreat into higher education and university education – but this usually implied the problematic outcome of catering largely for an elite which made many Western churchmen, widely influenced by social democratic views, uncomfortable. In terms of curriculum content, the new atmosphere of tolerance to other faiths and cultures meant that there was a greater willingness to modify the traditional “western” form of curriculum. In the light of the new approach the traditional approach of teaching a formal Western curriculum was increasingly being challenged. The view of Bruno Gutmann, a German missionary and anthropologist in Tanganyika, was cited approvingly by Merle Davis when he argued that “missions (were) not called upon to destroy the characteristic life of the people” rather they ought to act as a conservative force in these days of the collapse of primitive culture, to counteract actively the destructive, individualizing, atomising influence of European civilization, and to utilize those traditional obligations which still exist for the upbuilding of the Christian community.112

This emphasis on indigenous language, culture and religion, to be dealt with in subsequent chapters, was to remain at the centre of theological and political debates into the apartheid era and beyond.

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THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA There is some attention to issues of vocational, industrial and agricultural education. The need is clearly seen for more vocational training schools (but in the past their) … objectives, method and products (had often been) unrelated to the changing conditions about them, so that the student is unable to render effective service to the community, and thus add to the tragedy of unemployment.

It was noted that in the Indian context, there had been considerable effort in this direction in the past, though an admission that “much of the vocational education offered in the past was poorly adapted to the realities of future employment of the pupils.”113 As with the industrial education of Tuskegee, or the adapted education recommended by the Phelps-Stokes African Education Commission Reports in the 1920s, there was considerable uncertainty about policy directions in education with an admission that “education makes (students) unfit for life in their own communities, but they find it difficult to fit into the new economy.”114 In concluding with a focus on the “Challenges of the Mission in the East,” the report notes that education takes place in a context where “poverty, inefficiency, debt, extravagance, low earning power, bad housing, liquor, narcotics, rural backwardness, city demoralization, the bonds of caste and clan, the breakup of old societies, the calls of nationalism, communism and licence upon emancipated youth,” all represent the gravest of challenges to missionaries and teachers. The report responds by acknowledging that the church takes it responsibilities to include a concern for health, education and living conditions, economic empowerment and the civil welfare of the community, and takes practical steps to make their environment a place in which it is more possible to live the full Christian life, will increase its contacts and draw new members.115

The study also recognized the need for missionaries and mission educators to be equipped for the wider tasks of mission education as outlined. There is an urgent need to supplement the present training of missionaries and pastors with studies that will enable them to understand the nature of the economic and social environment of

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The challenges of Christian education in this new context brought an increasing awareness that the Church needed to be “involved in general education work” as part of its basic charter. That basic charter needed to be defined in new ways to embrace the need not just for evangelism but for relevance to social and economic needs.

Conclusion This broad sweep of the evolution of mission education policy in the interwar years does little more than sketch out the broad outlines of debate. It merely indicates the framework within which policymakers and practitioners came to operate by mapping the intersection of the theological, social, economic and educational thinking. In an age of scientific endeavour, it indicates the role that was increasingly being played by “research” and how such discourses have increasingly been inserted into policy-making forums of mission and government. It begins to explore the background to the intervention of the expert and the scientist into the field of development and education in the 1930s. J.H. Oldham, J.R. Mott, K.L. Butterfield, T.J. Jones, R.H. Tawney, Fred Clarke, C.T. Loram, W.E. Hockings, Merle Davis, Diedrich Westermann and many others were initiating the “consultancy game” that was to come to its fruition in Lord Hailey’s An Africa Survey (1938). These new methodologies of research were to dominate the politics of educational policy development in the post–World War II era. Those who participated in these events did so with strong convictions about the value of education as an intrinsic part of religious commitment and as a significant aspect of the “social gospel” which they sought to promote as part of a utilitarian and equity-based policy of democratic rights promoted in terms of the Charter of the League of Nations or through the principles of the New Education. Education, whether “Christian Education” or secular education, came to play an ever more important part in the mission enterprise during these times. As the Hocking report of 1934 pointed out, “if the church or missions embarks upon a policy of social help it cannot stop short of questions of general justice and the moral foundations or world order.” In doing that it became an urgent challenge for 80

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missionaries to link the educational work of the schools with the broader issues of social transformation and the politics of development that was emerging as a key theme in social change. The combined influence of policy work of the 20 years from 1918 to 1938 gave increasing support to the tendency among reformist missionaries to regard education and other associated social interests as having a value of their own and as being legitimate functions of Christian missions apart from any explicit goals of evangelization.117 That provided a platform for state and missions to negotiate the difficult political, economic and social challenges that were to be picked up after 1945 when the question of education re-emerged in the context of a radically changing world. But those challenges had to be negotiated in the messy world of African colonial politics and social policy in the interwar years.

Notes 1 2

3 4

D.W. Bebbington, “Atonement, Sin and Empire: 1888–1914,” in Andrew Porter (ed.) The Imperial Horizon of British Protestant Missions 1880–1914 (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2003): 14. William R. Hogg, Ecumenical Foundations: A History of the International Missionary Council and its Nineteenth Century Background (New York: Harper & Bros., 1952); William Hutchinson, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450–1950 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996); Church and Mission in Modern Africa (New York: Fordham Press, 1967); D.B. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Norman Etherington (ed.) Missions and Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Andrew Porter, Cultural Imperialism and Missionary Enterprise (Cambridge: North Atlantic Missiology Project, 1996). Bebbington (2003): 29. Charles Marsh, Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Promise of His Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Ross Tervill, Tawney and His Times (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973); Anthony Wright, R.H. Tawney (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987); A.H. Halsey & N. Dennis, English Ethical Socialism: Thomas More to R.H. Tawney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); R.W. Tawney, The Education of the Adolescent (London: HMSO, 1926); The School-Leaving Age and Juvenile Unemployment

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5 6

7 8 9

10

11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

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(London: Workers Education Association, 1933); The Radical Tradition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964). Ralf Dahrendorf, LSE (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). See also Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times (London: Abacus, 2002): 115. Tawney participated in the Conference on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship (COPEC) in the 1920s; he was co-opted as a delegate to the 1928 IMC conference in Jerusalem and was a keynote speaker at the IMC Faith and Works conference in Oxford in 1927 on the theme of Church, Community and State where he made a significant contribution to Section III: The Economic Order. Wright (1987): 110. Richard Elphick, The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012). See Lord Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London: Blackwell, 1923); A. Victor Murray, “The Problem of Indirect Rule,” in The School in the Bush (London: Longman Green, 1929): 401–436. For more on Oldham, see Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J.H. Oldham (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999); J.H. Oldham, Christianity and the Race Problem (London: SCM, 1924); The Remaking of Man in Africa (London: IMC, 1931). See Halsey & Dennis (1988). The absence of specific chapters on education in recent editions of the Oxford and Cambridge histories of Africa seems significant here. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches will not be dealt with here. Stephen Neill, The History of Christian Missions (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982): 565–566. Adrian Hastings, A History of English Christianity 1920–1990 (London: SCM Press, 1991). R.C.K. Ensor, England 1870–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960); Brian Simon, Education and the Labour Movement 1870–1920 (London: Lawrence & Wishard, 1974); Consultative Committee of the Board of Education, Education and the Adolescent (The Hadow Report). Also see Harold Silver, Equal Opportunity in Education (London: Methuen, 1973); Raymond Williams, “Education and British Society,” in The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964). Neill (1982): 337. Andy Green, Education and State Formation: The Rise of Education Systems in England, France and the USA (London: Macmillan, 1990); Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School (New York: Vintage, 1964); David Tyack & Larry Cuban, Tinkering Towards Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

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19 20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

University Press, 1995); Harold & Pam Silver, An Educational War on Poverty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). William E. Hocking, Rethinking Missions: A Layman’s Enquiry after a Hundred Years (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932): 25, 59, 61. For a broader view of the context of these reforms, see: P. Kallaway, “Welfare and Education in British Colonial Africa and South Africa in the 1930s and 1940s,” Paedagogica Historica 41(3) (2005): 337–356 or Ch. 3 of this volume; Rosaleen Smyth, “The Roots of Community Development in Colonial Office Policy and Practice in Africa,” Social Policy and Administration 38(4) (2004): 418–436. See World Missionary Conference, Official Handbook (Edinburgh, 1910); Brian Stanley, “Church, State and the Hierarchy of ‘Civilization’: The Making of the ‘Missions and Governments’ Report at the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh, 1910,” in Andrew Porter (ed.) The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003); Felicity Jensz, “The 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference and Comparative Colonial Education,” History of Education 47(3) (2018): 399–414. Hogg (1952): 126, 135. Neill (1982): Ch. 10. Hogg (1952): 130. Ibid.: 117–125. W.H.T Gairdner, Edinburgh 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1910): 116–118. Ibid.: 118–119. Ibid.: Ch. IX. See Kenneth King, Pan-Africanism and Education: The Study of Race, Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States and East Africa (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971): 50; John D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988). Hogg (1952): 159. I.M.C, Papers on Education in the Mission Field (London: IMC, 1921). Clements (1999): 221. Ibid.: 212–213. Ibid.: 213. Alex Fraser, Village Education in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920). The findings were published under the title of Christian Education in China (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1922). King (1971): 56. See Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in Africa: A Study of West, South and Equatorial Africa by the African Education Commission under the

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39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53

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auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and Foreign Missions Society of North America and Europe (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1922); Education in East Africa: A study of East, Central and South Africa by the second African Education Commission under the auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund in cooperation with the International Board of Education (New York: Phelps Stokes Fund, 1924). See Clements (1999): 222; J.H. Oldham Papers 10/2. CMSGBI, “Educational Policy in Africa,” J.H. Oldham Papers, 10/2, 12 April, 1923. For correspondence and debate between Oldham and Ormsby Gore, see Clements (1999): 220–222. London: SCM, 1924. Ibid.: 100–101. Clements (1999): 204. Oldham (1924): 105; also see Clements (1999): 203–208. Thomas J. Jones, “An Educational Policy for African Colonies,” in I.M.C. (ed.) Christian Education in Africa. The papers of a conference held at High Leigh, Hoddesdon, September 8–13, 1924 (London: Edinburgh House). Ibid., J.H. Oldham Papers, 10/2/1. BPP. Cmd. 2347–1925. published by HMSO. J.H. Oldham, “Christian Education in the Mission Field,” IRM XIII(52) (1924): 500–517; “Christian Opportunity in Africa: Some Reflections on the Reports of the Phelps-Stokes Commissions,” IRM XIV (1925): 173–187; “Educational Policy of the British Government in Africa,” IRM XIV (1925): 421–427. E.R. Norman, Church and Society in England 1770–1970 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976): 314. Ibid.: 443. Ibid.: 320. Ibid.: 355. Also see P. Kallaway, “Conference Litmus: The Development of a Conference and Policy Culture in the Inter-War Period, with Special Reference to the New Education Fellowship and British Colonial Education in Southern Africa,” in Kim Tolley (ed.) Transformations in Schooling: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2007); William Boyd & W. Rawson, The Story of the New Education (London: 1965); Eckhardt Fuchs, “Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Educational Congresses in the Early Twentieth Century,” Paedagogica Historica XL(5 & 6) (2004): 757–784; Kevin J. Brehony, “A New Education for a New Era: The Contribution of the Conferences of the New Education Fellowship to the Discipline of Education, 1921–1938,” Paedagogica Historica XL(5 & 6) (2004): 733–756.

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72

73 74

75 76

Cremin (1964); Harold Silver, Education as History (London: Methuen, 1983); Tyack & Cuban (1995). Harold Silver, Equal Opportunity in Education (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1973): xii; Tawney (1964) also see f. 5. edit. Norman (1976): 315–317. Oldham (1924): 107; Charles Lucas, The Partition and Colonization of Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922): 207. Oldham (1924): 105. Lord Hailey, An African Survey: A Study of the Problems Arising in African South of the Sahara (London: Oxford University Press, 1938): 51–52. Hogg (1952): 231; Clements (1999): 230–231. See: Edwin Smith (ed.) The Christian Mission in Africa: A Study Based on the Work of the International Conference at Le Zoute, Belgium, September 14–21, 1926 (London: IMC, 1926). Clements (1999): 237; Hogg (1952): 232–233. Edwin Smith was a missionary/anthropologist based in Northern Rhodesia who was a prolific writer and commentator. His book The Golden Stool (1927) was a significant, if controversial, contribution to missionary debates about anthropology and their relationship to African cultures and societies. Smith (1926): 57. Charles T. Loram, The Education of the South African Native (London: Longmans Green, 1917). For more on Loram, see Ch. 6. Smith (1926): 109–116. London: Longmans Green, 1929. Smith (1926): 58. Ibid.: 59–61. King (1971). Smith (1926): 62; T.J. Jones, The Four Essential of Education (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1926). It needs to be noted that adapted education was hotly contested in the United States by Du Bois and Marcus Garvey and others. See Anderson (1988). Also see Ch. 6. Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: David McKay, 1974); Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Bogle-L’Ouverture, 1972). For a comprehensive critique of this trend, see Porter (1996). Smith (1926): 65. IMC, The Jerusalem Meeting of the IMC, March 24–April 8, 1928. Theme: The Application of the Christian Message to Religious and Secular Life. The proceedings were published in eight volumes (London: Oxford University Press, 1928). Hocking (1932). Neill (1982): 455–456.

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Chapter 1 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

97 98

99

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Hogg (1952): 240–241. Neill (1982): 455–456. (http://www-coe.org/wcc/what/missions/hist-e.html) Mott had been chairman of the Edinburgh conference. He also came to be general secretary of the World Student Christian Federation and the national council of YMC A of America. IMC, Jerusalem. Conference proceedings. Vol. 3: 224. IRM 17 (1927): 8. IMC, Jerusalem, Vol. 3: 224. IMC, Jerusalem, Vol. 7: 36–39. IMC, Jerusalem, Vol. 7: 38–39. IMC, Jerusalem, Vol. 6: “The Christian Mission in Regard to Rural Problems”; W. Paton, “The Jerusalem Meeting of the IMC,” IRM 17 (1928): 9–10. IMC, Jerusalem, Vol. 7, International Missionary Co-operation, 39. Hogg (1952): 249–251. Hocking (1932); Neill (1982): 455. Hocking (1932): 28. Ibid. Ibid.: 163. Ibid.: 134–135. Hogg (1952): 270–273; IMC, Tambaram Series, Vol. V. The DSIR also, significantly, established working relations with the ILO and League of Nations in Geneva. Merle Davis, Modern Industry and the African (originally published in 1933. republished by, New York: Negro University Press, 1969). Merle Davis (ed.) The Economic Basis of the Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1939); also see The Social and Economic Environment of the Younger Churches (London: Edinburgh House Press, 1939.) Hocking (1932): 25, 59, 61; Samuel Clavert, The Church Faces the World (New York: Round Table, 1939). IMC, published proceedings of the Third World Missionary conference: Theme: The World Mission of the Church, held at Tambaram, Madras, India, Dec 12–29, 1938. Tambaram/Madras series: 7 Vols. (London: published for the IMC by Oxford University Press, 1938.) See the report of the Faith & Works Conference on Church, Community and State held in Oxford in 1937. In particular, see Report on Theme III. Church, Community and State in relation to the Economic Order and Theme IV. Report on Church, Community and State in Relation to Education, in Oldham, J.H. The Churches Survey their Task (Oxford: IMC, 1937). Also see W.L. Sperry, World Conference on Faith and Order: The Non-theological Factors in the Making and Un-

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100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112

113 114 115 116 117

making of Church Union (New York: Harper & Bros, 1937); Clarke Fred et al. (eds.) Church, Community and State in Relation to Education (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1937). R. Bassham, “Tambaram Revisited,” IRM 78, No. 307, July 1988: 24. Hocking (1932): 74. The report of the DSIR edited by Merle Davis (1939). See IMC, Tambaram Series, V. For details of these partners, see the Forward to IMC, Tambaram Series, Vol. V: v–x. Davis (1939): Ch. 5; IMC, Tambaram papers, Reverend R.C. Andrews (Vice president of the Santiniketan Asram, India), “Interracial Reconciliation,” in Merle (1939) Vol. V: Ch. XII: 93. Terence Ranger, “Thompson Samkange: Tambaram and Beyond,” Journal of Religion in Africa XXIII (1993): 318–346; Albert Luthuli, Let My People Go (London: Collins, 1962): Ch. 7. IMC, Tambaram Series cited by Hogg (1952): 299. Even within the context of the large Chinese Protestant mission the impact of educational missions should not be exaggerated. Out of 3579 missionaries identified by Merle Davis’s report, only 206 were identified as “educators.” IMC, Tambaram Series, Vol. V: 315. IMC, Tambaram Series, V: 44, 46. Tambaram Series, V: 538. Ibid., V: 543. Davis (1938) IMC, Tambaram Series V: 560–561, citing Schlunk, M. “Theology and Mission in Germany in Recent Years,” IRM, July 1938. See also Bruno Gutmann, “Aufgaben der Gemeinschafts-bildung in Afrika,” Africa I (9128): 429–445; “The African Standpoint,” Africa 8(1) (January 1935): 1–19. For a further elaborate of these issues, see Peter Kallaway, “Volkskirche, Volkekunde and Apartheid: Lutheran Missions, German Anthropology and Humanities in African Education,” in Hanns Lessing et al. (eds.) Contested Relations: Protestantism between Southern Africa and Germany from the 1930s to the Apartheid Era (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster, 2015): 155–176. IMC, Tambaram Series, V: 573, 582. Ibid., V: 574. Ibid., V, 556–560. Ibid., V: 582. Hocking (1932): 25, 59, 61; Clavert (1939).

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Conference litmus The development of a conference and policy culture in the interwar period with special reference to the New Education Fellowship and British colonial education in Southern Africa*

*

This paper was first presented at the Southern African Comparative and History of Education Society (SACHES) meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in September 2005 and was previously published in Kim Tolley (ed.) Transformation in Schooling: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 123–150.

In the context of the Depression and the challenge to the principles of the League of Nations posed by the rise of totalitarianism in Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR, there is a clear shift in emphasis at the conferences of the New Education Fellowship (NEF) from a pedagogy of personal and individual development associated with the Progressive Era to a hard-nosed appraisal of mass education policies that promote economic growth and social development in a democratic context. This shift is tracked through a review of the key themes of the conferences of the NEF, the IMC, US Foundations, as well as British Colonial Office policy and other significant networks of educational policy debate. Central to the interpretation of these events is the question of how far these networks can be said to overlap and complement each other. Are the debates about colonial education sui generis, to be understood 89

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in terms of colonial exceptionalism via such notions as “cultural imperialism” or “racist colonial domination,” or are they simply the variants of international policy discourses? Are the emergent NEF guidelines for educational policy relevant only to the interpretation of policy developments in Europe, North America and the Commonwealth Dominions, or are they a central feature for understanding colonial education in the 1930s? To put it the other way around, to what extent does an investigation of developments in colonial education help to throw light on aspects of educational reform in the imperial heartland?

The 1934 South African Education Conference as a benchmark of changing educational discourse The focus here is on “the new turn” in education associated with the changing ethos of the NEF conferences in the 1930s. It examines how shifts in conference foci reflect wider forces that were impacting on many spheres of educational debate at that time. In particular, it concerns the changing focus of attention on educational goals emphasizing individual psychological growth and development associated with the progressive movement of the 1920s (strongly influenced by Jung, Freud and Piaget) to the more politically, economically and socially located goals and critiques of educational policy and practice characteristics of the 1930s. Although the dominance of psychology and pedagogy remained the major feature of much European educational debate into the 1930s as demonstrated in the work of the Institut J.J. Rousseau in Geneva,1 this chapter seeks to locate the shift to more socially located methodologies that emerged at places such as Teachers College, Columbia University in New York2 and the new Institute of Education at London University.3 Although there was still a strong influence of Progressivism, the overall influence of Bertrand Russell, Alfred Whitehead, Percy Nunn and Fred Clarke meant that there was a new emphasis on sociology, philosophy, history of education and comparative education, which was to have significant, long-term implications for the study of education.4 The international South African Education Conferences held in association with the NEF in 1934, and the conferences in Nice (1932) and in Cheltenham (1936), were significant milestones in this change in the culture of educational debate and research. Together they 90

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represented the emergence of an alternative tradition in educational scholarship and thinking that emphasized the social aspects of education. The 1934 conference was also the first to use the inclusive ethos of the NEF to promote the participation of colonial and missionary educators and significant academic and political figures associated with the emergent study of African education. It also allowed for the participation of a small number of African delegates for the first time, some of them prominent political figures, and it highlighted the racial problems of South Africa as manifested in the relations between Dutch and English colonizers, and between settlers and the indigenous people. Although these influences did not have a major short-term impact on policy deliberations before World War II, they set the tone for much of the academic research and policy development after 1945. This study will therefore attempt to locate educational research and policy development within the broader ambit of those wider forces in keeping with the kinds of research pioneered by Joseph Hodge and Helen Tilley referred to in the Introduction.5

Fred Clarke from F.W. Mitchell Sir Fred Clarke (London: Longmans,1967)

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E.G. Malherbe, Director of the South African National Bureau of Education in Pretoria and Major organiser of the 1934 NEF conference in South Africa. (Source: New Zealand Council of Educational Research, Commemoration booklet for the 1937 NEF conference in NZ.)

The themes of the NEF conferences in the 1930s – “Education and Changing Society” (Nice, 1932), “Educational Adaptations in a Changing Society” (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1934), “The Educational Foundations for Freedom in a Free Community” (Cheltenham, 1936) and “Education for Complete Living,” (Australia, 1937) – demonstrate a significant shift from the themes of the 1920s. The earlier meetings placed more emphasis on childhood, pedagogy and psychology with themes such as “The Creative Self Expression of the Child” (Calais, 1921), “Education for Creative Service” (Montreux, 1923), “The Meaning of Freedom in Education” (Locarno, 1927) and “The New Psychology and the Curriculum” (Elsinore, 1929). The South African conference was a truly international event. It took place in Cape Town and Johannesburg in July 1934 and was attended by no less than 4,000 delegates.6 In keeping with the general tone of the NEF, the presenters at these conferences were not exclusively educational experts and academics. The South African conference included many presentations by administrators, teachers, educational activists and practitioners of many kinds. It exhibited many of the tensions between traditionalists and reformers. In general, these deliberations in South Africa revealed the limits of the New Education in defending democratic rights and seeking to link peace and education in a world increasingly threatened by war. They 92

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were a demonstration of the effects of the secularized and scientific nature of educational discourse by the 1930s. There was a notable influence from the United States, where the study of education and teacher training was increasingly accepted as a university responsibility. The conferences attempted, obliquely perhaps, to engage with the great political changes associated with the Depression and the rise of totalitarianism, while beginning to explore the educational implications of the changes in European imperialism. Most significantly for my purposes, the conferences in South Africa and Australia represented the first occasions that such educational gatherings, hosted by an international educational association, had been held outside Europe or North America. Their tone needs to be understood in the context of the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which allowed the new dominions to stake out a role in the great political transition in the British colonial empire, while participation by Indians and Africans remained marginal. At the South African event, an analysis of education in the African colonial context was highlighted. A range of experts contributed from a variety of disciplines and educational environments, many from academic or professional fields outside the normal ambit of educational studies. At Cheltenham and in Australia, in a rather different atmosphere dominated by threats of war, some of these conference themes were carried forward, but there was less interdisciplinary focus and little participation by delegates from outside the educational academy. Educational studies seemed to be becoming more comprehensive and multidisciplinary just when the NEF was losing much of the unique activist energy previously demonstrated in relation to transforming the classroom and challenging conventional pedagogy. At the same time, as Fuchs points out, looking at these congresses it becomes evident that the internationalization of education in the first half of the twentieth century was a (dominantly) Western enterprise. The concept of scientific education as well as the general ideas of the New Education, such as work schools and the child-study movement, were based on the European concept of Enlightenment and embedded in a socio-political context that differentiated between a “civilized Europe” and a “barbaric rest.”7

In retrospect, it is also significant that so little attention was given to the great educational experiments taking place in the USSR.

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The moving spirit behind the South African conference was Ernst G. Malherbe. An Afrikaner of Huguenot descent who grew up in the Orange Free State, Malherbe graduated from Teachers College in 1924, wrote a major book on the history of education in South African8 and in 1934 became the director of the newly established South African Bureau of Educational and Social Research,9 which was initially jointly funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the South African government. The conference was addressed by General J.C. Smuts, minister of justice and deputy prime minister of the Fusion government, and J.H. Hofmeyr, the minister of education.10 Many significant contemporary educationalists were present, including J.J. van der Leeuw and Beatrice Ensor of the NEF and Professors John Dewey, Pierre Bovet, William Boyd, Fred Clarke, A.V. Murray and Harold Rugg. Out of nearly 200 papers presented at the conference, 27 were by international academics and 24 by South African academics. These elites of the emergent “scientific” field of educational studies were balanced by a much larger and more varied contingent of educational practitioners from the new educational bureaucracies and the missionary education network in Africa. These practitioners comprised teachers, teacher educators, psychologists, “native administrators,” social workers, prison officials, medical experts and, significantly, a few, mostly South African, representatives of the colonized people, including Donald M’timkulu, who is highlighted in Chapter 6.

The development of professional educational networks from the late nineteenth century The NEF conference in South Africa was the culmination of over half a century of “scientific” debate in education. Eckhardt Fuchs traces the advent of formal educational conferences back to the scientific gatherings that came to be associated with World Fairs from the late nineteenth century. He notes that these educational gatherings “covered a wide range of topics from primary education to secondary and higher education, adult education, special schools and school hygiene.” In the early days, the delegates represented governments, and “in the context of national exhibits these congresses were organized by the host governments … to introduce various aspects of the national systems to foreign countries.”11 These early conferences were held before the growth of an established conference network 94

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linked to professional educational associations. After 1919, many congresses promoted the agendas of the League of Nations in relation to peace education, education for democracy and human rights. It is important to see these initiatives in the context of the general growth of professional debate and research development associated with the rise of the modern scientific academy and as part of the professional ethos of modern education.

The NEF in the interwar period The NEF played a central role in the development of a politically and ethically based model of internationalism in education. It had its origins in the International Movement in Progressive Education established in the early 1920s, with a “strong commitment among the leaders of the NEF to the fostering of international understanding and a world consciousness through education with support for the League of Nations.”12 The NEF was founded in 1915 as a rallying point for people of all countries who felt that a radical form of education, based on a proper understanding of childhood and of the unity in diversity of mankind, was essential if ever world peace was to be assured.13

These developments took place in parallel with the formation of the American Progressive Education Association in 1919. Kevin Brehony argues that the NEF was a social movement rather than a professional or academic organization given that it embraced a range of professional, social and political agendas. As such, it made key contributions to education by promoting the link between provision and research, by consolidating links between the New Education and the US-based foundations, and even initiating contacts between the NEF network and those debating and formulating educational policy in the British Commonwealth. By organizing a sequence of conferences that helped to develop the field of educational studies, it provided the context for educational debate while erecting the scaffolding for research and professional development of education in the academy. By the 1930s, the NEF was to make a contribution to educational studies far beyond the scope of its original, activist, organizers.14 The progressive ethos of the movement was not very scientific/academic in the 1920s. Brehony points significantly to the 95

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essentially elitist nature of the movement, not linked directly to struggle for mass education, worker education or colonial education, though it came to serve these ends in various ways during the following two decades. As Percy Nunn put it, “in its origin the NEF was a gesture of revolt against the older tradition and expressed a felt need for reform.”15 The goal of the organization and the journal, Education for the New Era: An International Quarterly Journal for the Promotion of Reconstruction in Education, was to support the outlook and perspective associated with the newly formed League of Nations. The aim of the journal was to promote international dialogue in education, support “the growth of experimental education” and “promote an international fellowship of teachers.”16 In broad terms, in “this conception of education, the essential thing was not the subjects nor the methods of learning, but right relations between parent and child, and between teacher and pupil.” 17 This provided an umbrella for educators, with strong representation by socialists, pacifists and theosophists, who initially provided the energy and enthusiasm for the project. It was also to be the core of later problems in relation to the coherence of the NEF.

Interwar NEF conferences and the links with the British Commonwealth The majority of delegates attending the NEF conferences came from 18 European countries and the United States. Later, there were also delegates from Japan, China, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America.18 The research and the development of disciplinary fields were first highlighted at the joint Colonial Office/NEF Commonwealth Education Conference held in London in 1931. The significance of this event, as with the South African conference, was that the organizers managed to include delegates involved in the realities of policy development in the Commonwealth, India and Africa, from government, missionary and independent perspectives. At the South African conference, there were a range of speakers who represented a variety of fields of academic enquiry (anthropology, economics, race and cultural studies, linguistics) and a variety of administrators and missionary educators who focused on key aspects of colonial education. These events also highlighted, for the first time, the differences between policy development in the European, dominion and “imperial 96

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dependency” contexts. Although these trends can also be noted at the Cheltenham conference in 1936, it seems that there was considerably less emphasis on these issues by the time the Australian conference took place in 1937, when a small number of “international experts” (21 in all) presented papers at the conference to the exclusion of other voices. The precise background to the politics behind these issues is beyond the scope of this enquiry. British Commonwealth Education Conference: 1931 After the NEF conference at Elsinore in 1929, Percy Nunn of the London Day Training School organized a British Commonwealth Education Conference in association with the NEF.19 This seems to have linked the work of the NEF to his initiative to establish London University’s Institute of Education, thus challenging the dominant position of Teachers College and the Institut J.J. Rousseau in the field of educational studies. It was both a strategic move to shape the work of the NEF and an attempt at a more direct intervention in favour of the League’s work for democratic education internationally.20 Engagement with the Commonwealth education network was an extremely unusual move for the NEF as it meant that for the first time it was associated with policies and practices directly linked to government policy, specifically relating to the British Colonial Office, to the India Office and, more tentatively, with missionary education and philanthropic movements through the IMC networks. It was also a demonstration of the growing political and strategic importance of education and educational policy discourse in the international context as influenced by the League of Nations. Although there is no space here to explore the details, it is significant that this event linked the activities of the NEF for the first time to different traditions of educational provision associated with the British Colonial Office that had been emerging since the beginning of the century (see Table 2.1). In turn, the Colonial Office and its subcommittee, the ACEC, were closely associated with the missionary education network. In many ways the educational concerns of the NEF outlined previously were proving significant in shaping educational debate and discourse in these contexts by the 1930s, binding a wide variety of individuals and associations from different contexts into a greater common professional and research community even if there appears to have been little overlap of individuals attending the respective events. 97

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When some 80 invited delegates gathered in London in July 1931 for over 60 conference sessions on key British Commonwealth educational issues, they did so in the context of the Great Depression (which prevented some of those invited from attending) and the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and East Asia.21 They also gathered in the context of the crucial political changes associated with the Statute of Westminster and the opening of the Round Table Conferences in India, which signified a major shift in British policy towards the empire.22 The tense debate at the beginning of the 1931 meeting regarding the use of the terms “Imperial” or “Commonwealth” captured the mood.23 At the same time, if change was in the air, it was focused on the developing independence of the dominions or “white colonies” of settlement – Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – rather than on the concerns of the small number of apparently frustrated Indian delegates who attended and often led the discussion in the program on “Problems of India.” There were no Africans present, though there were many delegates with significant experience in the field of colonial education. Although the conference was held under the auspices of the NEF, it did not follow the usual protocol, as the delegates seem to have attended by invitation rather than by virtue of their membership of the traditional NEF network.24 Table 2.1

Imperial and Commonwealth Education Conferences

1902

Colonial Education Conferencea

1911

Imperial Education Conferenceb

1923

Imperial Education Conferencec

1924

Report of the Conference on Imperial Educationd

1927

Colonial Office Education Conferencee

1931

British Commonwealth Conference on Educationf

1952

Cambridge Conference on African Educationg

1968

Commonwealth Education Conferenceh

a b c d e f g h

98

C.O. Misc. No. 147/Col. 2378. C.O. Col. 5666. Report … (London: HMSO, 1924). League of Empire: Report of the Conference … (London, 1924). C.O. Cmd. 2883–4; Report of the Proceedings (London: HMSO, 1927). W. Rawson, Education for a Changing Commonwealth (London: HMSO, 1931); Cmd. 3628–9. W.E.F. Ward, (ed.) African Education: A Study of Educational Policy and Practice in British Tropical Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1953). Cmd. 3624, 106.

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Malherbe emphasized that the Statute of Westminster could be seen as part of an effort to give legal definition to the political consequences of “a new type of leadership, one no longer wedded to the concept of dominance but based upon the ideal of sympathetic guidance which gives full recognition to (national) individuality” that stressed “government not as an exercise of power, but as an agency of service.”25 He argued that the aims and purposes of education in the Commonwealth could be reduced to the unifying ideals for a new education of which the essential point was the abandonment of the idea of cultural dominance, which formed the cement of the old British Empire. Within the ambit of the unifying scientific spirit that transcends creed and culture, he argued, “we may define this ideal as a belief in the value of diversity and the desire for the full development of the culture of each individual group.” In emphasizing the right and need to develop cultures other than those of the imperial power, Malherbe was of course emphasizing the rights of Afrikaners (or French Canadians) to language and culture in the Commonwealth. It is unlikely that he saw the irony that is so obvious to us in hindsight. The very rights and freedoms that he was claiming as part of the Commonwealth pact were to be the stuff of the Asian and African nationalist revolutions of the future. This must have been only too obvious to the Indian delegates. Responding to Malherbe, Percy Nunn identified the reactions of those who supported policies of “white separation and white integration.” He also pointed to the increasing political importance of the relationship between whites (colonists) and colonial peoples. 26 Significantly, he raised the “enormously important question” of the attitude of the Commonwealth community as defined in the Statue of Westminster “towards the indigenous peoples of Africa.” Although the CO had attempted to set guidelines for colonial education since the early 1920s, it gradually became clear that the much-vaunted policy of adaptation was problematic. The attempt to avoid a rigid European curriculum in African schools, and to embrace aspects of indigenous education along with the principles of rural education developed for blacks in the United States, might have been well meant but was often rejected by Africans as paternalistic and a recipe for inferior education. Nunn, reflecting views that were being foregrounded by German Lutheran missionaries in East Africa, saw commitment to an education that attempted “to help him build up a characteristic African individuality of his own” as having positive aspects,27 but in places such as South Africa such a policy of differentiation risked 99

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permanently dividing the traditional English curriculum, the Afrikaans/Dutch stream and specifically African education. This reflected many of the concerns so lucidly indicated by Victor Murray in his critique of the Phelps-Stokes Commission’s findings and the subsequent CO report Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (1925) that were referred to in Chapter 1.28 These are issues that will re-emerge periodically throughout this study across a wide variety of contexts. It was not just these issues of African colonial education that influenced the tone of the gathering. The presence of a number of Indian delegates, side by side with high-ranking British Indian administrators, was entirely new to NEF forums and had great significance for the tone of the conference. The point could not have been lost that the white colonies of settlement, the dominions, were being granted equal political status to the “mother country,” while Indian negotiations for self-government were moving at a snail’s pace. The internationalism of the League seldom had anything to say about India and other parts of Asia, and by implication the colonial context in general.29 Reforms in Indian education, referred to in the Introduction, were being shaped despite the effects of the Depression. Sir Philip Hartog had been chair of the Education Committee of the Indian Statutory Commission, 1927–1930 (Simons Commission), which had been appointed to report on the system of government in India and make proposals for reforms.30 Issues of provision, language and culture; medium of instruction; religion; “the proper balance between purely literary education and technical/vocational education”; women and girls’ education; rural education; adult education; and higher education were discussed at the conference. A major feature of the debate was the religious issue and how mass schooling of Muslims, Hindus and Christians was to be arranged in the same schools. There was an intense debate about the nature of the “national education” that would be required for an independent India. At the same time there was a degree of disquiet about the ways in which “national education” was being defined, as the most vocal groupings and prosperous elites tended to support the traditional colonial curriculum. All of this may help explain the extreme caution with which the British tackled these issues in an era of volatile politics31 and may throw light on the influence of Indian education reforms on later initiatives in Africa and elsewhere.32

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It is also notable that this conference took place in the context of the publication of the pivotal publication of the IMC, The Remaking of Man in Africa.33 This amounted to a comprehensive critique of the state of missionary education in Africa and a summary of work being carried out by the African Education Group of the IMC and Conference of British Mission Societies (CBMS) network under the guidance of J.H. Oldham at Edinburgh House, the headquarters of the IMC. The report aimed to set out a strategy for the new missionary era at a time when the CO was seeking innovative solutions.34 It is possible to see such contributions in the context of emergent debate about what was identified as “problems of adjustment” or “culture contact” in education (see Chapter 4). The task for the government was now “not merely to supervise and secure efficiency on the secular side of missionary education but to subsidize it,” and provide educational institutions “to supplement the mission activity which is still being carried out by Christianity and Islam.”35 The tone of the conference is of some significance. It seems to have managed to fruitfully bridge the gap, at a key moment of political change, between the inward-looking European notion of educational reform in terms of personal development and wider visions of such reform as an aspect of democratic governance, nation-building and modernization in a dominion and colonial context. .

NEF conference in South Africa: 1934 After promising signs of change in educational debate at the 1932 conference in Nice, the South African event in 1934 proved to be of great significance in focusing attention on the social, economic and political aspects of education. Its theme, Educational Adaptations to a Changing Society, reflected that emphasis. Malherbe’s general affirmation that the principles of the NEF were essentially about addressing “problems of human relationships” demonstrates something of the earlier non-political ethos of the organization. The conference provided delegates with an opportunity to engage not only with the consequences of the Depression and the prospects for democracy in Europe and Asia but also, for the NEF delegates, with educational issues in the unfamiliar context of colonial Africa.

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New Education Fellowship conference in South Africa 1934 (brochure)

In terms of Malherbe’s local agendas, hosting the conference strengthened his position very considerably as director of the South African Bureau of Educational and Social Research. It came at a strategic time when there was a significant move to the right in South African politics with the establishment of the Fusion (coalition) government in 1933 under General Hertzog and the rise of the Fascist aligned Purified National Party (the Herstigte Nationale Party) under D.F. Malan. The Native Economic Commission had recently reported on “Native Education” and recommended an extreme form of racial segregation, education and employment.36 Richard Glotzer provides evidence of support for Malherbe from Teachers College and the Carnegie Corporation in what they considered his important work in South Africa at a time when he, like Charles Loram, was considering emigration.37 A generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) had been allocated to Malherbe for his study of the poor-white problem in South Africa,38 102

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and another grant was forthcoming to enable a number of prominent international educationalists to attend the conference. Further funding was made available from various educational institutions and state education departments.39 The South African event engaged with a specific set of issues relating to education outside the conventional international and NEF framework by setting aside substantial time for 48 papers from a total of over 300, for debates on “Education in a Changing African Society.”40 This aspect of the conference was organized by the prominent South African liberal J.D. Rheinallt Jones, who was closely associated with the Carnegie-funded South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR).41 In opening the deliberations, Rheinallt Jones invited consideration of “how far the system is meeting the needs of the African child today” and asked for an examination of the changes in African society, “their causes and problems arising, and a critical assessment of education as an effective instrument for the adjustment of the African child within its changing world.”42 In keeping with the ethos of the NEF, many of the participants in this section were educational practitioners of various kinds working in different contexts, but the overall emphasis was on the education of Africans. Another novel phenomenon was the presence of a small number of African delegates. Dr A.B. Xuma, an American-trained medical practitioner in Johannesburg, prominent member of the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives and the African Nationalist Congress, spoke on health and diet change in urban African areas;43 Donald Jabavu, a member of staff at the South African Native College, Fort Hare, and prominent spokesperson for African teachers’ organizations, spoke about the nature of children arriving at the school in South Africa; Don M’Timkulu of Healdtown College (see Chapter 6) and Reverend K.T. Motsete (Tati Training Institution, Bechuanaland) raised questions about language; and E.B. Mahuma Morake, Principal of Wilberforce Native Training Institution, Evaton, Transvaal, spoke on the education of girls in a joint presentation with her mentor, Mabel Carney of Teachers College, in “the only joint presentation that crossed racial lines.”44 One speaker who set the international tone of the conference was Dr Gustav Kullman of the League of Nations Education Information Centre in Geneva. He provided background to the educational work of the League, emphasizing “the ‘facts’ of world interdependence making world co-operation and world collective action not merely an ethical postulate but a tragic necessity of law” and stressed the role of 103

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education in sustaining the vision of the League.45 Dr Pierre Bovet, director of the Institut J.J. Rousseau, outlined the threats and demands of nationalism in the modern world. Other speakers described the challenges posed by nationalism in the South African context. One of the most prominent speakers was Fred Clarke, the new head of the Overseas Division at the Institute of Education, London University, a post funded by the Carnegie Corporation. His great impact at the conference seems to be explained by his ability to link local issues to the broader international context of the early 1930s and, in doing so, to open the way for future analysis of education. He argued that there was a need to maintain a balance between preserving European tradition and formulating an innovative approach to the new educational environment.46 It was left to the social anthropologists to make some of the most important political interventions in the debates. Many of those present were to make internationally significant contributions in their fields.47 These included Dr Bronislaw Malinowski,48 Dr Isaac Schapera,49 Dr Monica Wilson,50 Winifred and Alfred Hoernle,51 and Professor W.W. Eiselen.52 The most important among these, from the point of view of the conference, was Malinowski. He delivered several addresses on the relation of education to problems of “culture contact” in Africa and emphasized the social role of education and culture in the colonial context.53 He was at a significant stage of his career when he was questioning some of the established “rules” and conventions of structural functionalism, acknowledging the political context of social change in colonial society and arguing that “scientific study of African societies must be politically committed.”54 Engaging with the NEF debate from the outset, Malinowski argued that “education is bigger than schooling” and that it “is concerned not only with the development of the child’s ‘biological inheritance,’ his mental endowment, but also with his cultural heritage and his place in society.” He emphasized that while “the gap between the world inside the classroom and the world outside was great enough in Western society,” it should be acknowledged that it is that much greater in African/colonial society. He pointed to the magnitude of the task of formal education in an African context and noted the lack of research and systematic thinking that had been characteristic of colonial education and the lack of expertise on how to graft formal or modern schooling to the traditions of the past. This call for a “scientific approach” to education in Africa reflected in part the management ethos of Teachers College, which had 104

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significantly influenced thinking about colonial education since the time of the first Phelps-Stokes reports in the early 1920s. Malinowski’s thinking was in part in keeping with the adaptationist ideals of Jesse Jones and Charles Loram when he “presented an indictment of the education offered by the colonial state and the missions.” He argued that such schooling had “in the past been undertaken with easy assurance, on the assumption ‘that what we feel is necessary and right for the European must be the best for the African,’ and that it could be done through the school.” While acknowledging that this schooling was often “dominated by the lofty and unselfish ideals of the Europeans,” he argued that it was “nevertheless out of harmony with the real conditions” and helped to develop in school graduates a contempt for African culture, traditions and society, often “causing a sense of inferiority and inadequacy.” 55 This significant debate is taken up in Chapter 4. In keeping with the dominant eugenicist metaphor of the time, Malinowski emphasized the “disintegration” of African cultures in the context of contact with colonialism and the modern world and the challenges of “re-integration” of Africans through educational processes. In that context it was necessary to develop a system of education to meet the needs of the African child. He emphasized that “to educate a primitive community out of its culture – that which embodies and correlates tribal beliefs, ideas, values, organisation and pursuits – and to make it adopt integrally the culture of a different race, and of a much more highly differentiated society, is a gigantic task,” which had been hugely underestimated to date.56

Up to this point Malinowski appears to have shared ground with previous writers, but he then also introduced the reality of South Africa and other colonial states into the equation. He placed the political problem of colonial Africa clearly on the table: The African lives in a world which is politically subject, economically dependent, culturally spoon-fed, and moulded by another race and another civilization. A considerable portion of his tribal lands has been alienated, the political independence of the whole society has been modified, and his traditional law, his economic pursuits, his religious ideas questioned. With this educational problem of the introduction of European education to the Africans there goes another: how is the child to secure the place for which this education fits him, in the face of the race prejudice, laws and

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To proceed in such a manner was, for Malinowski, to court tragedy.57 Although he favoured a balance between European schooling and African education with “the necessity of cultural harmonizations,” he argued that “all the evidence points to the conclusion that the African child responds well to the same type of schooling as the European.” Malinowski returned to the conference theme with its idea of education as a “re-integrating agency” and a mechanism for reintegrating Africans into society on new terms that would enable them to manage their lives, economically and socially, in relation to the modern society that was emerging around them. At the same time it would enable them to regenerate African culture to cope with the needs of change and transition. There is insufficient space here to explore the contributions of the other anthropologists present, but Malinowski’s broad focus provided a framework for many of their contributions as well. There is no record in the proceedings of the response to these views on the part of the sociologist Professor Hendrick Verwoerd or social anthropology professor W.W.M. Eiselen, both at the University of Stellenbosch, the ideologues of the future apartheid education policies, who also attended the conference. They might have taken courage from what they could have interpreted as support for their radical segregationism.58 With hindsight, the conference had a “modern” look. The section on African education considered topics and themes that were far removed from the individualistic, psychological and Progressive “New Education” foci of the NEF conferences of the 1920s. The sub-agenda seems to have been a desire to display the ethos of modern education to a South African (and European) audience beginning to be faced with new forms of intolerance in the form of Nazism and Fascism. It must have been clear to many that these seeds of intolerance were also growing in the context of racially segregated South Africa. As Saul Dubow points out, the distinctions between segregationism in South Africa and the British colonial policy of Indirect Rule were blurred at this time, and the conference itself bore testimony to the difficulty of defining terms and practices associated with “culture contact” in 106

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terms that would set off the messages from the anthropologists present from the radical segregationist views represented by Holloway, Eiselen and Verwoerd. It all seemed to pave the way for the kinds of developments evident at Cheltenham two years later, though it was to be a long time before any international conference on education was again able to achieve this level of critical debate on educational policy in Africa. Cheltenham conference: 1936 The last of the European interwar conferences of the NEF was held in Cheltenham, England, in 1936.59 The theme “Educational Foundations for Freedom in a Free Community” set the tone. This was a smaller conference, with the majority of delegates from the United Kingdom (461), France (72) and the United States (119). The attendance of no less than 77 members from the British Commonwealth was notable. There were no delegates from Germany, Austria, Russia or Italy.60 The individualistic and psychological tradition was further displaced by an increased focus on policy and administration. Fifty speakers were listed, a quarter of whom were from the academy, thus demonstrating that there was still significant participation for a wider audience of educationalists. Perhaps most significantly, the conference highlighted the links between the work of the NEF and the League of Nations. Key speakers at the conference were R.H. Tawney, British Labour Party politician and advocate of Secondary Education for All;61 Charles Freinet, a French educationalist;62 Pierre Bovet, director of the Institut J.J. Rousseau (Geneva); Michael Sadler, a prominent British educationalist (Oxford);63 and Percy Nunn, retired director of the Institute of Education (London University). The new president of the NEF, Fred Clarke, who had succeeded Nunn as director of the Institute of Education in 1936, was again a prominent influence. He was able to use the link with the NEF to promote the Institute and to highlight the social aspects of educational research.64 The Cheltenham NEF conference was a significant moment of interaction between the various networks of educationalists. Clarke arranged for a special focus on aspects of education in the colonial context in an apparent attempt to ensure a degree of continuity with the themes taken up at the Commonwealth Education Conference (1931) and the NEF conference in South Africa (1934). It is also clear that Oldham was a significant influence behind the scenes as there was 107

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correspondence between Edinburgh House and W.B. Mumford, representing the Colonial Department at the Institute of Education, over the agenda to be followed.65 This interaction between missionary education networks, philanthropic foundations and the professional education forums of the NEF marks a significant development in the growth of an institutional culture relating to colonial or African education and gave those debates a focus in relation to the defence of democracy in Europe and Asia. A special commission of the NEF on “African Thought on African Education” was a radical departure from the normal proceedings of the NEF conferences. It might have been an outcome of, or a reaction to, the South African conference, where, according to his biographer, Clarke had made a considerable impact.66 This commission provided a space for a group of Africans to speak on this theme.67 Reporting on the events, the journal West Africa commented: “At these meetings, the Europeans adopted an unfamiliar, more modest, attitude, that of listening while Africans delivered their own ideas of what was good for their countrymen.”68 The chairman of the commission was W.E.F. Ward, principal of Achimota College in the Gold Coast.69 The “spokespersons” were not educational experts as such but “educated Africans who had been studying in England during the past year.”70

Australasia: 1937 The following NEF conference was held in Australasia in association with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) over two months at various centres throughout New Zealand and Australia.71 There were 21 speakers who gave all the 300 addresses. This event took the form of a lecture tour by educational experts. Like the South African event, it provided wide scope for general participation and elicited great public attention and unprecedented interest in education, though, in contrast to the South African event, none of the discussions or comments are reported in the voluminous published proceedings.72 Like many earlier NEF conferences, it was supported by the CCNY. In contrast to the South African and Cheltenham events, the conference seems remarkable for its return to an earlier mindset which highlighted the less political aspects of Progressive Education. In contrast to the NEF of the 1920s, there was no strong international presence. Unlike the South African conference, there was no attempt at interdisciplinary interaction with social scientists 108

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from other fields, nor was there any attempt to engage with the issues that had been so prominent at the Commonwealth Conference and the South African conference regarding the non-dominion reaches of the empire. Notably, there were no Africans, Indians or Latin Americans present. The indigenous peoples of Australasia do not appear to have been mentioned. In general, the conference, whatever its significance for Australian education, did little to advance the London, South African and Cheltenham initiatives in broadening the scope of educational enquiry and research in relation to the wider international political challenges in the colonial aspects of education in the mid-1930s. The emergent debates on education in the rest of the British Commonwealth were neglected in the context of the determined initiative to reform and modernize the local education systems that were seen to be outmoded. Perhaps of greatest significance for the themes explored here relating to the interaction between the NEF networks and emergent networks and debates about education in the British Commonwealth was the visit to India by key delegates en route back to Europe. Prominent NEF educationalists Bouvet, Hankin, Salter Davies and Zilliacus broke their journey to make a three-month tour at a momentous time in Indian education. They attended the All-India Education Conference and met members of the Indian National Movement, including Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore. Debates about basic education for the masses and the need to connect education to the environment of the child and appeals for cultural and linguistic relevance for schooling provided the Europeans with a wider perspective on international education issues.73

African educational networks in the interwar years A central element in the shifting emphasis of the NEF conference deliberations is the emergence of a “scientific,” research-based ethos and methodology on the social and political aspects of policy and education. Within the literature on these developments, there is little recognition of parallel networks that were both influenced by these changes and in turn impacted upon them in various ways. My emphasis here concerns unfolding debates about the nature of colonial and missionary education that were emerging in the parallel

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conferences of the IMC and other church-based networks in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States and elsewhere. As demonstrated in Chapter 1, the emergence of a missionary education network from the late nineteenth century was of the greatest significance for the development of educational debate of all kinds, especially with regard to the colonial context. The whole missionary conference network was increasingly involved in the complex debates about how to link the propagation of Christianity to the economic, social, medical and educational needs of colonized peoples, and how to work in the political framework of colonialism. These issues became the subject of a series of influential conferences, independent and in cooperation with the government, between 1910 and 1937. These paralleled the evolution of secular/professional education discourses in the NEF context outlined previously.

Conclusions The events outlined previously raise a host of methodological questions about the nature of the history of education and about what counts as evidence in a field where much of the impact of the conferences and debates can only be inferred. There has been no attempt to measure the impact of the deliberations recorded here for the ongoing realities of policy development and implementation. Yet it is quite clear from the evidence presented and the debates outlined that these embody the key issues of educational discourse in the 1930s at a time when the foundations for modern educational research and methodology were being set. Central to the interpretation of these events is the question of how far these networks can be said to overlap with and complement each other. The links between metropolitan debates and an emergent ideology of education and democracy linked to the League of Nation seem very obvious. But the detailed implications for the wider world of colonial Africa and India have not yet been adequately charted. Some questions raised in this chapter will provide the context for the chapters that follow – in a sense they set the frame for the general enquiry. Are the debates about colonial education sui generis, and to be understood in terms of colonial exceptionalism via such notions as “cultural imperialism” or “racist colonial domination,” or are they simply local variants of international policy developments? Are they part of a very specific kind of education designed for domination and 110

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colonialism, or do they reflect the best international expertise in the area of education at the time as reflected by the NEF conference network? Are the emergent NEF guidelines for educational policy only relevant to the interpretation of policy developments in Europe, North America and the Commonwealth Dominions, or are they a central feature for understanding colonial education in the 1930s? To put it the other way around, to what extent does an investigation of developments in colonial education help to throw light on aspects of educational reform in the imperial heartland? These questions seem to lead to tentative conclusions about the emergent links between professional education debates and those generated by governments, missionaries or humanitarian agencies. To a large extent, these links have been hidden in the past by the insularity of history of education research, which has often failed to make the connections required with other fields of enquiry. Clearly, the mainstream explorations of Progressive Education and the NEF have tended to dominate, but there has seldom been any appreciation of the extent to which changes that informed those debates were part of a wider interaction with other fields of enquiry, both within the field of education (missionary education or colonial education) and in the unfolding of interdisciplinary links with management studies, social anthropology, sociology, linguistics, economics, welfare and historical studies. In attempting to explore the history of colonial education in Africa, this exercise has been part of a wider attempt to define the forces that provided the context of educational discourse and policy development in an era when fundamental changes were contested in colonial education. These forces included those leading towards the goals and objectives of mass education systems inspired both by the ideals of democracy and the League of Nations and by tendencies that were more closely linked to the racist and totalitarian objectives of the axis powers. This chapter has sought to understand the complexities of that historical background.

Notes 1 2

Rita Hofstetter, “The Institute of Educational Sciences in Geneva, 1912–1948,” Paedagogica Historica 40(5 & 6) (October 2004): 657-684. Lawrence T. Cremin, David A. Shannon, & Mary Evelyn Townsend, A History of Teachers College, Columbia University (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954); Robert McCaughey, Stand, Columbia: A

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3

4

5

6 7 8

9 10

11 12

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History of Columbia University in the City of New York 1754–2004 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Richard Aldrich, “The Training of Teachers and Educational Studies: The London Day Training College, 1902–1932,” Paedagogica Historica 40(5 & 6) (2004): 617–631; Aldrich, The Institute of Education: 1902-2002: A Centenary History (London: Institute of Education, 2002). Eckhardt Fuchs, “Educational Sciences, Morality and Politics: International Education Congresses in the Early Twentieth Century,” Paedagogica Historica 40(5&6) (2004): 617–631; “The Creation of International Networks in Education: The League of Nations and Educational Organisations,” Paedagogica Historica 43(2) (2007): 199-209; Percy Nunn, Education: Its Data and First Principles (London: E. Arnold, 1920); Bertrand Russell, Education and the Modern World (London: W. W. Norton, 1932); Alfred N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1929); Fred Clarke, Education and Social Change (London: Sheldon, 1940). Joseph Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007); Hodge and Brett Bennett, Science and Empire (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Hellen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011). E.G. Malherbe, Educational Adaptations in a Changing Society (Cape Town: Juta, 1937): 537. Fuchs (2004): 766. E. G. Malherbe, Education in South Africa 1652–1922: A Critical Survey of the Development of Educational Administration in the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. This was submitted for the PhD at Columbia University in 1924 and was published by Juta, Cape Town, in the following year. The forerunner of the present Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. The Fusion government was a coalition of the South African Party and the National Party that had come into being in 1933 to cope with the effects of the Great Depression. For details on J.C. Smuts, see W.K. Hancock, Smuts: The Field of Force: 1919–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1968); for J.H. Hofmeyr, see Alan Paton, Hofmeyr (Oxford: Oxford University, 1964). World Fairs were held in 1867, 1878, 1889, 1893, 1900, 1904 and 1910. See Fuchs (2004): 759–784. Kevin J. Brehony, “A New Education for a New Era: The Contribution of the Conferences of the New Education Fellowship to the Disciplinary Field of Education 1921–1938,” Paedagogica Historica

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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28

29 30 31 32

40(5 & 6) (2004): 733–756; W.A.C. Stewart, Progressive and Radicals in English Education: 1750–1970 (London: Macmillan, 1972): 364. W. Rawson, A New World in the Making: An International Survey of the New Education (London: NEF, 1933): vi. Stewart (1972): 356–357; Brehony (2004): 742. Cited by Brehony (2004): 742. Stewart (1972): 354. Ibid.: 376. Brehony (2004): 751–754. W. Rawson (ed.) Education in a Changing Commonwealth (London: New Education Fellowship, 1931). Nunn was the president of the English Section of the NEF at this time. W. Boyd & W. Rawson, The Story of the New Education (London: Heinemann, 1965): 89–90. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria was to take place in September. See P. Spear, A History of India: 2 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975): Chs. 15–17. Rawson (1931): iii. The conference was addressed by Beatrice Ensor, the chairperson of the NEF, and the conference papers were edited by Wyatt Rawson, the assistant director. See Rawson (1933). Rawson (1931): viii; E.G. Malherbe, “The New Education in a Changing Empire,” in Rawson, Changing Commonwealth, 33–38. Reprinted as a pamphlet by van Schaik, Pretoria. Also see E.G. Malherbe, “New Education in a Changing Empire,” The New Era 1931, and “Native Education in the Union of South Africa,” in E. Percy (ed.) The Yearbook of Education 1933 (London: Evans Brothers, 1933). Rawson (1931): 38–39. His observations reflected German Lutheran and anthropological emphases in these complex debates (see Ch. 5). British Cmd. Papers, 2374, Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (London: HMSO, 1925); Phelps Stokes Fund, Education Policy in Africa (New York: Phelps Stokes Foundation, 1922); Education in East Africa (New York, 1924); A.V. Murray, The School in the Bush (Oxford: Longmans Green, 1929). Rawson (1933): 26. Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Delhi: Oxford University, 1985): 256. Rawson (1933): 53–58. Tim Allender, “ ‘Lessons from the Subcontinent’: Indian Dynamics in British Africa,” in Peter Kallaway & Rebecca Swartz (eds.) Empire and Education in Africa: The Shaping of a Comparative Perspective (New York: Peter Lang, 2016): 29–52.

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35 36

37 38 39

40 41

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J.H. Oldham and B.D. Gibson, The Remaking of Man in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931). For more on the Oldham, see Ch. 1 and Kathleen Bliss on Oldham in Gerald H. Anderson, Bibliographic Dictionary of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1971); K. Clements, Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J H Oldham (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999): 249; IMC/CBMS archive, Box 218 various for period 1929–1933. Rawson (1933): 76. Native Economic Commission report (Holloway Report) (U G – 32: 1932). See also William Beinart, Twentieth Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): Ch. 5; Cynthia Kros, The Seeds of Separate Development: Origins of Bantu Education (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2010); for a perceptive critique of the political dynamics of the conference see Krige, Susan, “Segregation, Science and Commissions of Enquiry: The Contention Over Native Education Policy in South Africa: 1920–1938,” Journal of Southern African Studies 23(3) (1997): 491–506. Richard Glotzer, “The Career of Mabel Carney: The Study of Race and Rural Development in the United States and South Africa,” Safundi 10 (April 2003): 14–15. E.G. Malherbe, Report of the Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa, 5 Vols. (Stellenbosch: Carnegie, 1932). The Carnegie grant accounted for only a small proportion of the donations and grants to the conference, amounting to £160 out of a total of £1500 (Malherbe (1937): 540). For the context of such US foundation grants in South Africa, see Brahm Fleisch, “American Influences on the Development of Social and Educational Research in South Africa, 1929–1934” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the History of Education Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 1992), and Richard Glotzer, “American Educational Research in the Dominions,” Educational Change (1997): 52–65. Glotzer notes that the Carnegie Corporation allocated a total of $500,000 to South African projects in 1929, the most significant portion of which was to fund the foundation of the SAIRR that was to play a leading role over the years in opposing racist legislation and documenting the consequences of segregation and apartheid (Glotzer (2003): 12). Malherbe (1937): 403–520. J. Rheinallt Jones was Lecturer in Native Law and Administration at the University of the Witwatersrand, was editor of the journal Bantu Studies and was to be a prominent member of the SAIRR, a major research initiative to promote civil rights for Africans funded by the CCNY and the Phelps-Stokes Fund. For the broad background to these events, see Saul Dubow, Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919–1936 (London: Macmillan, 1989);

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42 43

44

45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Paul Rich, White Power and the Liberal Conscience (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1984). Malherbe (1937): 404. These initiatives should be seen in tandem with the broader conversations that were taking place on these topics at the time, which will be referred to later. See the League of Nations report on The Problem of Nutrition, 4 Vols. (Geneva: LoN, 1936); BPP, Economic Advisory Council, Committee on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire: Final Report (1936); H.S. Scott “Education and Nutrition in the Colonies,” Africa 10(3) (1937): 458–471. Glotzer (2003): 20. The education of women and girls in Africa was a topic that came to draw considerable attention from the CO and from missionary and philanthropic organizations in the 1930s: see Colonial Office; Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Report of the Special Committee on Education of Women and Girls (PRO 859/1/9 1939); “Correspondence relating to the Welfare of Women in Tropical Africa -1935–37” (London, HMSO, 1938). Also see Ch. 3. Malherbe (1937): 55. Brehony (2004): 735; Aldrich (2004): 617–631. Clarke had previously been Professor of Education at the University of Cape Town (1911-29) and Toronto (1929–34). See F.W. Mitchell, Sir Fred Clarke; Master Teacher 1880–1952 (London: Longmans Green, 1967); Richard Glotzer, “Sir Fred Clarke: South African and Canada Carnegie Corporation Philanthropy and the Transition for Empire to Commonwealth,” Educational Research & Perspectives 22(1) (1995): 1–21. For a background to the field of social anthropology, see Adam Kuper, Anthropologists and Anthropology: The British School 1922–1972 (London: Routledge, 1972) and Dubow (1989). Professor of Anthropology and head of the International Institute of African Languages and Culture (IIALC) at the London School of Economics. Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town. See Seán Morrow, The Fires Beneath: A Life of Monica Wilson: South African Anthropologist (Cape Town: Random House, 2016): 101–103. University of the Witwatersrand. Stellenbosch University. Malinowski’s two public addresses at the conference were subsequently revised and published under the title of “Native Education and Culture Contact” in the International Review of Missions 25 (1936): 480–515. Despite the significance of his contribution on this topic, the Malinowski Papers show little evidence that he paid much systematic attention to the topic later in

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54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61

62 63

64 65

66 67

68

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his career. (With thanks to Sue Donnelly, LSE Archives: Malinowski Papers.) Wendy James, “The Anthropologist as Reluctant Imperialist,” in Talad Asad (ed.) Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (London: Ithaca, 1973): 50–60. Malherbe (1937): 423. Ibid.: 404. Ibid.: 424. For more on the debates about race and intelligence/mental testing at the NEF conference, see Saul Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University, 1995): 215–223; Kros (2010). Conference papers: Wyatt Rawson (ed.) The Freedom We Seek: A Survey of the Social Implications of the New Education (London: NEF, 1937); Brehony (2004): 751. Boyd & Rawson (1965): 105–106. Robins Davis, The Grammar School (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967): 61–62; J. S. Kaminsky, A New History of Educational Philosophy (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993): 153–155. For more on Tawney, see Ch. 1. See Victor Archer, The French Educator Celestin (Charles) Freinet (1896–1966) (Lunenburg, Nova Scotia: Lexicon Books, 2007). Sadler had chaired the Commission to investigate the University of Calcutta (1917–1919, five volumes) and had thus acquired expertise on colonial education issues in addition to his extensive experience and research on education in Britain and Europe. For more on Sadler, see Introduction. Aldrich (2004): 630. IMC/CBMS archive, Box 218, p. 15, file New Education Fellowship 1936: correspondence Betty D. Gibson/Dr W.B. Mumford, University of London, Institute of Education re biennial World Conference of the NEF, Cheltenham, August 1936. The detailed report of the conference that appeared in the journal West Africa, August 22 and 29, 1936, is also filed in the J.H. Oldham Papers, 10/2 39. Mitchell (1967): 65–66. New Education Fellowship, Cheltenham Conference, special commission. On “African Thought on African Education,” see NEF and Colonial Department of the Institute of Education, London University, August, 10–13, 1936, and J.H. Oldham Papers 10/2 39; Special Commission of the NEF on “African Thought on African Education,” West Africa, August, 22, 1936; Cheltenham Conference – NEF, see CBMS/IMC Box 218, p. 15. West Africa, August 22, 1936: 1155–1156; August 29, 1936: 1191-1194.

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 69 70 71 72

73

For details of Ward, see C. Whitehead, Colonial Educators: The British and Colonial Indian Education Service, 1858–1983 (London: Tauris, 2003). The African delegates, and the papers presented at the conference, are listed in West Africa, August 22, 1936. Brehony (2004): 751. The conference was organized by the NEF and the Australian Council for Educational Research. The proceedings were edited by K.S. Cunningham under the title of Education for Complete Living: The Challenge of Today: proceedings of the NEF conference held in Australia from August 1 to September 20, 1937 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press/Oxford University Press, 1938). Boyd & Rawson (1965): 102, 111.

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Welfare and education in British colonial Africa *

1918–1945

*

A version of this chapter was first published in Miguel Bandeira Jeronimo, Damiano Matasci and Hugo Goncalves Dores (eds.) Education and Development in Colonial and Post - Colonial Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Background The relevance of historical research for an explanation of the roots of contemporary educational policy and its relationship to notions of equity, democracy and development has been sadly neglected in recent years. This means that policy-makers have often forfeited the advantages of reflecting on the traditions and experience of past endeavours and examining them critically for potential understandings of present and future policy-making. Current discussions about the decolonization of education raise important questions about the nature of colonial education and require researchers to avoid the reification of such notions if we are to gain an ample understanding of their meaning for the present. It is important therefore to understand the complexities of educational discourse, policy and practices in colonial contexts in precisely the same way that we need to understand the entanglements of education policy discussion at the present time. Above all it is essential to direct attention to the ambiguities and contradictions of educational policy and practice, the variety of influences that informed such changes and 119

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the changing nature of such discourses over time and in different geographical locations. We also need to be careful to distinguish between rhetoric and reality in education policy. What policy-makers say about policy is not always the same as what they do in complex real-life situations! The task of “development” in Africa in the post–World War II era was reconstituted within the frameworks that were evolved by the agencies of the United Nations Organization and the World Bank. Within the optimistic atmosphere of the postcolonial politics of the 1950s and 1960s a new infrastructure of “development studies” was constructed, with the backing of generous donations of foreign aid – much of it coming from the former colonial powers. Yet as Hans Weiler noted graphically in his landmark paper of 1978, that project was best understood as an aspect of an “Age of Innocence” that characterized the immediate postcolonial era. Looking back from what he saw as an “Age of Scepticism” in the late 1970s, Weiler sought to understand how the dreams of increasing equity had failed to be realized and why education had failed to contribute to the goals of equity in ways that had been taken for granted during the heyday of the “Development Decades”1 (see Introduction). Since then the works of Hetherington, Constantine, Hargreaves, Darwin, Cell, Hodge, Tilley and Cooper have helped us to understand more fully why that gap between intentions and outcomes was often so marked.2 A key element of their work is to elucidate the nature of the rickety scaffolding of emergent state sponsored welfarism, philanthropic humanitarianism, scientific management and research, upon which this emergent enterprise of “development” was built from the interwar era. It is not possible to gain a comprehensive understanding of the development of educational policy in colonial Africa without a detailed study of the complexities of colonial educational discourse as it played itself out in the context of a worldwide revolution in educational thinking between the late nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century. The influence of humanism, the legacy of the French Revolution, the impact of the Industrial Revolution and the movements for political and social reform, the challenges of mass education for a newly urbanized working class, the advent of vocational and technical education, the impact of the vast changes in the nature of science and technology, all contributed to the ferment of ideas that informed “Progressive Education,” “vocational education” and “radical education” during the late colonial era. These all impacted on the way in which education, pedagogy and curriculum were 120

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conceived globally by a variety of actors in various contexts at different times,3 and more specifically in relation to the African colonial context. The origins of the story of mass education in England are to be found in Sanderson’s description of the central policy dispute over education in nineteenth century which was waged between those who wished to explain the provision of mass education as part of an attempt to ward off radical political and economic change by an increasingly organized urban working class and those who saw the social reforms through education as a means of extending democratic rights, social welfare and human dignity in modern society increasingly divided by class divisions.4 These essential ambiguities of mass education in industrial countries were reproduced in the colonial context. Was colonial education to be about creating African Christians/African workers/African subject/citizens who were to be the vanguard of social, economic and political modernization and perhaps westernization (assimilation for the French), or was the role of the school and missions to prevent such modernization and radicalization by facilitating more productive life on the land for peasant farmers and contented “tribesmen” or educated indigenes who would not threaten the colonial order?5 My broad focus is on the construction of a modern network of educational experts drawn from missionary, state and philanthropic backgrounds, who framed a context for professional debate and policy practice in the interwar era. The origins of many of these debates about colonial education can be traced to the great ecumenical Edinburgh IMC conference in 1910 (see Chapter 1). From this time there was an attempt to establish consultative networks of experts who would engage with issues of African education. For the most part these experts were missionaries and government officials, but the after World War I the grid was expanded to include philanthropic contributions (mainly from American foundations like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Jeanes and Phelps-Stokes) and a variety of progressive educators and university-based educators located mainly at institutions like Teachers College, Columbia University, the Institut J.J. Rousseau in Geneva, the Ecole Coloniale in Paris and, from the 1930s, the Institute of Education, at London University. Through these networks which were crafted via various Imperial Education Conferences between 1907 and the 1930s,6 IMC congresses at Le Zoute, Belgium (1923), Jerusalem (1926), Tambaram, India (1938), (see Ch 1)7 NEF meetings during the 1920–1930s in Europe, South 121

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Africa and Australasia (see Chapter 2) and the Yale education conferences convened by the South African C.T. Loram, with the assistance of American philanthropic foundations between 1934 and 1939 (see Chapter 6), a research community gradually emerged which had a degree of influence on colonial education policy and practice. The origins of the scientific study of colonial education can be traced to this time and to this context. The variety of reports of the English Board of Education (1897–1914), which included a considerable contribution on colonial education,8 and the Hamburg Colonial Institute’s report on Education in the German Empire (the Schlunk Report 1914)9 were probably the first attempt to compile data and information on education on a large scale informed by modern statistical methods and a scientific approach to colonial educational policy.10 These were followed by the two major Phelps Stokes Commission reports on African education in 1922 and 1924, sponsored by an alliance of American missionary and philanthropic endeavor.11 In a context where “the assumed stability of colonial rule became more questionable during the 1930s, programmes of reform and renewal emerged which would eventually lead towards the independence of the African colonies,”12 but the pace of such reforms needs to be understood in incremental terms with only the gradual emergence of broad plans for social reform. In the field of education the first landmark in this regard took the form of the CO statement on Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (1925).13 These initiatives provided the template for much debate into the 1930s. Here the major emphasis was on adapted education to support Lord Lugard’s policy of Indirect Rule14 and a “Progressivist” agenda of rural community education that had initially been piloted in the postbellum south of the United States15 (see Introduction and Chapter 6). Out of these initiatives there emerged the beginning of a “scientific approach” to education and policy development to replace the previous dependence on the field experience of missionaries and colonial officials. This new approach was based in part upon the linkages between management and science that were being forged in relation to business and education in the United States.16 The move by the CO to establish the Advisory Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa (ACNETA) in 1923, subsequently called the Advisory Committee for Education in the Colonies (ACEC), marked a clear, if tentative, initiative to formalize educational policy discussion in an age of increasing uncertainty. Other significant CO memos which will be referred to later were The Place of the Vernacular in Native 122

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Education (1927);17 A Biological Approach to Native Education in East Africa (1930);18 Compulsory Education in the Colonies (1930);19 Grants in Aid to Education (1930);20 Education of African Communities (1935);21 Mass Education in African Societies (1944);22 and Education for Citizenship (1948).23 This led to the emergence of further influences on policy development – namely its increasing association with science and research – the expanded role of universities and “educational experts” in training educators and conducting research, with the gradual shaping of a research culture which was expected to be “relevant” to policy concerns. This demonstrated the first signs of state intervention in welfare and education issues, despite very constrained budgets for research, and mission and state were to forge a new alliance to meet the increasing demand for education, health and welfare services, parallel to the increasingly complex issues raised by the volatile political atmosphere in the international arena and in the African colonial context from the 1930s. The IMC launched its own initiatives in this regard by establishing a Department of Social and Industrial Research in 1930, but it was mainly through the efforts of the IIALC,24 funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, that most of this work was to be pursued.25 In that context it was widely held that the emergent discipline of social anthropology held the keys to the evolution of expertise which would enable more efficient, and perhaps even more just, government/governance of the empire. There was as a result an extended association between colonial education and anthropology, though the outcomes of that exercise did not prove particularly promising from the point of view of the officials charged with framing and implementing policy (see Chapter 4).26 For all that, leading anthropologists like Malinowski at the LSE made great claims for the relevance of this research for addressing the issue of “culture contact,” which he asserted was central to understanding the dynamic of the colonial situation.27 German missionaries, both under the Kaiser and from the 1920s when they returned to the African mission field, focused on issues of culture in education which had played a dominant role in the establishment of a German national identity since the 1880s. They were better equipped with the scientific tools of modern research than most other missionaries, and particularly in the East African context they argued for an increased focus on indigenous cultures and languages in the development of African education – in part because this was the most effective means for proselytization. This view was 123

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defended by a range of Progressive Education arguments in favour of the use of the vernacular as a medium of instruction in education. The work of German linguists like Diedrich Westermann, who had senior posts both at Berlin University and the IIALC in London, aimed at the promotion of African languages and securing the textbooks and materials to make indigenous language instruction viable in West, East and Southern Africa28 (see Chapter 5). Another theme that informed colonial education in East Africa in the early 1930s was the attempt to promote secular and scientific education in the schools. This was in part defended in terms of the need to “modernize” education and strengthen modern secular knowledge in a field dominated by missions. The drafting of a memo on Biology and Its place in Native Education in East Africa 29 by the prominent educationalist Julian Huxley, and its promotion by the BSHC, was aimed at introducing a science-based core curriculum that would counter what were considered to be pagan beliefs or to promote health care and economic development. This secular/scientific approach to education was linked to international trends which highlighted progressive pedagogy and the promotion of student motivation which sought to move away from the older tradition of passive rote – learning and promoting progressive pedagogy. Educational curricula were to focus on environmental awareness – plants, animals, agriculture, hygiene, nutrition, economic environment – and the role of women and children in society. The linking of the politics and policy of education to wider issues of welfare and society, which were increasingly being stressed by the League of Nations, reflected contemporary political and economic concerns in Britain and Europe in the 1930s. As indicated earlier, they came to have a significant bearing on policy development in the colonial context.

Welfare and education It is important to see the increasing attention to education in the context of wider attempts by the actors referred to previously to come to grips with the variety of challenges presented to colonial government in the interwar years. In this context there was a broad attempt to establish the elements of a welfare system in British African colonies, by promoting research into areas such as health, child welfare, nutrition, juvenile delinquency, the education of women 124

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and girls, adult education and higher education from the time of the first Colonial Development Act (1929) to the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940.30 The establishment of an Advisory Committee on Social Welfare (1943) represented a colonial postscript to the wartime Beveridge Report on Social Welfare in the United Kingdom.31 The Social Services Department of the CO dates from 1939. Although little was achieved in terms of the implementation of broad welfare plans given the weakness of colonial states and the shortage of financial resources due to the war, there is evidence of some degree of concern with issues that would be taken up more fully after 1945.32 Following on the work of Hetherington, Hodge and Tilley, I will therefore attempt to identify those areas that were highlighted in the process in the hope that others will explore them further. As a supplement to this enquiry, I will also indicate to what extent such welfare measures were to influence South Africa during this period prior to the advent of apartheid after 1948. Reference will be made to the provisional proposal for a national health and welfare system from 1939, and concern for issues such as nutrition (school feeding schemes), juvenile delinquency and vocational education. The key references for these events are the report of the National Conference on Social Work (1937), the establishment of a Department of Social Welfare (1937), the report of the commission to investigate the feasibility of a National Health Service (the Gluckman Report, 1944) and a Report on Social Security (the Batson Report, 1944).33 It is important to note at the outset that the use of the term “development” changes during the time under review, and this has considerable significance for this enquiry. The 1929 Colonial Development Act was entirely focused on economic development, or growth, and essentially shared the ethos of the Empire Marketing Board (EMB, 1926), which stressed the expansion of the colonial economies as a contribution to the British exchequer and a direct solution to the economic woes of the Depression. It was only successful after a long battle with Treasury over its potential as an element of the solution to the problem of mass unemployment in Britain.34 Only incrementally over the course of the 1930s did the term “development” come to take on its modern connotations which focus on the social or welfare aspects of the colonial situation – what Hodge terms “the ‘human side’ of Development.” This was reflected in the remarks of Lord De La Warr, the under-secretary of state for the colonies in the late 1930s, when he argued that “the real Development needed in Africa today is not the investment of large sums of capital 125

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but the improvement of human capital.”35 This took place in the context of challenges presented by emergent social policy discourse in Britain with the rise of the Labour Party and Fabian influence, the tensions over the meaning of the empire generated by the Closer Union debate,36 and Labour’s experiment with the “Doctrine of Native Paramountcy” in East Africa;37 the rise of Fascism and Communism in Europe; and, perhaps most significantly, the rise of African nationalism. The focus on “the African child” and child welfare seems to present a potential litmus test for a sensitivity to wider welfare issues. It also highlights the influence of the League of Nations in focusing attention of the colonial powers on development and welfare issues. The initiative can be traced to the international conferences on the topic held under the aegis of the League of Nations. The CO sent delegates to the first International Congress on Child Welfare in 192538 and to the larger International Conference on the African Child (1931), both held in Geneva. Here the issues of child rights and humanitarian concerns took centre stage.39 It does not seem as if this issue was taken up directly by colonial governments, but as I will attempt to demonstrate, it was tackled obliquely in various ways and with varying degrees of success. In general terms the health and medical issues relating to the colonial context had focused on specific issues like the treatment of sleeping sickness or yellow fever prior to 1920 when there was a comprehensive report by a Departmental Committee on Colonial Medical Services.40 The CO created the post of a Chief Medical Officer, and this remained part of its establishment from 1926 to 1961. In the 1930s a Colonial Medical Research Fund was initiated with a CO Committee to oversee its affairs. This led to a joint initiative by the British Medical Association (BMA) and the CO to establish a Medical Research Board.41 Two conferences took place in the wake of these moves: one on Medical Research in East Africa (1934) and a Pan African Health Conference held in Johannesburg in 1935.42 Only after World War II was a director of Colonial Medical Research appointed by the CO. During the War the South African government also established a Commission to report on the feasibility of a National Health Service on the Beveridge model under the future Minister of Health Henry Gluckman.43 One of the key issues of concern that emerged from these activities was the question of food security and nutrition in Africa. The League of Nations’ enquiry into this issue produced a comprehensive four 126

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volume report in 1936,44 which set the tone for a wealth of publications on the topic in the next few years, and this provided the foundation for a variety of initiatives in this field. This was followed by the establishment of a Standing Committee on Nutrition in the colonial empire under the auspices of the CO Economic Advisory Committee. It produced a report on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire (1938–1939)45 and another from the newly established CO Social Services Department in 1943.46 Audrey Richards also conducted pathbreaking work in anthropology, by linking ethnographic work to economics and diet in Central Africa.47 I have, however, not been able to establish to what extent these initiatives were to influence policy in colonial Africa. In South Africa these trends were reflected by the holding of a National Nutritional Conference hosted by the SAIRR and the publication of findings on the topic in 1939.48 One of the consequences of this event was the establishment of a state sponsored national school feeding scheme in 1941/1942 that was expanded to include black school children.49 This policy was in operation until the 1950s when it was abandoned by the National Party government in terms of apartheid policy.50 Another area of focus in relation to health care, social welfare and education was associated with the role and place of women and children in colonial society.51 At one level this was about the access of this group to welfare services and education. At another it was concerned about the place of women in society, to what extent they were subject to indigenous law and practices and or how far these issues fell under the legal mandate of the colonial state. The Church Missionary Society conference on “The Education of Women and Girls” in 192552 was a precursor to much debate on the topic in the 1930s. In 1927 the Australian-born British educationalist, Amy Whitelaw, and Canon Broomfield reported to ACNETA on the Education of Women and Girls in East Africa. This was followed by a memo on Education of African Women by Sara Burstall and Whitelaw to the ACEC. Mary Blacklock’s work on “The Welfare of Women and Children in the Colonies” was pathbreaking, linking health to social issues and education.53 In 1937 the CO produced a document on the topic: Welfare of Women in Tropical Africa.54 The published correspondence on this paper reveals the complexities of the legal status of women in East Africa and the problem of how this was to be handled by the CO. Between 1940 and 1943 there were various reports on the education and welfare of women and girls in Africa, including a comprehensive 1943 CO memo on Women’s Education and 127

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Welfare in Africa (1943).55 Charlotte Hastings has completed an excellent study of the influence of these policies in the specific context of Southern Nigeria in the interwar years.56 In South Africa there seems to have been little focus on these issues. Reflecting international trends, the issue of juvenile delinquency attracted systematic attention in some areas like Kenya and South Africa where youth crime and “anti-social behaviour” among male Africans was defined as an important social problem in need of state intervention. As Ellen Hellman pointed out in relation to South Africa, this often represented “an attitude of defiance from African and Coloured juveniles toward the existing social structure” that required intervention in the form of welfare of some kind.57 Between 1933 and 1936 there were four reports on juvenile crime in Kenya which led to the passing of legislation to deal with the problems, including the establishment of the Kabete Reformatory near Nairobi. There was also a CO report on Juvenile Welfare in the Colonies in 1942.58 In South Africa legislation was also passed to deal with this issue, but it was initially aimed at white juveniles. There was a government report on the topic in 1937 and a National Juvenile Delinquency conference held in Johannesburg under the auspices of the SAIRR in 1938.59 Ellen Hellman’s pamphlet on Problems of Urban Bantu Youth60 led to an expansion of the system for dealing with these issues, including the passing of a revised Children’s Act (UG No 31–1937), with the extension of industrial schools for whites and the establishment of Ottery School of Industries for Coloured boys in Cape Town and Diepkloof Reformatory in Johannesburg for Africans, but the facilities supplied for African and Coloured youth were always grossly inadequate.61 In addition to the aforementioned measures, the provision of education gradually drew greater attention during the 1930s. In addition to the four major CO memos on topics in 1933, 1935, 1944, 1948, cited earlier, there were also a variety of attempts to focus on technical and vocational education62 and higher education.63 In South Africa there was also a flurry of activity relating to these issues during the war years associated with adult education and technical/ vocational education.64 Much of this related to the provision for whites, but there were indications of the relaxation of the colour bar in the interests of economic growth and a broadening of the social security net.

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Conclusions These various political, scientific, religious, philosophical and humanitarian themes contested the policy terrain in colonial Africa and were joined up in multiple ways against the background of the debates about Keynesian economics and social welfare that were informing political debate about education in Europe and the America during the 1930s. Lord Hailey’s great An African Survey made an effort to place all the debates about African development within a scientific and analytical framework.65 Education was a key issue of contestation in the context of future policy concerns relating to the nature of “development.” Although adapted education was not entirely abandoned, and although the culturalist vision of the German linguistics and anthropologists was not forsaken, formal curriculum models based on international norms for formal mass schooling retained their popularity with African educators, parents and students and had a conservative influence on the nature of the school and the curriculum in the years beyond 1945, inhibiting radical educational reform. The goal of widening access to schooling was a constant refrain, but the lack of resources in these fragile colonial states restricted this expansion. By the advent of World War II little had been accomplished with regard to the establishment of comprehensive welfare or schooling systems. Yet as Hodge demonstrates, it was “on the basis of these fragile (policy) constructions that the key policy objectives on which the post-war colonial development offensive would hinge.”66 Although beyond the scope of this enquiry, recent research indicates that many of the initiatives which dated from this time provided the scaffolding for the task of “development” in the very different context of independent Africa from the 1950s referred to by Weiler. The strands of development policy were subsequently reconstituted within the frameworks that were evolved by the agencies of the United Nations Organization and the World Bank. Within the optimistic atmosphere of the postcolonial politics of the 1950s and 1960s a new infrastructure of “development studies” referred to previously was created. Yet as Hans Weiler noted graphically that project was best understood as an aspect of an “Age of Innocence” that characterized the postcolonial era. Looking back from what he saw as an “Age of Scepticism” in the late 1970s, Weiler sought to understand how the dreams of increasing equity had failed to be realized and why education had failed to contribute to the goals 129

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of equity in ways that had been taken for granted during the heyday of the “Development Decades.”67 This chapter hopes to provide a preliminary answer to these challenging questions. Table 3.1 Welfare and education initiatives in colonial Africa and South Africa: 1910–1948 Dates Britain British Africa South Africa 1910 IMC Conference in Edinburgh Union 1911 Imperial Education Conference 1914–18 WW I 1917 Loram C T Native Education in SA 1919 Educ Commission on East Africa Protectorate 1922 Lugard Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa 1922–24 Phelps-Stokes Commissions on Education in Africa 1923 Imperial Educ Conference. // est ACNETA 1925 CO Memo on Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa + CO advisers on agriculture, economics, health, economics, etc. 1926 IMC conference on Educ. of Women and Girls Jeanes Schools in East & Central Africa 1926 Establishment of IIALC 1927 ACNETA Report on Vernacular languages in Education 1929 Colonial Development Act Est. of ACEC 1929 A V Murray School in the Bush DEPRESSION 1929–30 Memo on a Biological Approach to Education in E Africa Memo on Grant in Aid to Educ Institutions 1931 Int. Conference on the African Child (L of N, Geneva) Br. Commonwealth Conf. on Education 1932 Carnegie Commission on Poor Whites (SA) 1932 Native Economic Commission 1934 NEF – New Era Conference in SA 1935 Memo on Education in African Communities no 103 Inter-territorial Jeanes Conference (Salisbury) 1935-6 Inter-Dept Commission on Native Education 1936–38

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League of Nations Nutrition Report/

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA Table 3.1 Welfare and education initiatives in colonial Africa and South Africa: 1910–1948 Dates Britain British Africa South Africa CO report on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire 1937 CO Report on Higher Education in E Africa 1939 est of Social Services Dept at CO 1939–45 WW II 1940 UK Colonial Development & Welfare Act CO Report on Education of Women and Girls in Africa 1941 School Feeding in SA 1941 Ottery School of Industries est. 1942 UK Beveridge Report on Social Welfare in the UK CO Report on Juvenile Delinquents in the colonies 1943 Nutrition Committee the Br Empire CO Memo/Advisory Committee on Social Welfare CO Report on Nutritions in the Br Empire 1943 Mass Education in African Society 1943 Rept. of the Comm on Adult Education 1944 SC Report on Social Security 1944 Inter Dept Report on Common Social Security 1944 National Health Services Commission (Gluckman) 1944 Butler Act – free secondary education for all in the UK Report of the Commission on Higher Education in the 1945 Colonies 1948 Report on Education for Citizenship in Africa

Notes 1 2

Hans N. Weiler, “Education and Development: From the Age of Innocence to the Age of Scepticism,” Comparative Education 14(3) (1978): 179–198. Penelope Hetherington, British Paternalism and Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1978); John D. Hargreaves, Decolonization in Africa (London: Longman, 1988); Stephen Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy 1914–1940 (London: Frank Cass, 1984); John Darwin, “Decolonization and the End of Empire,” in Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. V (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 541–557; John Cell, Hailey: A Study of British

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4 5

6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13

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Imperialism, 1872–1969 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph M. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, OH: University of Ohio Press, 2007); Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Frederick Cooper, African since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Andrew Thompson & Mark Thomas (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). The work of Alan Lester and Fae Dussart traces these humanitarian debates back to the nineteenth century; see Colonization and the Origin of Humanitarian Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Andy Green, Education and State Formation: The Rise of Education Systems in England, France and the USA (London: Macmillan, 1990); David Tyack & Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Harold Silver, Equal Opportunity in Education (London: Methuen, 1973). Michael Sanderson, Education, Economic Change and Society in England, 1780–1870 (London: Macmillan, 1983). Martin Carnoy, Education and Cultural Imperialism (New York: David McKay, 1974); Keith Watson (ed.) Education in the Third World (London: Croom Helm, 1982); Peter Kallaway & Rebecca Swartz (eds.) Empire and Education in Africa (New York: Peter Lang, 2017). BPP Col. 5666(1911); BPP Col. 1990(1923); BPP Col. 2009 (1924); BPP Cmd. 2883 (1927); BPP Cmd. 3628–9(1930); W. Rawson (ed.) Education in a Changing Commonwealth (London: HMSO, 1931). See Ch. 1. UK Board of Education: Special Reports on Educational Subjects, 1897-1914. The publication most relevant to this topic is Vol. V: “Education Systems in the Chief British Colonies of the British Empire,” House of Commons Sessional Papers, Vol. XXII, p1/1 (1900). Martin Schlunk, Die Schulen für Eingeborene in den deutschen Schutzgebieten (Hamburg: Hamburgischen Kolonialinstituts/L. Freidrichsen & Co., 1914). It is important to note that the annual reports of the Department of Public Education in the Cape Colony also offer a remarkable depth of evidence from the middle of the nineteenth century. Phelps Stokes Fund, Report on Education in Africa (New York, 1922); Report on Education, Native Welfare and Race Relations in East Africa and South Africa (New York, 1924). Hargreaves (1988): 2. CO Cmd. 2347, 1925.

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15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28

Lord Lugard, Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1922). A parallel text for French Africa was Albert Sarraut, La Mise en valeur es Colonies francaises (Paris: Payot, 1923). See also: Anon, “Indirect Rule in Africa and Its Bearing on Educational Development,” Oversea Education IV(1) (1932): 82–84. Kenneth King, Pan-Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School Progressivism in American Education 1876–1957 (New York: Vintage, 1964); David Labaree, Education, Markets and the Public Good (London: Routledge, 2007); Diane Ravitch, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (New York: Simons & Schuster, 2001). CO ACNETA: Africa, No 1110: 1927 CO Africa (East) No 1134(1930). CO ACEC 847/3/15 (1933). CO ACEC Col. 84 (1933). CO (ACEC) No 103 (London: HMSO, 1935). London: HMSO, 1944. Col. 216–1948; London: HMSO, 1948. Later to be called the International Africa Institute (IAI). It is important to note that the establishment of a variety of institutions contributed substantially to the emergence of the research culture under discussion. In Britain the key institutions involved in this context were the School of Oriental (and African) Studies; the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the London School of Economics (LSE) (see Ch. 1) and the Oversea Division of the Institute of Education, London University. Peter Kallaway, “Science and Policy: Anthropology and Education in British Colonial Africa During the Inter-war Years,” Pedagogica Historica 48(3) (2012): 411–430. See Ch. 4. Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Rationalization of Anthropology and Administration,” Africa 3(4) (1930): 405–430; “Native Education and Culture Contact,” International Review of Missions 25 (1936): 480– 515. Peter Kallaway, “Volkskirche, Völkerkunde and Apartheid: Lutheran Missions, German Anthropology and Science in African Education,” in Hanns Lessing, Tilman Dedering, Jürgen Kampmann, & Dirkie Smit (eds.) Contested Relations “Protestantism Between Southern Africa and Germany from the 1930s to the Apartheid era” (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015): 155–176; “Diedrich Westermann and the Ambiguities of Colonial Science in the Inter-War Era,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 45(6) (2017): 871–893.

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34 35 36 37 38 39

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Julian Huxley, Biological Approaches to Native Education in East Africa (CO Africa, (East) No. 1134 (1930); Biology and Its Place in Native Education in East Africa (London: HMSO, 1930). BPP Colonial Welfare and Development Act (1940); Cmd. 6175–1940 Statement of Policy on Colonial Development and Welfare (London: HMSO, 1940). For the Reports of the Colonial Development Fund for 1929 to 1941, see BPP Cmd. 3540, 3876, 4079, 4316, 4634, 4916, 5202, 5537, 5789, 6062, 6298. UK Cmd. 6404 (1942) Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services (Beveridge Report). BPP Cmd. 6175 (1940) Statement of Policy on Colonial Development and Welfare (London: HMSO, 1940). The report of Sir Frank Stockdale on Development and Welfare in the West Indies paved the way for further thinking about the African context. BPP Colonial No. 189/HMSO, 1945. Union of South Africa, Report of the National Conference on Social Work (Johannesburg: Government Printer, 1937); U.G. No. 30–1944: National Health Services Commission of South Africa (the Gluckman Report); UG No 14–1944: Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Security (the Batson Report). For a comprehensive survey of these issues, see Ellen Hellman (ed.) Handbook on Race Relations in South Africa (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1949): Chs. XVI, XVII. See Shula Marks, “Industrialization, Rural Health, and the 1944 National Health Services Commission in South Africa,” in Steven Frierman & John M. Janzen (eds.) The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Berkeley: UCLA Press, 1992): 132–161; David Duncan, “The Origins of the ‘Welfare State’ in Pre-Apartheid South Africa,” ICS Collected Seminar Papers, London University, 1992. See Constantine Chs. VI & VII. Constantine notes that the CO strongly resisted these policies based on economic criteria. Memo by Lord de la Warr, n.d. [1937] Co 852/118/15279/5 cited by Constantine (1984): 221, 230. See J.H. Oldham, White and Black in Africa: A Critical Examination of the Rhodes Lectures of General Smuts (London: Longmans, 1930). Robert G. Gregory, Sydney Webb and East Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962). PRO CO 854/61–1925. Save the Children’s Fund, International Conference on the African Child (Geneva: League of Nations, 1931); Evelyn Sharp, The African Child: An account of the International Conference on African Children, Geneva (Geneva: S.I. Longman, 1931); Dominique Marshall, “Children’s Rights in Imperial Political Cultures: Missionary and Humanitarian Contributions to the Conference on the African Child of 1931,” International Journal of Children’s Rights 12 (2004): 273–318.

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43 44

45

46 47

48 49 50 51

52

BPP. Cmd. 939, XII, 267. September 1920. See CO 1931: Papers on the Health and Progress of Native Populations; CO/BMA Report on Health Services in the Empire. See Hodge (2007): 314; CO 323/1112/8. The Johannesburg event was reported in the Quarterly Bulletin Health Organisations of the League of Nations 5(1) (1936): 1–209. It was mainly concerned with infectious diseases, with few references to social issues. UG No 30–1944; Hellman (1949): Ch. XVI (see f. 37). League of Nations, The Problem of Nutrition (Geneva: LoN, 1936); Final Report of the Mixed Committee of the League of Nations on the relations of Nutrition to Health, Agriculture and Economic Policy (Geneva: LoN, 1937). First Report of the Economic Advisory Committee on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire: Part I. Nutrition in the Colonial Empire Part II. Summary of Information regarding Nutrition in the Colonial Empire (BPP Pt. I: Cmd. 6050; Pt. II: Cmd. 6051) (London: HMSO, 1938–9). CO Dept of Social Services, Memo on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire 1943; John Scott, “Education and Nutrition in the Colonies,” Oversea Education IX(1) (October 1937): 39–40. Audrey Richards, Hunger and Work in a Savage Tribe: A Functional Study of Nutrition among the Southern Bantu (London: George Routledge, 1932); Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia: An Economic Study of the Bemba Tribe (London: Oxford University Press/IAI, 1939). SAIRR Journal 6(3) (1939); “Findings of the Council on Nutrition, SAIRR RR9/40. See Quentin Whyte, Native School Feeding (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1949); Union of South Africa, Report of a Committee of Enquiry into the Native School Feeding Scheme (Cillie Commission, 1949). Peter Kallaway, “Policy Challenges for Education in the ‘New’ South Africa: The Case for School Feeding in the Context of Social and Economic Construction,” Transformation 31 (1996): 1–24. Clive Whitehead, “The Education of Women and Girls: An aspect of British Colonial Policy,” Journal of Educational Administration and History 16(2) (1984): 24–34.; Joanna Lewis, Empire and StateBuilding: War and Welfare in Kenya, 1925–52 (Oxford: James Currey, 2000): Ch. 1.; Janet Welch, “The Goal of Women’s Education in Africa,” Oversea Education XI(2) (1940): 65–72; Margaret Wrong, “The Education of African Women in a Changing World,” in Yearbook of Education (London: Evans Bros., 1940): 497–520. IMC/CBMS African Education Group, Box 207 /243/258/1224/1231/; CO 859/4 [1–12] 4/7.

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54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61

62

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Sara Burstall & Amy Whitelaw, Memo on the Education of African Women (IMC/CBMS Box 224); Mary Blacklock, “The Welfare of Women and Children in the Colonies,” Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology 2 (1936): 221–265. London: HMSO, 1937. Also see Correspondence relating to the Welfare of Women in Tropical Africa BPP CO 859/4 [1–12] (London: HMSO, 1938). CO Report on Education and Welfare of Women and Girls in Africa in 1943. BPP Colonial, No 1169. Charlotte Hastings, “Gendered Education Between Metropole and Colony: Sara Burstall, Margaret Faith Wordsworth and Girl’s Schooling in Inter-war Southern Nigeria” (PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2011). Hellman (1949): 94. BPP CO 885/103; 859/73/12770/43(1942); see Chloe Campbell, Race and Empire: Eugenics in Colonial Kenya (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). UG 38–1937: Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Destitute, Maladjusted and Delinquent Children and Young Persons, 1934–1937. Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1940. Linda Chisholm, Reformatories and Industrial Schools in South Africa: A Study of Class, Colour and Gender in the period between 1882 and 1939 (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1989); Azeem Badroodien, “A History of the Ottery School of Industries in Cape Town: Race, Welfare and Social Order in the period 1937 to 1968” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of the Western Cape, 2000); Alan Paton, Diepkloof: Reflections on Diepkloof Reformatory (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987). Lord Hailey, An African Survey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938): 1243–1248; Survey of Vocational Agricultural Education in the Colonial Empire (CO Col. 124) (HMSO 1937); Survey of Vocational Technical Education in Col Empire (Col. 177–1940) and Survey of Technical Education in the Colonies (report by F.J. Harlow) ACEC (53)19: 1953; In 1960 William McLean prepared a briefing for parliament “Notes on Technical Education in the Colonies” Memo. 24B (1960) Hailey (1938): 1248–1250; CO ACEC Misc. 423: Report on Higher Education in East Africa (Currie Commission) (1932–3); BPP Col. No 142: Report of the Commission on Higher Education in East Africa (de la Warr Commission) (CO 8467/9/6(1937)/; HMSO); Commission in HE in West Africa (Elliott) (Cmd. 6647; 6654; 6655/HMSO, 1945); Report on Higher Education in West Africa (Ashby) (Lagos:

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64 65 66 67

Government Printer, 1960). It is important to note that some of this motivation for the expansion of HE in Africa came from the fear that Africans studying abroad, and particularly in the United States, might be exposed to radical influences inimical to colonial rule. See Appolos O. Nwauwa, “The British Establishment of Universities in Tropical Africa, 1920–48: A Reaction Against the Spread of American ‘radical’ Influences,” Cahires d’Etudes africannies 130 (1993): 1247–1274.; King (1971). Select Committee on Adult Education (Eybers) (SA: UG35–1945); Select Committee on Technical and Vocational Education (De Villiers) SA Official: UG 65–1948). Hailey (1938); Hodge (2007); Tilley (2011). Hodge (2007): 143. Weiler (1978): 179–198.

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Chapter 4 Science and policy Anthropology and education in British colonial Africa during the interwar years*

*

This paper was first published in Paedagogica Historica 48(3) (June 2012): 411–430.

The advent of educational policy debate and educational research in the first half of the twentieth century is part of the quest for respectability and influence in the social sciences. There was a quest for “objective” methodologies and data as missionary societies, philanthropic foundations and governments sought reliable information about existing educational provision and indicators for the direction of future policies in British colonial Africa. Among the earliest attempts to map these “scientific” lines were the Phelps Stokes Commission’s reports on African Education (1922; 1924). An African Survey (1938), edited by Lord Hailey, was the summation of this interwar initiative. A key site of the attempt to understand the African colonial environment was social anthropology, grounded in various traditions and institutes of colonial studies across Europe, North America and South Africa. The work of anthropologists of the time provided the foundation for policy debate and came to have considerable influence on how missionaries, colonial administrators and philanthropic funders assessed the significance of policy proposals. The dominant notion of “culture contact” was widely assumed. This was defined as contact between peoples with different 139

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cultures and entailed the need to understand the effects of those changes on various African peoples.1 The term was popularized by Malinowski and his students at the LSE2 but came under attack from critics like Norman Leys, W.M Macmillan, and A. Victor Murray, who placed capital, land and labour at the centre of their analyses of the colonial situation rather than race or culture. These debates were to be central to the early development of scientific planning, and the “triumph of the expert” was to have great significance by providing the background to the emergence of post-war development planning.

Bronsilaw Malinowski of the LSE (Historia de la Embriología - Julio Saldaña Camarillo)

The interwar years were times of dramatic change in British colonial Africa. The emergence of scientific forms of thinking and the production of “scientific knowledge” was increasingly significant in shaping political, economic and social policy debates at a time when political movements challenging earlier colonial and missionary assumptions were emerging. As Diana Wylie points out, the interwar period was an interregnum between the pre–World War I colonial era when there was an embryonic movement to protect Africa from abuse by colonial government, white settlers and traders, and post-1945 acceptance of the inevitable paramouncy of African political and economic interests, which had been tentatively established as policy from the 1920s. As demonstrated in previous chapters, between the World Wars there was increasing focus on the concept of trusteeship and a significant shift towards reliance on scientific expertise in development policy debate.3

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Early initiatives to stimulate economic growth through the development of imperial science were pursued initially along the lines of the economic policies of Chamberlain and Milner exemplified by state-directed “constructive imperialism” in South Africa. According to Hodge, these moves marked the effective beginning of “the triumph of the expert.” The new doctrine gave its adherents faith in new modes of knowledge and confidence in their abilities to shape and manipulate nature. As “social imperialism” these ideas were extended by Leopold Amery, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (1919– 1921), who sought, in the context of the post-war depression, to emphasize material exploitation of the “tropical estate.” This policy stressed the settlement of “surplus” European populations in the tropics where they were thought essential to “opening up and developing the primary resources of the colonies.” ’4 By the time of the Great Depression in the early 1930s shrinking world trade created a major social crisis, leading European and North American governments to pursue policies aimed at domestic recovery with little concern for their implications for colonial economies. The crisis weakened Asian, African and Latin American economies that depended on the export of primary commodities to industrial nations. Yet the economic crisis also provided the opportunity to reconsider social policy in the industrialized countries and in the colonies. The period was marked by the beginning of state social engineering and Keynesian economics aimed at improving the lot of ordinary people and meeting the challenge of massive social innovation in the USSR. In the United States these developments gave rise to the New Deal. In the United Kingdom they marked the beginning of initiatives to develop a welfare state. New thinking emerged at the Colonial Office (CO) about the role of the state in development and welfare, and in 1929 the Colonial Welfare Act provided “up to a £1 million a year in Treasury grants and loans to aid the development of colonial agriculture and industry.”5 Such embryonic initiatives in the 1930s were only embraced by the CO at the end of the period under review with the passing of the Colonial Welfare and Development Act in 1940.6 By the inter-war period science and technology were also often seen as a means for strengthening governmental control over colonial peoples at a time of increasing political unrest and economic depression, while ameliorating social and economic conditions. In this context there was a decisive shift in CO emphasis by the late 1930s from reliance for policy development on district administrators and colonial officials who “knew their natives” to policy guided by 141

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research and “scientific expertise.” Yet one of Hodge’s main assertions is that “the victory of the expert was short-lived and to a large extent illusory.” He argues that “despite increasing investment in development projects the disjunction between metropolitan discourses and colonial practice had its roots in the structural constraints and material contradiction punctuating the colonial project.”7 Focusing on social issues, this scientific endeavour at first sought to deal with the implications of apparent African population decline on labour supply and economic growth. By the 1930s the focus shifted to population pressure, the need for sanitary and medical research and services, and the economic problems of food supply, agricultural productivity, soil science and plant and livestock husbandry. These problems embodied the question of how African populations were to be governed in a complex, modernizing age. Few contemporary officials or researchers were prepared to see the future in terms of an African industrial revolution and urbanization, which they associated with the negative effects of “detribalization,” the disintegration of rural/tribal/customary life and political unrest. The key focus in India and Africa was often on “a romantically tinged anti-industrialism with India destined to remain a land of princes, peasants and artisans, spared the ugliness and turmoil of modern industrial society.”8 African traditional society was also to remain as undisturbed as possible, though paradoxically providing adequate labour for colonial industry and agriculture. The problem was therefore initially defined as how best to manage and sustain a viable rural society and to prevent the disruption of the old order embodied in the policy of Indirect Rule. This chapter examines the nature and effect of one of these scientific discourses, the new “science” of social anthropology, on the evolution of development policy in general and educational research in particular.

Science and African policy development in the interwar era Lord Lugard’s highly influential Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa9 attempted to build bridges between traditional and colonial forms of government and administration, but the solutions he offered were increasingly challenged by scientific research emerging in the 1930s. 142

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One consequence was that earlier policies of adapted education associated with Indirect Rule and the recommendations of the Phelps Stokes Commission reports on Education in Africa began to be examined critically even while the social and economic policies required to match the new goals were still being formulated (see Chapters 1, 2 and 3). At the end of the period under review, Lord Hailey’s pathbreaking An African Survey10 for the first time conceptualized the whole continent within a single research project designed to provide information and stimulate policy research related to “development.” This was part of the broader CO transformation project commissioned by the new IAI. It laid the foundation for the establishment of the “Colonial Research Committee” in 1942 under Hailey’s guidance, part of the new initiatives associated with the Colonial Welfare and Development Act (1940). Edgar Worthington’s Science in Africa11 was published as a supplement to Hailey’s work, representing a comprehensive overview of the state of African scientific research. Much of the focus was related to modernization and economic policy with an emphasis on population and health issues. The new social “science” of anthropology was a kind of addendum to the main work in the natural sciences. Although Worthington viewed anthropology sceptically as a “vast and diffuse science,” he surveyed the achievements of the interwar years and praised the work of Emil Torday and Edwin Smith.12 He was particularly enthusiastic about the work of the researchers associated with the International African Institute (IAI), gathered in the anthropology seminar of Bronislaw Malinowski, Professor of Anthropology at the LSE. From 1931 many of these researchers were funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He defended this work for its commitment to “scientific method” and fieldwork as opposed to earlier “armchair anthropology.”13 Like many colonial officials Worthington pleaded for “less esoteric research” and supported an approach which was better coordinated with “the present needs of government.”14 He saw Malinowski’s “culture contact” approach as the only one relevant to Africa’s future as it stressed “the functional and dynamic rather the structural and static aspects of the subject.”15 What was needed, he argued, was “further research on African cultures as they are today, in a state of transition, taking full account of the degree of disintegration or reintegration of cultural, economic and ethical systems, agriculture etc. which has resulted from European influence”16 and a greater emphasis on the 143

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influence of change on the individual rather than the social group. He was confident that more formal training of government officials and missionaries in anthropological research methodologies would lead to relevant research on a wide range of economic and social development issues. Joseph Hodge has demonstrated convincingly that this “science of development” which sought to expand colonial agricultural research and advisory policy networks is a key aspect of the period that has been neglected by historians.17 In parallel, colonial officials, missionaries and philanthropic groups were becoming aware that the introduction of new market-orientated cultivation methods and practices into local agricultural and migrant labour systems inevitably entailed upsetting the prevailing economic and social conditions, thus incurring the risk of unforeseen consequences at a time when African nationalist and community or trade union–based political movements were beginning to become a significant factor. The existence of the League of Nations and the mandates also meant that imperial powers accustomed to dealing with issues of colonial policy as internal “family” matters were now subject to international scrutiny and were required to demonstrate greater sensitivity to political and social issues. Colonial reformers and philanthropists, often strongly influenced by missionary groups, became increasingly active. This created a forum for mounting international and African nationalist criticism, boosted concern for the principle of imperial trusteeship and directed attention away from the purely economic goals of the earlier policy towards “the human side of colonial development.” With this came new demands for state direction and control in such areas as population studies, health, nutrition, sanitary administration, rural welfare and education.18 Until the mid-1930s these calls for reform were almost universally about the need for “community development” to counter the effects of detribalization and rural migration. In the face of social ills stemming from rapid economic change, most missionaries, district commissioners, anthropologists and other colonial experts sought to recreate the supposedly organic order of “traditional village life” by invoking “community welfare” as against “excessive individualism” and the vagaries of the free market. The problem was associated with the purported disintegrating effect of “western civilization” on the culture and society of indigenous peoples. The solution for the new scientists was “centralized planning, 144

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conjoined with interdepartmental coordination.”19 The role of the anthropologist was often held to be of fundamental significance for understanding how the balance between old and new in conditions of “culture contact” might be established. The interwar period was therefore marked by numerous attempts to formulate appropriate policy goals and practices. As Hodge explains, it was only by the late 1930s that tentative initiatives to shape “high policy” by the CO began to take shape in collaboration with missions and philanthropic organizations. Such moves were shaped by the nature of international politics in the post-Depression years and by “the momentum of events in the colonies themselves.”20 How did natural and social scientists, and anthropologists in particular, interpret these changes, and how did they contribute to understanding the problems of political, economic, social and educational change in colonial society?

Science, anthropology and policy It was often claimed that new fields of enquiry such as ecology, nutrition and anthropology would provide solutions to the multidimensional problems facing colonial administrators, missionaries and local communities.21 As Hodge points out: The new field of social anthropology was held up as a potential theoretical model for understanding and ameliorating the problem of “culture contact” where the old problem of labour shortage was transformed by the Depression into a new crisis of labour surplus in the form of growing unemployment and underemployment, low wages and urban immizeration.22

By the early 1940s the need to investigate these issues had led to the establishment of research institutions that played a major role in shaping knowledge about the colonial situation, in general, and the African context, in particular. As early as 1926 a joint initiative of the IMC and the CO led to the establishment of the IIALC, subsequently to be known as the IAI. Anthropology was already taught at Oxford, Cambridge, University College, London, the LSE and the Universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand in South Africa. In 1933 Yale University appointed the South African educationalist and former head of the South African Native Affairs Commission, Charles T. Loram, a key proponent of the adaptationist view and consistent 145

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advocate of the role of anthropology in educational policy, to the Stirling Chair of Race Relations and Head of the Department of Education23 (see Chapter 6). Such research was further promoted by the establishment of the IMC’s Institute of Social Research. The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute was established in Northern Rhodesia in 1937 to engage in social research in Central Africa initially under the direction of the anthropologist Godfrey Wilson.24 This was followed by the East African Social Research Institute at Makerere College.25

“What were anthropologists after?” What were anthropologists, as scientific advisers to the missionaries and colonial government, saying about the colonial situation, and specifically about education?26 What kinds of research relevant to this field did they undertake? What roles did they play in the complex interplay of political, social, economic, intellectual forces? A key factor in understanding policy development between the World Wars is that despite the domination of missionary, philanthropic or CO initiatives, a relatively small number of people initiated a drive to promote a more careful understanding of the dynamics of colonial society. Within that framework science, in general, and social anthropology, in particular, were to feature prominently.27 These dissenters were keen to emphasize the limitations of the notion of “culture contact” as a way of understanding African social change. They stressed the crucial social significance of the incorporation of Africa into the world economy. According to Norman Leys, “what black and yellow people need most is not so much treatment for dyspepsia or rheumatism, as something to make them stand up to the circumstances of civilization which I suppose is coming to them.”28 Norman Leys, McGregor Ross, W.M. Macmillan, Monica Wilson, A.V. Murray and Lucy Mair made up a small band of writers who “helped to shift the focus of colonial criticism from a simple desire to protect the Africans from European abuse towards a recognition of the need to foster their welfare and development,” in the new social and economic environments ushered in by colonialism.29 Victor Murray argued that for good or ill the African is now in the stream of the world’s life. It is quite impossible for him to develop apart from the white man even if he would. New desires have been awakened, which only the white man can satisfy. 146

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA This is the prelude to conflict of ideas, and conflict, which is unavoidable, is the prelude to development.30

For educational policy to have a meaningful role in development policy it would have to relate to that reality.

Anthropology and education in the African colonial context By the 1930s the contribution of anthropological research to the understanding of social change, in general, and education, in particular, had undoubtedly taken on considerable significance. But in the work of academic anthropologists there is little sense of collective awareness of the impact of a century of missionary educational endeavour in Africa. The mission or government school is not usually part of the focus in rural field studies that were the normal site of anthropological endeavour. Missionary schools are barely mentioned in the many accounts of rural life in Africa in the 1930s by anthropologists, yet it is clear from a multitude of other sources that schooling was becoming a major issue in those communities. In part, this silence can be explained by the nature of the focus on African cultures; in part, it can perhaps be attributed to the need to avoid conflict with local officials and missionaries. It was often only through personal and institutional working relationships between the IIALC (IAI) and the LSE, J.H. Oldham and the IMC, and the Rockefeller Foundation that permission was secured for researchers to enter the field, and there is evidence that anthropologists saw the need to step warily. Even more significantly, the absence of focus on education can also be explained by a lack of historical and sociological consciousness in the “culture contact” approach.31 In general, anthropologists demonstrated very little awareness of or interest in the kinds of debate that were taking place within the mission community and elsewhere regarding the emerging challenges to education presented by the changing social context.32 The contributions of anthropologists to educational policy debate are assessed here through the writings of a small number of authors who contributed to conferences on education in the 1930s and to journals that included materials on African social change and education. The journals surveyed include Africa (the journal of the IIALC/IAI), the Journal of the Royal Africa Society (JRAS), the Journal of 147

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the Royal Africa Institute (JRAI), MAN, Bantu Studies, Tanganyika Notes and Records, the Uganda Journal and the International Review of Mission (IRM) (the journal of the IMC). Specifically in the field of education I have looked at two publications associated with the Institute of Education, London University, Oversea Education, and the Year Book of Education.33 There are curiously very few references to the relationship between the study of anthropology and the institutions of modern education in these journals in the 1930s. Where there is an attempt to engage with African educational issues by Lucy Mair or Winfred Hoernle, their contributions have little to do with their scholarship related to the study of anthropology or “culture contact,” but as Murray points out, their contributions arise rather from the sympathy and commitment to such issues that arose out of prolonged exposure to the realities of rural Africa.

The NEF conference in 1934 and social anthropology A key event that promoted the engagement of anthropologists in the field of education at a significant moment was the conference of the New Education Fellowship (NEF) held in Cape Town and Johannesburg in 1934 referred to in Chapter 2. Despite the prominence of anthropologists at the conference which was to establish their claim for the significance of their approach to the field, they were by no means clear or unanimous about the “uses of anthropology” or how it might to relate to policy.34 I will use the conference to mark the debates to be highlighted. The NEF conference was at remarkable crossroads of ideas on African society and education.35 It provided the opportunity for brief meetings of major international Progressive Era educationalists, including John Dewey, Fred Clarke, Mabel Carney, A.V. Murray and prominent anthropologists. Many of the anthropologists and linguists had South African backgrounds and many had either been Malinowski’s students or had attended the LSE seminar. These included Isaac Schapera, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, Monica Wilson, a research student at Cambridge University, and Winifred Hoernle, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Other prominent scholars in what would later come to be called “African Studies” were W.W.M. Eiselen,36 Edgar Brookes,37 P.A.W. Cook,38 G.P. Lestrade39 and C.M. Doke.40 In addition, there were many practicing educational officials, 148

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principals and teachers working in South, East and Central Africa. A significant aspect of the NEF conference was the presentations by a small number African educators, most of whom were South Africans, including Donald Jabavu, Dr A.B. Zuma, Donald M’timkulu, a teacher at Healdtown Institution (see Chapter 6), Reverend K.T. Motsete, principal of Tati Training Institution in Bechuanaland and Mrs E.B. Mahuma Morake, joint presenter with Professor Mabel Carney of Teacher’s College on girls’ education, though none of them could strictly be said to have made contributions linked to academic anthropology. It was left to the anthropologists, many of whom were to make internationally significant contributions to their field, to make some of the most important political interventions in the debates. These included Bronislaw Malinowski. He delivered several addresses on a variety of subjects, some hardly related to his field of expertise, 41 but his key contribution related to education and problems of “culture contact” in Africa. It proved to be a controversial highlight of the conference. He emphasized the role of education and culture in the colonial context and called for the “better use of anthropological science in the establishment of educational policy.”42 By the 1930s he had begun to advocate applied anthropology based on ethnographic functionalism, or “practical anthropology.”43 Malinowski was keen to argue that “the anthropology which I advocate … is above all, the study of the changing African, of the processes of racial co-operation and mixture, and of cultural assimilation.”44 The role of the “practical” anthropologist was to work in tandem with the administrator. Such a perspective, he argued, necessarily had to acknowledge repressive aspects of colonial rule and the differing agendas of colonizer and colonized.45 To what extent his own research in anthropology and that of his students actually grounded itself on such objectives is, however, a point of considerable contention. Engaging with the conference theme, Malinowski pointed to the magnitude of the task of formal education in Africa and noted the lack of research and systematic thinking on colonial education. He argued that the great need was for research which would indicate how to graft formal/modern schooling to the traditions of the past. He argued that such schooling had “in the past been undertaken on the assumption that what we feel is necessary and right for the African must be the best for the African,” and that it could be achieved through the school. He argued that this was often “out of harmony with the real 149

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conditions” and helped to develop contempt for African culture, traditions and society in young educands, “thus causing a sense of inferiority and inadequacy.”46 This extraordinary level of generalization and homogenization of “the African” drew strongly on the adaptationist view that “culture contact” must be managed more effectively to avoid too great a break with African traditional rural life and values. In keeping with the dominant eugenicist metaphor of the time, he emphasized the disintegration of African cultures in the context of colonialism and the modern world, and the challenges of what he called the “re-integration” of Africans into the new society through education. “Anthropologists,” he argued, “could help only by showing the native the value of his own culture and thus reviving in him faith in himself.”47 Malinowski seemed to show little awareness or regard for the role and agendas of the new generation of “modernized” Africans who were keen to embrace modernization. He favoured “the necessity of cultural harmonisations” – a balance between European schooling and African education. The problem was that colonization and colonial education might improve the lot of the fortunate few – but “invariably the conditions of the whole community deteriorate.” He asked how this was to be confronted and answered that there had to be some accommodation between the need to acquire key aspects of the “invading culture” and an education enabling the student to take full advantage of his own tribal identity while “assuming his natural place in (modern) society.”48 African education has to proceed on two fronts. The native has to receive schooling that will prepare him for his contacts and cooperation with the European section of society. He has to be taught subjects and skills that will make him as valuable as possible to his white employers and thus secure him the best possible economic and social situation. At the same time his schooling should be carried out in a manner that would produce the minimum of disintegration and still keep him in harmony with his own group.49

Although Malinowski argued for education as a reintegrating agency – a mechanism for reintegrating Africans into modern society on terms that enabled them to manage their lives economically and socially; he also seemed to offer, confusingly, a view of education that sought to regenerate African culture to cope with the needs of change and transition. On the one hand he criticized the segregationist educational policy of the South African government in the light of the 150

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recent Native Economic Commission report (1933), which emphasized rural education and the promotion of African language and custom; on the other hand, in his engagement with educational policy on a visit to Swaziland, he came out strongly in favor of education aimed at bolstering Chief Sobhuza II’s traditional rule. 50 In seeking to use education to avoid “too great a break with traditional rural life and values” he seems to return to the adaptationist position which reified rural life and culture.

Conference presentations and assessment Henri-Phillipe Junod, the son of Swiss missionary Henri-Alexandre Junod, a prominent missionary anthropologist who had sought to use his research to influence colonial and South African government policy,51 was a minor participant at the conference. He summed up the contribution of anthropology to the understanding of educational issues in his review of the proceedings published in the International Review of Missions.52 He argued that “anthropology held the floor” at the conference and that no study is more essential … than that of the place which must be given to the old customs and beliefs of the people in the new society gradually emerging under the combined influences of western civilization and Christianity.

As a proponent of the brand of anthropology crafted by the German missionaries in the Transvaal which came to have a strong influence on the development of volkekunde in South Africa, he argued, “we have not been circumspect enough in our criticism of the heathen system.” The missionaries had “not paid sufficient regard to the significance of native custom, usage and belief” – especially with regard to age sets, lobola (bride price) and sex education. The other side of the coin was that the missionaries had “lacked foresight in failing to see the overpowering, disintegrating influence of (their) own civilization, and consequently in failing to check it.” In all this Junod largely agreed with Werner Eiselen, the professor of anthropology at the University of Stellenbosch, who pleaded at the conference for a “scientific” economic, social, religious and educational approach to the “meaning and significance of social change” in African communities. As a trained linguist and anthropologist with a Berlin Mission background, who had studied under Carl Meinhoff and Diedrich Westermann in 151

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Germany, he advocated the prioritization of African language and culture in education, in line with the strong emphasis on these issues that was a feature of the Lutheran mission in East Africa. 53 (see Ch 5) Junod cites Eiselen approvingly when he asserts that “civilization” or contact with the white race is influencing the masses for the worse and “is undermining the moral quality of the native.” He is sympathetic to Eiselen’s call for “serious remodeling” of missionary education. But detail is sparse regarding precisely what that would entail beyond that it should emphasize the value of African tradition and should be of “economic value.” Once again this has strong similarities with the Phelps-Stokes view. Junod refers to Winifred Hoernle’s support for education emphasizing the “positive elements of African social organization, elements which should be developed rather than destroyed.” Yet Winifred Hoernle saw schools as agencies for “the gradual replacement of traditional animism by training in the scientific attitude of mind towards natural phenomena.”54 Isaac Schapera emphasizes the breakdown of traditional customary norms, referring to poor morality, the increasing ill-discipline of children and youth, and deteriorating health conditions. He seems to regard the efforts of missionaries as marginal to these processes.55 The NEF conference has provided a means of observing the contribution of anthropologists to the field of education at a key moment when they were beginning to see themselves as experts in social policy development. It is significant that the conference ended with the establishment of a subcommittee comprised of anthropologists and educators which was to investigate and make recommendations on how to respond to the changes taking place. 56 There is no evidence that this initiative was ever pursued. Whatever his other shortcomings, Malinowski had paid critical attention to evolving policy in South Africa in the wake of the 1932 Report of the Native Economic Commission which strongly supported segregation in education and a focus on a differentiated curriculum for blacks and whites.

The critique of anthropology as a science of policy In his mammoth overview of the field, Hailey emphasizes the fact that anthropological work in Africa “attempts to record the behaviour of the Africans in their reactions to indigenous and imported influences, and it is progressively devoting greater attention to the 152

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latter.”57 The common theme of the anthropologists, especially those like Malinowski who belonged to the “culture contact” school, was that they highlighted the positive aspects of African social organization, culture and tradition. They caricatured traditional missionary education as “artificial,” having no intrinsic value for African society. They paid little attention to the African demand for “western education” and English language tuition that would prepare them for the modern labour market. It was precisely these issues that were challenged by W.M. Macmillan, A. Victor Murray and Norman Leys.58 They argued that notions of “race conflict” or “culture contact” had been substantially boosted by the generous funds made available for research in the field by the Phelps-Stokes, Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations. They were concerned to prevent those who held these views from getting “a stranglehold … on the Colonial Office, and especially on its education policy.”59 Macmillan berated scientists who emphasized Europe’s perverting influence on “pure African culture,” instead of facing up to the realities of modernization and industrialization. “The provision of bread, even without butter, was more urgent than the long quest to understand the native mind,” he said.60 Victor Murray was even more critical. Central to his The School in the Bush is the argument that in the search for solutions to education policy issues “anthropology is not in these days an adequate clue. Still less does it provide a guide to policy.”61 In sum, while anthropologists invariably focused on finding “solutions” to African development in traditional African society and rural economic upliftment, the critics saw the issues quite differently. Macmillan argued that those bewailing the decline of African rural society, contrasting present urban and rural poverty with the idyll of a past harmonious traditional African rural society (“the natural habitat for African peoples”), romanticized African rural life and would in the end find themselves making use of the scientific research methods of anthropology to support segregation. From this point of view change was a source of trouble and confusion rather than innovation and progress: “It merely highlighted the African’s inability to adjust and adapt to new conditions and served to legitimize the protective aspects of segregation.” Macmillan argued that by exaggerating the importance of the breakdown of African society and the decay of native custom even anthropologists like Schapera, who were sympathetic to the plight of African peoples, ended up exaggerating the significance of racial differences, thus playing into 153

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the hands of segregationists.62 In his 1934 article on “The Importance of the Educated African” he noted the lack of attention by researchers to those who chose to move from the bush towards European civilization.63 For Murray: If it was recognized that education was part of social structure, it was patently absurd to educate people to till the soil if the conditions of land tenure make it impossible for such labour to end anywhere else than with itself. It is part of a non-moral attitude to education induced by the modern “scientific” method to ignore a challenge such as this. Under the old system of literary education it was forgotten that men had bodies to feed and clothe; under the new it may be forgotten that they have minds to feed and spirits to kindle. Differentiation without equality means permanent inferiority for the black man … their education is in vain unless they seek also to bring about a social adjustment through which the educated Native may be acknowledged as a citizen in his own country.64

To Macmillan and Murray it was clear that these problems were not being dealt with ten years after the Phelps-Stokes studies, and the “scientific methods” of the new experts, mostly anthropologists, merely amounted to restating the problem in new terms. They argued that anthropology as a discipline had a marginal role in the study of development and that the insights of particular anthropologists were largely incidental to the discipline itself. Murray argued that the significant insights provided by individual fieldworkers could not be centrally linked to the promise of the discipline of anthropology as an aid to policy development in education.65 He continued: Education in Africa nowadays cannot be a static thing. It must produce a power as strong as, and indeed stronger than, the forces which have native life in their control. In other words, for the man himself it must create a mind which can stand up and find itself amid the clash of civilizations. This is the beginning, middle and end of native education. It is a moral problem.66

Thus, for the critics, the conflict of loyalties between the old and the new was not necessarily a bad thing – the business of education was “to find a new centre of loyalty” rather than to piece together the old in an artificial way.67 Despite the claims of the anthropologists to expertise and a research methodology which would unlock the keys 154

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to these mysteries, there was in the end little concrete evidence of such outcomes by the end of the period under review.

Further developments in anthropology: 1934–1940 In the same year that Junod’s article was published, Lucy Mair68 commented on “The Anthropologist’s Approach to Native Education” in Oversea Education. This was preliminary to her larger work in which she advocated a “scientific approach” to colonial government.69 She went further than most other anthropologists in trying to engage with education, though this was only a small piece of the “native policy” jigsaw that she addressed. She argued that in considering education the anthropologist must not just be concerned with the traditional system of a specific people but also with the nature and impact of modern education since this “could be regarded as the most potent element in the process of transformation which native societies must undergo if they are to ever cope successfully with the demands which modern conditions make upon them.” She argued that “a remodeling of the whole of African education to bring it into close relations with African life is one of the most urgent and difficult tasks of current policy.”70 The anthropologist’s role was less related to strictly pedagogical issues than to the adaptation of native life to changing conditions. In keeping with Malinowski’s call for policy relevant anthropology, she argued that the scientific approach of the discipline could assist in practical colonial administration. In indicating what part education could play in adapting native culture to changing conditions, she argued that anthropology could help to identify “what innovations from the outside can be assimilated … and where the sound bases can be found for developments.” The task of the anthropologist was in the end to locate “where modern educational institutions cause unnecessary dislocations in the lives of the families of the children who pass through them.” On the basis of what he knows about “the life the adult native will have to lead he should advise on the type of education which will be of most real value to him.”71 Despite the apparent common sense of these recommendations, they seem remarkably similar to those contained in the proposals for adapted education that were criticized by Murray and MacMillan. Mair was clearly aware of these potential criticisms and mindful of the current social democratic educational agendas in Britain and 155

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elsewhere which needed increasingly to be reconciled with colonial policy and the welfare brief of the mandates. She therefore added the caveat that although her recommendations supported education suitable for village life and “put practical considerations first,” she hoped that it was not open to the accusation that it involves disregarding the intellectual development of the African and denying him those feature of our civilization which we prize most highly… . I simply suggest that [African] education can only be effectively achieved by making the new knowledge that we impart to the African centre around the type of question he is himself asking.72

However, she does not go on to outline what those questions are or how the study of anthropology might help to clarify them. Mair’s quandary can be demonstrated by comparing these statements with her comments on the relationship between Indirect Rule and the colour - bar in British Africa. She notes: The British preoccupation with the preservation of tribal institutions, coupled with the tradition of racial superiority bred of two centuries in India, tends to make the educated native a thorn in the flesh, a complicating factor in a situation that should have developed otherwise. Hence the intense suspicion of the British Government among the Europeanized natives of West Africa and their inability to see in the Indirect Rule system – which is no longer applicable to themselves – anything but an instrument of domination. Here is another problem that needs to be squarely faced.

Mair argues that “it is because he claims that his science can interpret native society in a way which indicates what innovations from the outside can be assimilated by it and where the sound bases can be found for developments, that the anthropologist offers his services to the practical man.”73 But these examples make it difficult to understand precisely how the discipline of anthropology could contribute and how such contradictory points of departure could be welded into a consolidated program of policy recommendations. Whether anthropology was capable of delivering on Mair’s promise remained to be seen. The manner in which she attempted to reconcile the “culture contact” position with the kinds of radical criticism associated with the work of Leys, Macmillan and Murray is interesting. She addressed the educational problem with insight and seemed to 156

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confront many of the criticisms of the anthropological approach. She responded to the criticism that the traditional missionary curriculum had been entirely divorced from the realities of everyday life and that it had very little value as a training for adult citizenship as follows: The educationalist … is on stronger ground than anyone else in criticizing, as a private person, a social system which prevents the African from exercising his powers in competition with Europeans, and … most of them would join other friends of the natives in pressing for its alteration. But while that system exists, he is failing in his task as an educationalist if he gives to his native pupils an education which fits them primarily for a life that only a small minority can hope to live, and leaves them in no better way adapted for the existence which in fact awaits them. It simply sacrifices the native population to an ideal which that particular form of sacrifice can do nothing to realize. Even where the colour bar is broken down, the number of the native population who could profit by its absence in entering on skilled work or professional careers would remain a small minority of the total – a fact that the French have recognised in their dual system for the elite and the masses.74

In short, while recognizing the need for an education for rural life and while embracing aspects of traditional African custom and society, Mair was prepared to recognize the complexity of crafting an education which also provided a bridge to the literacy and numeracy, skills, crafts and scientific enquiry required for access to the modern labour market. She moved beyond traditional anthropology to recognize that, whatever else schooling might offer the African child, it needed to bridge the gap between the traditional and the modern, even where immediate access to the labour market was not readily available. To put it another way, she was concerned, in keeping with contemporary developments in European thinking on social welfare, to ensure that nobody should be barred by poverty from access to training that would enable them to maximize their talents, while wishing to be realistic about the possibilities of ensuring such outcomes in the constrained financial and racialized context of the colonies. In searching for a sense of how to act in this situation, she argued that “there is indeed little sense of collective learning from a century of educational endeavour in Africa given the fragmented missionary effort.”75 It was precisely one of the shortcomings of anthropology that it also failed to embrace that historical perspective or to engage with the problems related to the role of modern education in social change. The wide experience of the missions, 157

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professional educators and philanthropic movements sketched out in the previous chapters does not seem to have had sufficient purchase on these developments for significant learning to take place in relation to policy issues.

Conclusion There is a sense of circularity about many of the anthropological arguments, even in the hands of a sympathetic and politically conscious anthropologist like Lucy Mair. There is little recognition of or sympathy for the viewpoints of key actors in the field or acknowledgment of the initiatives that had been attempted to tackle these complex issues by missionary educators, philanthropic initiatives or African communities. To put it bluntly, none of the anthropologists engaged in these debates proposed research projects aimed at examining the specifics of educational policy. While traditional education in small societies was seen as a key aspect of socialization worthy of anthropological attention (e.g. the work of Margaret Read, Lucy Mair, Monica Hunter and Isaac Schapera), few African anthropologists focused on education in the modern school and its relationship to the colonial labour market. There is little reference in this field to the research undertaken by the IMC or other mission research work. And none of this work is informed by the emergent field of educational policy studies that was pointed to in relation to the NEF conferences documented in Chapter 2. In general, study of the nature and impact of modern schooling did not seem to be acknowledged as part of anthropology’s remit. In that sense therefore it appears, in keeping with the warning of Macmillan and Murray, that most anthropologists left the field to those arguing for some form of segregated schooling – with a renewed emphasis on rural education and training or with a focus on the preservation of the “positive aspects” of African life and custom based on the assumption that such adapted education would provide an insurance against the “breakdown” of traditional norms and customs. This attributed to schools the power to shape society that was at the least naïve. It was to have considerable ramifications for educational policy development in the post-war years and the era of development after uhuru. It is to the credit of the critics like Murray, Macmillan and Leys that their views did in the end prevail at the CO when Ormsby-Gore was 158

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replaced by Malcolm MacDonald as colonial secretary in 1938. This was the context in which Hailey’s An African Survey set out the scientific background for the 1940 Colonial Welfare and Development Act and major changes in colonial policy from that time which finally turned away from notions of Indirect Rule and adapted education as the major indexes of colonial education policy. The promise of anthropology as a guide to development policy was not met by 1940. Adam Kuper notes that, despite all his declarations to the contrary, Malinowski’s students “did very little in the way of studying change.” Of the studies by anthropologists at the time, he argues that only those by Godfrey and Monica Wilson, and Lucy Mair, concentrated on issues of social change. None focused specifically on education.76 Few clues can be obtained from the two major works on the history of the British school of anthropology by Adam Kuper (1983) and Jack Goody (1994), where “education” does not even appear in the index. For a discipline keen to present itself as a key scientific instrument for understanding social change in the 1930s that is a curious absence given that schooling was widely acknowledged to be a central aspect of social change. By the end of the 1930s the Triumph of the Expert proved to be a hollow victory. The best plans for development driven through a scientific technology were thwarted by the contradictory pressures being exerted on the colonial state and by the CO’s lack of willingness and resources to implement large-scale social reforms. Anthropologists failed to grasp the levers of change and were often compromised by the political contexts in which they were obliged to work. Lucy Mair warned that the “scientist” (in this case the anthropologist) cannot be expected to produce effective recommendations for successful adaptation to modern conditions if the conditions requisite for that successful adaptation are lacking. He cannot be expected to … save the creators of the situation from the consequences of their actions.77

In the end it was only in the context of the changes in policies regarding colonial aid in wartime Britain and the frameworks of post war UN agency policy that the scientific study of development was to be pursued. To what extent anthropology was able to make a meaningful contribution to that process is something that will have to await further study.

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As Hugh Macmillan has pointed out, Malinowski’s papers based on his promotion of the notion of “culture contact” at the NEF conference in 1934 provided a near perfect rationale for what was later to become “Bantu Education,” the blueprint for apartheid education in South Africa after 1948.78 The irony was that the only “scientist” present at the NEF conference in 1934 who did get to implement his plans for education in much the form he expressed them was Werner Eiselen, the architect of Bantu Education, thus fulfilling the prophesy of Macmillan, Leys and Murray that in the absence of careful attention to education by anthropologists the policy would be left in the hands of those who would promote racial segregation in education.79 What the majority of anthropologists, missionaries and officials failed to grasp was what Bryant Mumford, previously a superintendent of education in Tanganyika and now lecturer at the Colonial Department of the Institute of Education, London University, pointed out as early as 1935. He argued that although both the Europeans and natives pressed for more school facilities they desired them for very different and mutually antagonistic reasons. The white man desired native education in order to train human tools for his economic and administrative machine and to make more efficient servants of the natives, whereas the natives desired the same education in order that they might attain an equality with and even challenge the white man in his own sphere.80

Notes 1

2 3

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A.V. Murray, review of B. Malinowski (ed.) The Limits of Functional Anthropology: Methods of Study of Culture Contact in Africa (Oxford, 1938) in Oversea Education 10(1) (1938): 41–45. The notion of “culture contact” was elaborated by a number of writers at this time. See Monica Hunter, “Methods of Study of Culture Contact,” Africa VII(3)(1934): 335–350; Lucy Mair, “The Study of Culture Contact as a Practical Problem,” Africa VII(4) (1934): 415–422; A.T. & G. M. Culwick, “Culture Contact on the Fringes of Civilization,” Africa VIII(2) (1935): 163–170: G. Wagner, “The Study of Culture Contact and the Determination of Policy,” Africa IX(3) (1936): 317–331. For more on LSE in the 1930s, see Ch. 1. Diana Wylie, “Norman Leys and McGregor Ross: A Case Study in the Conscience of African Empire 1900–1939,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History V(3) (1977): 307–342.

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5 6

7 8

9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Ian M. Drummond, British Economic Polity and the Empire, 1919– 1939 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972): Ch. 2.; Joseph M. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007): 24–26, 93–97. Hodge (2007): 106. For an outline of the changes effected through a re-examination of colonial policy in the late 1930s under the new colonial secretary, Malcolm MacDonald (1938–40), see John Flint, “Macmillan as a Critic of Empire: The Impact of an Historian on Colonial Policy,” in Hugh Macmillan & Shula Marks (eds.) African and Empire: W.M. Macmillan, Historian and Social Critic (London: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1989): 228–231. Hodge (2007): 2. David Arnold, “Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India,” in The New Cambridge History of India: III, 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 1–17; David R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988): 379–384. Lord Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London: Blackwood, 1922). Hailey (1938); see also Helen Tilley, “African Environments and Environmental Sciences: The African Research Survey, Ecological Paradigms and British Colonial Development, 1920–1940,” in William Beinart & J-A. McGregor (eds.) Social History and Agrarian Environments (Oxford: James Currey, 2003); Africa as a Living Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). The Survey was largely funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rhodes Trust. See also Richard Glotzer, “A Long Shadow: Frederick P. Keppel, the Carnegie Corporation and the Dominions and Colonies Fund Area Experts, 1923–1943,” History of Education 38(5) (2009): 621–648. Edgar B. Worthington (London: Oxford University Press, 1938). Emil Torday, African Races (London: William & Nargate, 1930); Edwin W. Smith, The Golden Stool (London: Edinburgh House, 1926). Thomas O. Beidelman & John Middleton, “Social Anthropology and the Study of Africa,” New Encyclopedia of Africa, I (Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons/Thomson/Gale, 2008): 85–86. Worthington (1938): 57. Ibid.: 607. This interpretation of Malinowski’s work has often been disputed. Ibid. Hodge (2007): Ch. 3.

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21 22

23

24

25

162

Ibid.: 116–118. Also see Norman Etherington, “Education and Medicine,” in N. Etherington (ed.) Missions and Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005): 261–284. Hodge (2007): 188. Ibid.: 116; see also Kenneth Robinson, The Dilemmas of Trusteeship: Aspects of British Colonial Policy between the Wars (London: Oxford University Press, 1965); Godfrey & Monica Wilson, The Analysis of Social Change based on Observations in Central Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945). With regard to South Africa, also see: Paul Rich, “Race, Science and the Legitimacy of White Supremacy in South Africa,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 23(4) (1990): 665–686; Saul Dubow, Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). See Lord Lugard’s address to the Reception to Dominion Premiers and Delegates to the Imperial Conference, 10 October, 1930, in “Anthropology in Administration,” MAN, No. 154 (1930): 213–215. Hodge (2007): 17–18. For contemporary elaboration of these issues, see Bronislaw Malinowski, “Practical Anthropology,” Africa 2(1) (1929): 22–38; P.E. Mitchell, “The Anthropologist and the Practical Man,” Africa 3(2) (1930). Saul Dubow, “ ‘Understanding the African Mind’: Anthropology, Cultural adaptation and the Elaboration of a Segregationist Discourse in South Africa,” Cape Town, Centre for African Studies seminar paper, 1984. Richard Brown, “Anthropology and Colonial Rule: Godfrey Wilson and the Rhodes – Livingstone Institute (RLI), Northern Rhodesia,” in T. Asad (ed.) Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (London: Ithaca Press, 1973): 173–198; Adam Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (London: RKP, 1983): 108. Wilson was recommended by Lugard and Hailey for a post supported by the government. The initiative was “to examine the effect on Native African Society of the impact of European Civilization and to assist in the establishment of permanent and satisfactory relations between natives and Europeans.” Oversea Education XI (3) (1939): 153. See also G. Wilson, “Anthropology as Public Service,” Africa XIII (1940): 43–61. Sean Morrow, The Fires Beneath: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist (Cape Town: Penguin, 2016). As far as I have been able to establish the RLI did not conduct any research on education. The interdisciplinary Institut francais d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) was established in Dakar in 1936 with branches in each French colony, and the Belgians set up the Institut Pour la researche scientifique d’Afrique Centrale (IRSAC) in 1947. See Ali A. Mazrui (ed.) African since 1935 (Paris: UNESCO, 1993): 643.

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32

33

34 35

36

This was the title of an article by Lucy Mair. See Uganda Journal, VII(2) (October 1939): 85–92. Robinson (1965): 19. Norman Leys to Gilbert Murray, 13 January 1900, Gilbert Murray Papers, Box 32, Bodlean Library, Oxford, cited by Wylie (1977): 296. Diana Wylie, “Confrontation over Kenya: The Colonial Office and Its Critics 1918–1940,” Journal of African History XVIII (3) (1977): 430. A. Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London: Longman Green, 1929): 328. For a comprehensive critique, see Max Gluckman, “Malinowski’s ‘Functional’ Analysis of Social Change,” Africa 17(2) (April 1947): 103-121. Also see Robert J. Gordon, The Enigma of Max Gluckman: The Ethnographic Life of a “Luckyman” in Africa (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018). See Chs. 2 and 3; there are of course significant exceptions to this generalization. Otto Raum’s classic study of Chagga Childhood (1940) (see pp. 400–411). Audrey Richards, Hilda Beemer/Kuper, Monica Hunter/Wilson, G. Gordon Brown and Meyer Fortes also commented at times on these issues. Margaret Read, an anthropologist trained at LSE, eventually became a member of staff in the Colonial Department at the Institute of Education, London University. But she was only active in the field of education after the period I refer to here, and her work was seldom linked to the research discipline of anthropology. (Many thanks to Michael W. Young for comment on this issue.) The journal Oversea Education was established in 1929; the Yearbook of Education first appeared in 1932 as part of an overall drive to establish the Institute of Education as a key institution for the development of research in colonial education. Susan Krige, “Segregation, Science and Commissions of Enquiry: The Contention over Native Education Policy in South Africa: 1920– 1938,” Journal of Southern African Studies 23(3) (1997): 491–506. For more on the background, see William Boyd & Wyatt Rawson, The Story of the New Education (London: Heinemann, 1965). The conference proceedings were published in E.G. Malherbe, Educational Adaptations in a Changing Society (Cape Town: Juta, 1937). Eiselen was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Stellenbosch, soon to become Chief Inspector of Native Education in the Transvaal, and later the architect of Bantu Education. See Cynthia Kros, “W.W.M. Eiselen: Architect of Apartheid Education,” in Peter Kallaway (ed.) The History of Education under Apartheid 1948–1994 (New York: Peter Lang, 2002): 53–73; The Seeds of Separate Development: The Origins of Bantu Education (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2010).

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38

39 40 41

42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51

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Brookes was author of History of Native Policy in South Africa (Cape Town: Nationale Pers, 1924) and Native Education in South Africa (Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik, 1930). At the time of the conference, he was the principal of Adams College in Natal. See also Ch. 6. Author of The Education of a South African Tribe (Cape Town: Juta, 1934) and various other research publication on “Native Education.” A key member of Malherbe’s team at the National Bureau for Educational and Social Research in Pretoria. Professor Bantu Languages at University of Cape Town. Professor of Bantu Languages and head of the Department of Bantu Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. See more on his career in Ch. 7. On this occasion he spoke on “The Family: Past and Present,” “Sex and Modern Life,” and participated in a panel on “Education as a Reintegrating Agency (in Africa).” See Malherbe (1937): 193–198, 345-346, 423–427. Malinowski’s two public addresses at the conference, which Junod noted were central to the key role that anthropology played at the conference, were subsequently revised and published under the title of “Native Education and Culture Contact” in the International Review of Missions 25 (1936): 480–515. Bronislaw Malinowski, “Practical Anthropology,” Africa 2 (1929): 2-38. Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Rationalization of Anthropology and Administration,” Africa 3(4) (1930): 419. See also Phyllis Kaberry (ed.) The Dynamics of Culture Change (edited works of Malinowski) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945). Malherbe (1937): 423. B. Malinowski, as reported in The Star, 26 July 1934. Malinowski (1934): 424. Malinowski, “Native Education and Native Culture …” (1936): 480-515. Malinowski’s own ambiguity on these issues is demonstrated by his embrace of the Age-Grade System applied to formal schools of Swaziland. See Paul Cocks, “The King and I: Bronislaw Malinowski, King Sobhuza II of Swaziland and the Vision of Culture Change in Africa,” History of the Human Sciences 13(4) (2000): 25–47. The much-anticipated second volume of Michael W. Young’s comprehensive biography of Malinowski will enable scholars to gain a much more nuanced view of his role as an academic and “public intellectual.” See Michael W. Young, Malinowski: The Odyssey of an Anthropologist: from 1920, Vol. II (forthcoming). His research, published as The Life of an African Tribe, 2 Vols. (Neuchatel: Imprimerie Attinger Freres, 1912–13, and republished in

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52 53

54 55

56 57 58

59 60

61 62 63 64

English: London: Macmillan, 1927) was highly regarded by anthropologists. For an excellent and sympathetic examination of his work, see Patrick Harries, Butterflies and Barbarians: Swiss Missionaries and Systems of Knowledge in South-East Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 2007). Henri P. Junod, “Anthropology and Missionary Education,” International Review of Missions, XXIV (1935): 213–228. Peter Kallaway, “Volkskirche, Volkekunde and Apartheid: Lutheran Missions, German Anthropology, and Humanities in African Education,” in Hanns Lessing et al. (eds.) Contested Relations: Protestantism between Southern African and Germany from the 1930s to the Apartheid Era (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster, 2015): 155–176. A.W. Hoernle, “An Outline of the Native Conception of Education,” Africa 4(2) (1931): 145–163. Malherbe (1934): 407–409. See also Isaac Schapera, “Present Day Life in the Native Reserves,” in Schapera (ed.) Western Civilization and the Natives of South Africa (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1934): 55-58. See Malherbe (1937): 519–520: W. Bryant Mumford, “The Conference on Native Education,” Journal of the Africa Society 33(1934): 411–413. Hailey (1938): 43. Winifred Hoernle argued that “social anthropology was an emerging discipline no longer simply concerned with ‘lower cultures’ but with the more general issues of ‘culture contact’, as African societies began a process of social transformation towards a process of Westernstyle industrial order.” W. Hoernle, “New Aims and Method in Social Anthropology,” South African Journal of Science XXX (1933): 74–92. William M. Macmillan, My South African Years (Cape Town: David Philip, 1975): 214–215; Dubow (1984). Hugh Macmillan, “ ‘Paralyzed Conservatives’: W, M. Macmillan, the Social Scientists and the ‘Common Society’, 1923–48,” citing W.M. Macmillan, Complex South Africa (1930): 8, in Hugh Macmillan & Shula Marks, African and Empire: W.M. Macmillan, Historian and Social Critic (London: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1989): 80– 81. Murray (1929): 2. W.M. Macmillan, Africa Emergent (London: Pelican Books, 1938): 254. W.M. Macmillan, “The Importance of the Educated African,” Journal of African Studies 33 (1934): 137–138; “The Background of African Native Education,” United Empire (New Series) XXV(1934): 172–173. Murray (1938): 309.

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66 67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

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“while the work of the anthropologist is invaluable in the study of African culture, I query its relevance in the matter of education. Anthropology gives the scientific method by which we understand primitive people, but it affords no basis to indicate the future of that people in the modern world.” Murray (1938): 314. Ibid.: 2. A.V. Murray in Malherbe (1937): 426–427. Lucy Mair graduated in Classics from Cambridge in 1923 and subsequently studied anthropology under Malinowski at the LSE, conducting her fieldwork in Uganda after which she joined the staff of LSE and was an active member of the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Lucy Mair, Native Policies in Africa (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1936). Lucy Mair, “The Anthropological Approach to Native Education,” Oversea Education VI(2) (1935): 53–61; Mair (1936): 17, 53. Mair (1935): 53–56. Ibid.: 59. Ibid.: 53. Mair (1936): 75. Ibid.: 56–58. Kuper (1983): 107–111. Mair (1936): 285–286. Macmillan & Marks (1989): 82; also see John Sharp, “Serving the Volk? Afrikaner Anthropology Revisited,” paper presented to the EASA conference, Bristol, September, 2006: 3. Kros (2010). W. Bryant Mumford, “Comparative Studies of Native Education in Various Dependencies: A Historical Approach,” in Yearbook of Education 1935 (London: Evans Brothers, 1935): 817.

Chapter 5 Diedrich Westermann Linguistics and the ambiguities of Colonial Science in the interwar era*

*

This article was first published as: “Diedrich Westermann and the Ambiguities of Colonial Science in the Inter-War era,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 45(6) (2017): 871–893.

Diedrich Westermann (1875–1956) was undeniably an outstanding, if sometimes controversial figure, in the development of African studies and linguistics in the first half of the twentieth century and represents a complex figure caught between powerful historical forces – religious, academic, scientific and ideological. He was a pioneer German linguist and member of the founding generation of German Africanists (Afrikanistik).1 He was involved in German Lutheran mission endeavour in Africa through his lifelong association with the Bremen Mission and the Berlin Mission Society (BMS). He was also central to the evolution of policy studies in Germany, first in the context of the late German Empire and subsequently in regard to the colonial settlement of the post-Versailles and National Socialist eras. From his position as Professor of African languages at the University of Berlin he was influential in the academic institutionalization of African Studies in Germany.2 In the broader British colonial context, his role as co-director of the IIALC in London from 1926 allowed him to play a key role in the development of research related to mission and colonial development policy, specifically in relation to issues of language, culture and education. Through his links with J.H. Oldham and the ecumenical networks of the IMC, and through his support of the indirect rule 167

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policies of Lord Lugard at the CO, as well as his editorship of the influential journals Koloniale Rundschau in Berlin and the IIALC journal Africa in London (1928–1939),3 he was able to play an influential role in the crafting of a colonial research culture in Germany and in Britain during the “classical period” of German research on Africa.4 From 1929 he also played an active role as adviser to Lord Hailey’s team working on the pathbreaking African Research Survey.5 During the 1930s he was drawn into the culture and dynamics of National Socialism in Germany and was to continue to play an influential role in the development of new colonial research initiatives in that context. In the course of World War II, he assisted with projects of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) related to the planning for a new German Empire. He played a key role in the establishment of a European Colonial Academy in Berlin in 1943.6 The gradual decline of the Third Reich by 1943, following the defeat of the German armies in North Africa and Stalingrad, ended these initiatives. At the end of the war, he was forced to flee Berlin, but after the Russian occupation he reclaimed his position at the University in 1945. In 1950 he was deprived of his post and his pension by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) government and returned to his home city of Baden. Although he was thereafter able to sustain some of his links with his earlier networks and continue with his research interests, he was never to recover his influential position in the post-war world. He died in 1956. It is often difficult to establish the nature and extent of his agency: whether he represents a heroic figure who defended scientific values in a world dominated by ideological forces, or whether he was coopted by those forces. I find his career interesting because he represents an excellent example of the complex world of the sacred and the profane in scholarship, with all the complexities that this entailed in a European and global context of radical change in the interwar era. He is fascinating because his career represents a bridge between a variety of worlds: the conservative Christian/Pietist/ mission world engaging with the world of European humanism and modernity; German evangelical Christianity confronting the new ecumenical, social gospel approach to mission work in Africa; German nationalism and National Socialism engaging with the democratic forces of Weimar and Communism/socialism; British imperialism and its conflicts with African nationalism in the interwar years; the emergent world of scientific engagement with problems of 168

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development policy, especially in regard to the links between anthropology/vὅlkerkunde, mission and government; the world of academic entrepreneur; the relationship between research and the emerging world of mid-twentieth-century economics and politics.7

Diedrich Westermann (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften)

Background Born in Baden, and educated at the universities of Basel and Tȕbingen, Westermann engaged in a spell of missionary work in Togo with the North German Bremen Mission between 1900 and 1909, during which he initiated the linguistic studies that were to be the hallmark of his career. He obtained a post at the prestigious Seminar fȕr Orientalische Sprachen (later incorporated into the University of Berlin),8 replacing Carl Meinhof (1857–1944) when he moved to the new Hamburg Colonial Institute in 1908, and was promoted to the rank of full professor of African Languages and Culture in 1925, a post which he held until 1950. From this position he was able to establish considerable influence in the emergent world of African studies. The research which he had initiated in the German colony of Togo led to a lifelong interest in Sudanic languages which shaped the nature of his major research interest in linguistics. He refined and extended the work of his teacher, Carl Meinhof, specializing in the classification of the Niger-Congo languages in this enormous complex linguistic region stretching from Senegal to the upper Nile Valley. This area is home to the largest language family in the world, embracing 1500 languages.9 The methodology that he devised in relation to phonetics 169

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and the orthography of African languages was widely adopted and represented the core of his professional expertise. By 1907 he had published the results of his work on the Ewe language.10 His first major publication, Die Sudansprachen (1911), marked the beginning of an extremely prolific research career which culminated with the publication of the International Africa Institute’s Handbook of African Languages II: Languages of West Africa in 1952.11

Kaisersreich After the disasters of the Herero and Nama uprising in South West Africa (1904–1907) and the Maji-Maji rebellion in Tanganyika (1905– 1907), there was considerable resistance to colonial policy in the Reichstag which led to the blocking of colonial appropriations in 1906. This led Chancellor von Bȕlow to institute a new regime to stimulate change in colonial policy, marked by the appointment of a banker, Bernard Dernberg, as colonial director (1907–1910), and Albrecht von Rechenberg as governor in Tanganyika (1906–1912).12 The whole initiative was aimed at putting the colonial enterprise on a scientific and business-like footing and led to a revival of interest in colonial studies with the establishment of research and teaching institutions aimed at addressing the needs of Germany’s colonial empire. These were often held at the time to be at the forefront of such research internationally.13 It was in this context that Westermann was recruited to the staff of the Seminar.14 In 1909 Westermann also became editor of Koloniale Rundschau, “the new liberal voice of colonialism.”15 The journal, initiated by a wealthy businessman, Karl Vietor, sought to promote the cause of colonial development through Die Deutsche Gesellschaft fȕr Eingeborenschutz and Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, while opposing forced labor and plantation agriculture in the colonies.16 This provided another point of entry for Westermann into the world of African studies and a platform for influencing state and mission policy at home and abroad.17 In other publications Westermann first ventured into the field of colonial studies in 1909 with the publication of Die Nutzpflanzen unserer Kolonien und ihre wirtschaftliche Bedeutung for da Mutterland (The usefulness for the colonies for the economic development of the motherland).18 As far as I have been able to establish, he only returns to this theme from the late 1930s in the era of National Socialism. This issue is followed up later. 170

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During this time Karl Axenfeld, former executive officer of the BMS in Berlin, was appointed mission inspector in Tanganyika. In order to reform mission work on the ground he sought the assistance of Africanists like Westermann, Meinhof and Julius Richter. This drew Westermann into the field of policy work for the first time. According to Marcia Wright, the historian of the German missions in Tanganyika, “with the assistance of this fresh and influential circle in control, the BMS entered a sunny period.”19 It is also important to note here that a significant aspect of Westermann’s career can be identified from this period. Unlike many of his German Lutheran colleagues he was enthusiastically involved in the work of the IMC. Although he does not seem to have attended the great missionary conference in Edinburgh in 1910 which sought to promote an ecumenical approach to mission work in Africa, he was recruited to the Continuation Committee set up under the influential leadership of J.H. Oldham to take forward the work of the conference (see Chapter 1).

After the German Empire With the end of the German Empire in 1919 Lutheran missionaries had to work in the new context of an African colonial empire dominated by the British and the French. Tanganyika became a British mandate, Kamerun and Togo were split between the British and the French, and South West Africa was handed to South Africa. For German missionaries, scientists and traders this meant that they were compelled to work in new ways with the governments of their former enemies. Although the BMS was at first opposed to collaboration with the British in East Africa, Westermann’s career demonstrated extensive involvement in the ecumenical mission work through his strong contacts with J.H. Oldham and the IMC and through American philanthropic bodies like Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations which were concerned to influence colonial policy on social and educational issues. Due to the scientific recognition, he had received for his language work in West Africa, which supported the promotion of indigenous culture and language related to the British Policy of Indirect Rule, Westermann’s influence as an expert on African affairs was increasingly recognized, placing him in a key position to shape wider colonial research agendas in Germany and in Britain.

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Westermann as linguist Westermann’s primary work was in the field of linguistic and language studies. His publications provided a framework for the study of linguistics in Africa for over half a century.20 He primarily concerned himself with the following languages: Ewe, Twi, Gã, Efik, Ful, Nuer, Dinka, Shilluk, Kpelle, Gola, Guang, Nuba, Kunama and Glidyi. In association with Carl Meinhof, he also worked on Hausa, Yoruba and Nama. This detailed work on language provided the base for Westermann’s role in the field of education as an advocate of vernacular languages in African schools, a writer of school texts and dictionaries, and a producer of aids for teachers. At the IMC meeting at Le Zoute (1926) on mission education, he emerged as an influential advocate of vernacular education in schools. He continued to play a key role in this regard through his involvement with the official Colonial Office Memo on “The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education.”21 As indicated previously, he produced (with Ida Ward) Practical Phonetics for Students of African Languages (1933)22 and the Handbook of African languages (1952).23 The IIALC played a central role in formulating a Practical Orthography to be used throughout West Africa. Westermann visited the Gold Coast, Nigeria, the Sudan, Sierra Leone, East Africa and South Africa at the invitation of colonial governments and helped to create a policy of “language standardization.”24

Westermann and anthropology Linked to his linguistic work, Westermann also maintained a steady rate of research publications in anthropology. For the most part these works focused on descriptive anthropology of specific societies as a supplement to his linguistic work. In his focus on the tribe and its cultural heritage, Westermann was concerned about the issues of “detribalization” and apparent depopulation under the influence of colonial rule. He summed up his position in a statement cited by Tilley which was made in the context of the 1929 Oxford conference on African problems where Westermann was an expert adviser: “Africans,” he claimed, “were losing the basis of their existence (the tribe) … (and) had lost lebenslust, lebensinhalt, lebenszweck [love of life, content

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THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA of life, and purpose of life]. When a race no longer knew what it was living for, it might well be in danger of decay.”25

To arrest what he saw as a process of cultural decline, it was essential for mission and colonial government to promote the vernacular language and culture as the glue that would hold together the African way of life. To this end it was essential that a scientific investigation be conducted relating to the “mental culture” and languages of the natives to understand their “inner life.”26 These views were strongly promoted by the IIALC and came to be framed in an IIALC resolution at the meeting of the executive council in Rome in October 1930 in the following terms: The child should learn to love and respect the mental heritage of his own people, and the natural and necessary expression of this heritage is the language. We are of the opinion that no education which leads to the alienation of the child from his ancestral environment can be right, nor can it achieve the most important aim of education which consists in developing the powers and character of the pupil. Neglect of the vernacular involves the danger of crippling and destroying the pupil’s productive powers by forcing him to express himself in a language foreign both to himself and to the genius of his race. As a general rule therefore, during the first three years of school education instruction should be carried out exclusively in the native language, and we understand that there is a considerable body of educational experience which supports us in this opinion. We consider that no European language should be taught during that time and that it should be followed by a period during which the pupil begins to learn European language while other instruction is continued in the vernacular… . It is through the cultivation of the native language in higher institutions that the educated classes can remain in living contact with the masses and that western knowledge can become the means of promoting the advancement of the whole people.27

It is important to note that these views were widely held at the time even by those who were opposed to a culturalist view of colonial policy. They are an index of the influence of German linguistics and anthropology in general, and Westermann in particular, on the international policy context. Both Victor Murray and Oldham and Gibson, in their influential books published at the time, cite Westermann in exceedingly positive terms, despite their increasingly critical attitude to the policy of Indirect Rule.28

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Although he often defended the value of anthropology to policy development, Westermann’s own work seldom made a significant direct contribution to this issue. His article on “The missionary as an anthropological field-worker” in Africa (1931) summed up this philosophy. The key idea informing his approach is that “scientific facts” should guide policy and that “in the interests of science the missionary should feel it his duty to save what can be saved” of indigenous cultures. As the language of the people is “the expression of its soul,” he stressed the importance of language for the understanding of African problems. The aim of such studies should be “to investigate the reactions of Africans to the ever-increasing spread of Western civilization and to understand what elements of indigenous culture are being destroyed by the impact of western ideas and what are the results on native life.” Such insights, gained through an intimate knowledge of the language and culture of the people, were, in his view, essential to successful missionary effort and social development and “such cooperation can only thrive in an atmosphere of mutual respect and confidence.”29 These views linked German Lutheran evangelical theology to emergent themes in the new science of anthropology and emphasized the need for careful attention to issues of culture and language in any scheme for colonial development or missionary endeavour. One of Westermann’s most successful students from this time was W.W.M. Eiselen, the son of an influential Lutheran mission family in the Eastern Transvaal. He studied in Germany from 1921 to 1926 with both Meinhof (Hamburg) and Westermann (Berlin). In Berlin he studied phonetics and anthropology during 1922–1923 and graduated with a doctorate in 1926. He subsequently became a professor in the new Department of Ethnologie at the University of Stellenbosch in 1933. In the same year Westermann visited South Africa under the auspices of a Carnegie travel grant and the InterUniversity Committee’s lecture program. He spent some time in Stellenbosch as Eiselen’s guest30 and the South African Native College (SANC, Fort Hare) in the Eastern Cape (see Chapter 7). Eiselen left Stellenbosch University in 1934 to become Director of Native Education in the Transvaal, and after 1948 he chaired the National Party’s Commission on Native Education. This body produced a key document for the formulation of the politics of apartheid that came to be known as the Eiselen Report. It paved the way for the implementation of Bantu Education. This policy carried forward many

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of the ideas of race and culture that had been a characteristic of Westermann’s career outlined previously.31 Writing for an international audience Westermann produced a significant popular monograph on African affairs, The African Today (1934), also published in German and French and marginally revised in 1939.32 The preface was written by Lord Lugard, the doyen of Indirect Rule, who stressed that it was a product of the labours of the IIALC. These publications clearly represented an attempt to demonstrate the value of the work of the IIALC and the significance of science, and of anthropology (defined in particular ways), in the development of “good government” and sound social policy in Africa. The strengths and weaknesses of these books need to be examined carefully if they are to be understood in the context of the rest of Westermann’s career: his work needs to be placed in the context of German anthropology in the interwar years, recently highlighted in works by Gretchen Schafft, Glenn Penny and Matti Buntzl and Andre Gingrich.33

Religious background/missionary career After nearly ten years as a missionary and linguistic researcher Westermann went on to pursue an academic career, but he was to maintain his official commitment to the Lutheran Church in Germany throughout his life. From the time of his first academic appointment at Berlin University in 1909, he was formally linked to the BMS. He was appointed to the Board in 1925, a position he held until 1946. In the 1950s he was deputy chairperson of the BMS, with its headquarters now located in West Berlin.34 From 1940 to 1946 he was the successor to Julius Richter on the German Missionary Council.35 Over this long period, “what distinguished (Westermann) from many of his evangelical German colleagues was his significant commitment to ecumenical mission work and willingness, indeed eagerness, to work with colleagues of other nationalities, including British and Americans.” This was mostly under the auspices of the IMC led by J.H. Oldham and John Mott from the time of the Edinburgh mission conference in 1910 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.36 Given the division of his time between Berlin and London over a period of 15 years, Westermann’s career cannot be understood without appreciating the extent to which he was able to accommodate the tensions between very different approaches to Christian mission 175

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work and to anthropology, which were characteristic of the age. Although he was closely associated with the Lutheran Church, it is important to see Westermann in the context of wider debates taking place in the mission community in the post–World War I era between traditional advocates of Protestant evangelical Christianity and the ecumenical reform movement influenced by the new “social gospel” approach that became characteristic of the IMC from the 1930s (see Chapter 1). His career also needs to be seen in the context of the growing influence of secular/“scientific” approaches to mission work which were able to transcend national boundaries. The Lutheran Church and the BMS had roots in eighteenth-century Pietism. This represented a tradition of evangelical Christianity that had been dominant in mission work for much of the nineteenth century, emphasizing individual salvation and “conversion.” From the era after the French Revolution up to the establishment of the German nation state, it also represented a conservative bulwark which was primarily concerned with what were considered to be threats to traditional German society in the form of secularism, modernization, urbanization and Communism. In the African mission field, there was therefore a strong emphasis on community, culture and language that was adapted from the German Lutheran tradition. This context helps to explain the wider significance of Westermann’s emphasis on language and tribal identity in Africa that was highlighted earlier.37 As indicated previously (Chapter 1), the alternative “social gospel” approach to mission work promoted by the IMC gained momentum in the interwar era. This gave priority to a loosely held but widely articulated conviction that Christianity had a duty to confront the social disorder and injustice at “home” and abroad. This represented a shift … towards more this-worldly preoccupations, schools, hospitals, race relations epitomized by the work of J.H. Oldham, the most influential of Protestant missionary strategists of the first half of the twentieth century. It was in this context that Westermann, as codirector of the IIALC, came to play an influential role as an intermediary between the different approaches. There is no space here to examine the history of global Protestant reform in the interwar years, but Adrian Hastings succinctly captures the key elements of “Protestant Missionary Priorities in the Oldham Era” which sought to provide an antidote to the secularism of the age and a counterpoint to the challenges of radical secular ideologies like Communism and Fascism.38

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Through his close association with the IMC and the IIALC, and his work with the British Colonial Office and subsequently with Hailey’s Africa Survey in the 1930s, Westermann was to become closely involved with mission and secular initiatives to understand change in Africa and develop policies related to those developments. The other side of Westermann’s engagement with the Church was represented by his involvement with the Lutheran Church in its strong stance against the secular/modernist tone of the Weimar settlement and the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty. In the 1930s German Lutherans were beset by conflict over their relations with the new National Socialist government. These fractures between the German Evangelical Church (“The German Church” as it was known), which was in effect a branch of the state during the Third Reich, and the “Confessing Church,” which opposed state control of religion, are fundamental to the history of German mission. As a result of this conflict within the church in Germany, the lively and productive contact between German mission leaders and the IMC/Faith and Works networks that had been built up carefully by Oldham, Vischer and Westermann was slowly eroded by the late 1930s. Although Westermann proved to be an invaluable member of the IMC team, and was enormously productive in research and skilled at networking in Europe, I have not been able to find much evidence that he engaged with the wider issues of mission history or ecumenical debate related to social reform in the 1930s. He did not attend the crucial IMC conferences at Jerusalem and Tambaram where these issues were debated. Bruno Gutmann, Julius Richter, Westermann and others had represented a significant German mission presence at the IMC planning meetings at High Leigh and Le Zoute in the early 1920s despite the state of tension between the previous enemies, and by attending these meetings they helped to establish a tradition of scientific consultation regarding mission policy and education. Ironically, it was from the European evangelists that the ecumenical groups were to learn much about cultural diversity and the need for tolerance of African culture. The German Lutheran emphasis from the eighteenth century on a volkskirche and volkstumlichkeit was to gradually promote a greater awareness in IMC contexts of the significance of culture and language to mission work and educational policy. But there was a marked decline in German participation at subsequent conferences in Jerusalem (1928) and particularly in 177

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Tambaram (1938), partly due to differences between evangelicals and social gospel supporters in their approach to mission work, but due also to conflict within the German Lutheran Church regarding the relations between church and state in the context of National Socialism. Although there was not a great deal of direct political opposition to the Nazis from within the Church beyond the individual heroic stands of Pastors Niemöeller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, it is necessary to be cautious in attempting to understand the actions of historical participants, given the extreme and fraught situation they were negotiating after the Synod of Barmen in 1934.39 It is also important to recognize what might have been Westermann’s own dilemmas in relation to these issues. In the policy field it would seem that he was often in agreement with the extreme position of Bruno Gutmann and Siegfried Knak, who advocated a mission policy and education aimed at the preservation of traditional African life and custom, but at other times he would appear to implicitly embrace the ecumenical policies of Oldham, Mott, Vischer and the IMC, which increasingly saw missions and mission education as part of the wider process of change and transformation alluded to previously. All that can be said with confidence is that Westermann managed a very careful compromise between the various positions over more than ten years.

Westermann’s contribution to colonial policy in Britain As a prominent member of the emergent scientific community within African studies, a linguist and an important European representative of the ecumenical mission movement, Westermann was selected as co-director of the recently established IIALC in 1926 to ensure both ecumenical and international colonial representation in the emergent field of scientific policy studies relating to Africa and to coordinate mission and CO policy work relating to education. One of the main reasons for the appointment of Westermann to this post was that he was considered to be the most able person to direct the study of African languages and culture that had been identified as a research priority in the context of the policy of Indirect Rule and the educational policy of adaptation that had been spelt out in the CO memorandum on Education Policy in British Tropical Africa in 1925.40

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At the first general meeting of the IIALC he made a statement regarding the objectives of the Institute and said that though the methods adopted must be strictly scientific, the Institute must not be a merely scientific institution. It would be a clearing – house making accessible the results of individual research and study, and providing a link between science and practical work in Africa. Native education must be based on native foundations. Hence arose the need of the help of the scientist. The Institute might help in settling which languages should be encouraged to develop a literature and it might assist in securing the publication of works which would otherwise be unpublished.41

As an adviser at the CO, Westermann had a key role in selecting the scholars who were granting 15 IIALC Rockefeller fellowships for study in Africa during the period between 1924 and 1934.42 He was also subsequently involved in the deliberations and consultations around the establishment of the Rhodes House initiative with Malinowski, Oldham and Lothian which resulted in the African Research Survey during the 1930s. To this end he attended the Oxford Conference on African Problems in November 1929. This gave rise to the first systematic survey of the British African Empire that was in due course to be published as Lord Hailey’s An Africa Survey in 1938. It was to provide the platform for a wide-ranging exploration of all aspects of development policy in Africa. According to Tilley, Westermann played an important role in this research project by arguing for policy issues to be understood in sociological as well as economic terms.43 As a significant representative of European missionary societies, and an acknowledged expert on African languages, he worked with Lord Lugard (Chairman), Professor Delafosse from France, as codirector,44 Hanns Vischer (the Basel Mission secretary general of ACNETA) and Oldham, administrative director, to establish a network of European contacts to promote critical research and debate on African mission and education. His language work was also adapted to suit the needs of educational policy formulation in a 1927 ACNETA memo on The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education. These policies recommended that all elementary teaching should be in the vernacular, with English being taught by fully trained teachers in the secondary phase, where it should be used as a medium of instruction only in the highest grades.45 He brought the essentially German Afrikanistik tradition regarding the value of the study of African indigenous languages into the field of 179

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educational policy via his contribution to mission and government discourse.46 He was even cited approvingly by A.V. Murray, a trenchant critic of the Phelps-Stokes form of adapted education, who summed up Westermann’s position in his influential book The School in the Bush (1929): Mental life has evolved in each people an individual shape and proper mode of expression; in this sense we speak of the soul of the people. And the most immediate, the most adequate, exponent of the soul of the people is its language. By taking away a people’s language we cripple or destroy its soul and kill its mental individuality… . If the African is to keep and develop his own soul, and to become a separate personality, his education must not begin by innoculating him with a foreign civilization but it must be based on the civilization of each people, it must teach him to love his country and tribe as gifts given from God. One of these gifts is the vernacular. It is the vessel in which the whole national life is contained and through which it finds expression.47

From 1928 to 1939 as the extremely energetic editor of Africa, the prestigious journal of the IIALC, he was instrumental in shaping the research culture on Africa. He was also centrally involved in the fundraising for the $250,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation which made this research program possible.48 A key element of that work included his success at arranging funding for “about a dozen German Africanists to obtain research scholarships and publication funds.”49 His status as an expert in the field of African linguistics by this time is demonstrated by the invitation he received from the IIALC to visit British Africa as their representative between 1927 and 1929 to act as adviser on language issues to the colonial governments in a wide range of East and West African countries.50 In addition, his 1931 paper on “The missionary as an anthropological fieldworker” and the booklet with Richard Thurwald, The Missionary and Anthropological Research, were aimed at a more “scientific approach” to missionary work and at promoting a deeper understanding of the African social context.51 The role of Oldham and the IIALC was in many ways remarkable in setting up structures and networks aimed at helping politicians, administrators and missionaries to navigate the complex economic, political and cultural issues raised in these times of change in Africa. Yet, as Hastings points out, we should not give too much weight to these influences as “the shift within the colonial order towards the

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benevolent and the developmental was … both patchy and bounded.”52

Westermann and the Third Reich What makes Westermann almost unique as an Africanist is that he was involved in research and policy enquiry related to colonial issues in Britain and in Germany. During the 1930s he maintained an influential presence both at the IIALC and the CO in London, and within the emergent colonial policy circles of the National Socialists in Berlin. As indicated earlier, we need to understand his writings and actions in the intellectual context of these times because, as Ustorf notes, “there is no way of understanding the actions of the leading mission thinkers in the years 1933–45 unless one becomes aware of the serious crisis and equally serious temptations” they were facing.53 With this cautionary adviser in mind it is necessary to examine the career of Westermann at this time with great care. He seems to have been able to navigate the early National Socialist era with a degree of independence, presumably due to his stature in the academic/scientific community and his status in the BMS and the IMC. Holger Stöcker notes that his relationship with the Nazis from the immediate pre-war era seems to have been quite overt. He was able to continue with his work at Berlin University throughout the war, and was the convenor of a colonial study group in Berlin and Hamburg from 1936.54 He was an adviser, with Gunther Wolff, to Konrad Meyer, head of the Kolonialwissenschaflicke Abteilung (Department of Colonial Policy) for Generalplan Ost, which was established to prepare the way for the post-conquest planning in Eastern Europe.55 He was also involved in the planning of a European Colonial Academy in Berlin prior to 1943.56 In that context Westermann also resumed his public considerations of the colonial question in various publications. As mentioned earlier, there is evidence of his engagement in the field of colonial policy studies early in his career where he was constantly reviewing issues related to colonial policy through his association with Koloniale Rundschau and Africa. His books in English, The African Today and The African Today and Tomorrow, also provide evidence of his continuing concern for wider policy issues relating to Africa. But it is only from the late 1930s that he returns to this theme with specific reference to German imperial ambitions related to the National Socialist regime.57 Key works in this 181

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regard are Beiträge zure deutschen kolonialfrage (1937);58 “Afrikaner im Umbruch”[radical change] in Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 51(2):27– 41”; Die Zukunft [future of] der Naturvölker,” in K. Preuss’s edited volume Lehrbuch der Völkerkunde;59 Volksbunde van Afrika met besonderer Beruchsichtingung der koloniale Aufgabe (1940) (with Hermann Baumann and Richard Thurnwald);60 Die Heuteigen Natuurvolker in Ausgleich mit die neuen Zeit (1940);61 and Afrika als europäische Aufgabe (1941).62 The last of these was perhaps the most significant, representing Westermann’s most compromised publication, and appears to presage a more aggressive phase of German colonialism in Africa. The map included in the volume, “Afrika, Politische Übersicht,” shows the four previous colonies as they were in 1914 (designated Deutsch-Ostafrika; Deutsch Sȕd-West). The preface was written by Georg Liebbrandt and Egmont Zechlin. The former was Reichsamtsleiter in the Rosenberg Bureau in charge of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. He became director of the Political Department in the Reich’s Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories from July 1941 and was deeply involved in the anti-Semitic extermination campaign and a key participant in the notorious Wannsee Conference to plan the “final solution” in 1942. Egmont Zechlin, a historian at the University of Berlin, specialized in naval history and issues of naval power. The ambitious book of over 200 pages has no bibliography, and the index makes no reference to Westermann’s association with the IMC and the IIALC. Malinowski, Hailey and his many contacts in the international context are only mentioned briefly in footnotes or not at all. The final chapter attempts to summarize “the German problem in Africa” (“Die deutsch Aufgabe in Africa”).63 One of the few significant references to wider debates is related to the issue of nutrition studies which had been highlighted by the League of Nations and the British Colonial Office in the 1930s.64 (see Chapter 3). The role of missionaries in the hypothetical African empire was not clearly defined at this time, and the attempt to frame educational policy in 1940 simply fell back on the ideas of the mainstream colonial experts. Wolff’s policy guidelines for education reflected the views long held by Westermann and Gutmann that “the native should not be turned into a European” but was rather to be “educated and developed” according to his own “laws of development while preserving his culture.” The objective of native education was to be “that the primitive tribes in Africa learn to be able to develop their

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innate racial dispositions and to determine their future according to their racial aptitude.”65 As indicated earlier, Westermann was “remarkably successful in obtaining funds for research on African studies,” mainly in the area of languages and cultures, and attracted funding for no less than 15 successful proposals at this time.66 Key among these projects were proposals to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DF) for the recording of important African languages in POW camps in Occupied France (1941),67 a Handbook of African Tribes (1942), The Expansion and Significance of Islam in Western Africa and the revision of the Ewe Dictionary.68

After 1945 Reduced to poverty and exile from Berlin during the Occupation, Westermann appealed to his former colleagues in London for assistance with food parcels for his family69 and sent requests to Oldham, Vischer and Betty Gibson at the IMC, and even to Hailey, to intervene on his behalf with the British military authorities to allow him to return to Berlin to take up his post. By the end of November 1945 he had given up hope of being assisted in this way and had returned to Berlin with a rucksack on his back for fear of losing his job in a context where many of the professors were being dismissed by the Russian authorities.70 His former student and research assistant, Dorothea Lehmann, joined him once he returned to Berlin University.71 By the middle of the following year he was seeking to restore his old links and enquiring about his post at the IAI, and in 1947 Betty Gibson visited him and supplied him with books and journals. According to Daryll Ford, who worked with him at the IAI at this time, Westermann said little about his experiences during these years, “in spite of privations, anxieties and difficulties.”72 In 1947 he was invited to continue his affiliation to the IAI, and in the following year he went to London to resume his work with Margaret Bryan on The Handbook of African Languages, which was eventually published by the IAI in 1952. As indicated earlier, this represented both the culmination of half a century of research on African languages being arguably the core of Westermann’s contribution to the scientific study of Africa and a milestone in the history of the IAI. In the same year he published Gesichte Afrikas: Staatenbildung sudliches den Sahara,73 an attempt at a comprehensive 183

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survey of the history of the African people, but this does not seem to have attracted much attention. Westermann partially resumed his earlier role as adviser to the IAI on language issues when he commented on a questionnaire that was being prepared for an African language survey by the CO.74 In 1950 he was invited to join the Executive Council of the IAI and he served in this capacity until he retired in 1953. Thereafter he continued to take an active interest in the affairs of the Institute, to review material for Africa, and became an adviser on linguistic and other publications. In 1950 he was dismissed from his post at Berlin University by the GDR government and his pension was canceled.75 At the end of the year he wrote to Mrs Wyatt at the IAI to report that he was now an Emeritus Professor in Baden, his birthplace, and asked that funds due to him from the Institute be sent urgently “minus the subscription to Africa for 1951.”76 On his eightieth birthday in 1955 he was sent a greeting from the IAI, and he replied to Mrs Wyatt as follows: My collaboration with the Institute has been an outstanding event in my life. It was a pleasure and a high privilege to work together with men like Lord Lugard, Dr J.H. Oldham and Sir Hanns Vischer, also with my colleague Professor Henri Labouret. We were the initiators and no doubt many mistakes were bound to be made by me, but now the Institute stands firm and my wish for its future is vivat, crescat et floreat.77

Summary Ultimately, Westermann remains a somewhat neglected and underrated figure in the history of social anthropology and linguistics despite his very significant contribution to the field of African languages and to the promotion of African studies on the international stage. This is possibly a result of the difficulty of capturing the complexities of his life and career on the German and the international stage. Mission historians have perhaps seen him as too involved in “scientific” work to be taken seriously as a missionary/churchman; German historians seem somewhat perplexed regarding the interpretation of his ideas on race and culture in the light of his close association with the Nazis from the mid-1930s; and some Anglo Americans seem to have been dubious and ambivalent regarding the significance of the enormous research output that characterized Westermann’s long career.

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His career and character and his influence can perhaps best be assessed through the prism of contemporary comment and the insights gleaned from his interlocutors. Poignant commentary can often be found in observations on relatively insignificant issues. As early as 1932 Malinowski expressed reservations about Westermann’s judgment relating to the recruitment of researchers to the IIALC. This related in particular to Paul Kirchhoff, a German research fellow who had studied in the United States from 1928 to 1930, and the Jewish South African Meyer Fortes. In the case of the former this appears to have been predominantly because of Kirchoff’s “communistic ideas” which Malinowski “felt very strongly about.” This would seem to imply, perhaps surprisingly, that Westermann was more flexible on these matters.78 In the case of Fortes there is some suggestion in the literature that opposition to his appointment might have been due to his Jewish background. I also found correspondence from 1934 to 1936 relating to the NEF conference in South Africa which is revealing about these issues.79 As editor of Africa, Westermann had asked Malinowski to write “an account of the education conference” that he was about to attend in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Malinowski replied that he had “no gift whatsoever for a rapid drafting of such things” but offered to find someone else to carry out the task, possibly Isaac Schapera. Subsequently, Malinowski produced a paper based on his views and experiences while visiting South Africa and on his conference presentations. When he submitted this to Africa it was rejected.80 This gave rise to a caustic response from the author, which seems to reflect Malinowski’s competitive relationship with Westermann and also perhaps reveals the sterner side of Westermann’s professional ethos, or his confidence to stand up to Malinowski’s prima donna approach to his work. It is interesting that Malinowski never again ventured into the field of education.81 Another insightful personal aside on Westermann by his long-time colleague at the IIALC is offered by Hanns Vischer’s remarks in 1940 on an address given by Westermann to the German Academy of Science in honour of its founder Gottfried Liebnitz (1646–1716) relating to the subject of “linguistic and ethnological research as a communal tasks” that would make possible “not only the understanding of the native but winning his confidence.” In keeping with his well-established position built up over 30 years he stressed that Germany had more chairs of African languages at her universities than any other country in Europe and that this provided an important foundation for policy development. Vischer commented 185

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dryly: “Evidently the Director has not changed his views, and one would like to know what he thinks of the official view that Africans are only half apes.”82 The review of the above context by Sabine Jell-Bahlsen comes out firmly with a critical assessment of Westermann’s career. She sees him as being deeply conservative and compromised by his relationship with the Nazis, warning that despite Westermann’s appreciation of the many “positive qualities and achievements among African peoples” we should not be lured into thinking that he opposed the racism practiced in Nazi Germany. On the contrary, she argues that “he subscribed to the belief that the outcome of racial mixture is necessarily negative, a belief that, combined with the identification of race and ethnicity would not tolerate the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups within Germany.”83 This assessment also needs to be to be evaluated in the light of what we know of Westermann’s significant contribution to African studies. It is also important to recognize that there was often little difference between the structural-functionalism of most British anthropology in the interwar years, which essentially underwrote Indirect Rule and emphasized bounded cultures and essentialist understandings of African society, and the approach followed by Westermann, which emphasized the relationship between languages, culture and society. In both cases little room was left for an understanding of the engagement with a shifting global economy and new political trends that were to define the political economy of modern Africa. In the end the two major positions that came to dominate African studies and the quest for development policy in the 1930s were captured by the following statements. On the one hand Westermann was determined to understand “the role of language as the vessel in which the national life is contained and through which it finds expression” and build on that platform to map future educational development, in much the same way as he perceived the foundation of German nationhood had been built.84 For his opponents, the problem was stated differently. In Macmillan’s view “the provision of bread, even without butter, was more urgent than the long quest to understand the native mind.”85 In the end those two positions broadly summarize the shape of research and debate on African development between the World Wars.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

7

8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17

Sara Pugach, Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814–1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012). Peter Probst, “Betwixt and Between: African Studies in German,” in Paul Y. Zeleza (ed.) The Study of Africa: Vol II: Global and Transnational Engagements (Dakar, COSESRIA: 2006–7): 157–187. The co-editor of Africa was Miss D.G. Brackett secretary of the IIALC. Probst (2006–7): 163. Eventually published as Lord Hailey, An African Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1938). Holger Stöcker, “The Advancement of African studies in Berlin by the Deutsche Forschungsgenminschaft, 1920–1945,” in Helen Tilley & Rob Gordon (eds.) Ordering Africa (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007): 67–94. See Udo Mischek, “Der Functionalismus und der nationalsozialistische Kolonialpolitiek in Afrika – Günter Wagner und Diedrich Westermann,” Paideuma: Zur Gesichte Der Afrikaforschung Bd XL11 (1996): 141–150; “Authoritӓt auzer halb des Fachs – Diedrich Westermann und Eugene Fischer,” in Bernard Streck (ed.) Ethnologie und Nationalsocialismus (Gehren: Escher, 2000). Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Berlin University, to become Humboldt University after World War II. John Middleton (ed.) New Encyclopedia of Africa, Vol. 3 (New York: Thomson/Gale, 1998): 219–221, 231. D. Westermann, Wortebuch der Ewe-sprache, Vols. I & II (Berlin, 1905-6); Grammatik der Ewe-Sprache (Berlin, 1907). Oxford University Press, 1952. Republished in 1970. See John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Helmut Brey, “German Colonial Policies,” in John Middleton (ed.) New Encyclopedia of Africa, Vol. I (New York: Thomson, 2008): 457–458. See also Jake W. Spidle, “Colonial Studies in Imperial Germany,” History of Education Quarterly 13(3) (1973): 231–247. For more on this context, see Diedrich Westermann, “Zum fȕnfundzwanzigjährigen Bestehen des Seminars fȕr orientalische Sprachen in Berlin,” Koloniale Rundschau 10 (1912). Koloniale Rundschau: Zeitschrift für koloniale Lӓnder, Volker und Staatkunde. Westermann was the editor from 1909. Gerald H. Anderson, Bibliographic Dictionary of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1971): 703. See D. Westermann, “Unser Program” (mit E. Vohsen), Koloniale Rundschau I (1909): 1–7; “Wirtschaftliche Erfolge der evangelische

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18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

30

31

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Mission,” Jahrbuch ϋber deutschen Kolonien (Essen III, 1910): 163-171. Berlin: D. Reimer, 1909. Marcia Wright, German Missions in Tanganyika, 1891–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971): 122. E.g. D. Westermann & Ida C. Ward, Practical Phonetics for Students of African Language (London: IIALC/Oxford University Press, 1933 – republished 1973). “The Place of Vernacular African Languages in Education,” International Review of Missions 14(1): 125–136; C.O. ACNETA: African No 1110, May 1927: Memo on The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education, revised 1931). Also translated into French and German. London: IIALC (1933, republished 1973) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952/1970. Africa 1(1) (1928): 107–111; 2(1) (1929): 79–80; 2(3) (1929): 314-316; Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011): 238. Remarks of Leopold Amery and D. Westermann, Minutes of conference on African Problems, LP, GD40/17/120. Tilley (2011): 82. IIALC, “Use of Vernacular in Education”; resolution passed at the Eighth Meeting of the Executive Council, Rome, October 1930. A Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London: Longman Green, 1929): 140; J.H. Oldham & B.D. Gibson, The Remaking of Man in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931): 66. Diedrich Westermann, “The Missionary as an Anthropological Fieldworker,” Africa 4(2) (1931): 164–177; for further consideration of these issues, see Ch. 4. How it was possible for such an ethos to exist in the context of colonial rule, especially in an era of increasing political strife, was not addressed. http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/684/Hoofstuk_3. 2.pdf.txt?sequence=73. Thanks to Kees van der Waal for this reference. See Cynthia Kros, The Seeds of Separate Development: Origins of Bantu Education (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2010); Andrew Bank, “Fathering Volkekunde: Race and Culture in the Ethnological Writings and Teachings of Werner Eiselen, Hamburg, Berlin and Stellenbosch Universities,” paper presented at the Indexing the Human Seminar, Stellenbosch University, March 2015; UG 50/1951, Report of the Commission on Native Education, 1949–1951 (Eiselen Report)).

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 32 33

34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48

Diedrich Westermann (1934) also published in French and German); Afrika heute und morgen (Berlin: Essenverlag, 1937); African Today and Tomorrow (London: IIALC, 1939, 1949). H. Glenn Penny & Matti Bunzl (eds.) Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of Empire (Anne Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003); Gretchen E. Schafft, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007); Andre Gingrich, “Alliances and Avoidance: British Interactions with German – Speaking Anthropologists, 1933–1953,” in Deborah James, E. Plaice, & C. Toren (eds.) Culture Wars: Contexts, Models and Anthropologist’s Accounts (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012): 19–31. Many thanks to Gunther Pakendorf for information in this regard. Werner Ustorf, “ ‘Survival of the Fittest’: German Protestant Missions, Nazism and Neocolonialism, 1933–45,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28(1) (1998): 99, 110. His key publications relating to this issue included “Kultur und Mission in Afrika,” in Julius Richter (ed.) Das Buch den Deutschen Weltmission (Gotha, 1935): 145–151; Africa and Christianity (London: Oxford University Press, 1937). For a more detailed treatment of these issues, see Peter Kallaway in Lessing (2015). Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450–1950 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996): 550–559. Doris Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). Lord Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London: Blackwood, 1922); see f. 25. Minutes of the First Meeting for the Inauguration of the IIALC, held at the School of Oriental Studies, London on the 29/30 June 1926. Rockefeller Archives, LSRM, 25, 3 Box 55, Folder 587. Hailey (1937): 80. Tilley (2011): 89, 238. Subsequently replaced by Henri Labouret. CO, 879/121, African No. 1110, 1927; IMC/CBMS Box 223, 225. Also see Westermann (1925): 25–36 and “The Standardization of African Languages,” Oversea Education 6(1) (1934): 1–7. Also see Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003): 126–127; “The Medium of Instruction in Colonial Education,” History of Education 24(1) (1995): 1–15. See f. 1. Murray (1929): 140. Tilley (2011): 89–95. The correspondence regarding the history of these grants is to be found in the Rockefeller Foundation archive.

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49

50

51 52 53 54

55

56 57

58 59

60

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LSRM /25/3 Box 55/Folder 596; Rockefeller Fund/1.1 Projects/475 Africa/Folders 1–6/Box 4755/IIALC. The grants and fellowships awarded by the IIALC to German researchers are recorded in the IIALC papers at the LSE. IAI/1/18 German. Those listed in the minutes of 1937 include Fellowships and Special Grants for Fieldwork or Study to: P Schumacher (1932), Dr G K Wagner (1934), Dr E von Sydow (1936), Dr H J Mezian (1933), Frl. Dr E Meyer (1937), Mr O.F. Raum (undated) and Dr E L Rapp (undated). In 1929 Lugard praised Westermann’s work to Frank Baddeley, the officer administering the government of Nigeria in 1929, stating that he had “unique experience in dealing with practical problems that arise in connection with the orthography of African vernaculars.” LSE: IAI/307 42/65, Lugard to Baddeley, 3 Feb. 1929. See Africa 4(2): 164–177; D. Westermann & R. Thurnwald, The Missionary and Anthropological Research (London: Oxford University Press, 1932). Hastings (1996): 542. Ustorf (1998): 106. Holger Stoecker, “The Advancement of African Studies in Berlin by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1920–1945,” in Helen Tilley & Rob Gordon (eds.) Ordering Africa (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007): 83; Utstrof (1998): 99. Ustorf provides evidence to demonstrate that the dominant figure behind “the Nazification of the entire colonial movement” was Ribbentrop who was closely involved in the development of the foreign policy of the Third Reich in the 1930s, was ambassador to London 1936–8, and foreign secretary from 1938–1945. Committees on Colonial Science were established in Berlin and Hamburg to support this work. Westermann, Meinhof, Schlunk and Freytag played key roles here. (Ustorf (1998): 110 f. 32) Stoecker (2007): 83. For a fuller investigation of these events and the involvement of German scientists in Nazi policy see Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, “Ethnology and Fascism in Germany,” Dialectical Anthropology 9(1/4) (1985): 313–335; Schafft (2007). Essen: Essener verlaganstaldt, (1937). Stuttgart: Enke, 1939: 383–404; see Jell-Bahlsen (1985): 322. Also see “Interviews with German Anthropologists”: Preuss: www.germananthropology.com/short-portrait/konrad-theodorpreuss/191. Wilson Wallis’s review in American Anthropologist [40 (4) Pt. I (1938): 747]. Essen: Essener verlagstaldt, 1940. Although Probst implicates these authors in the charge that all contributions to this volume were

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61 62 63 64 65

66 67

68 69 70

“impregnated with the revangist and expansionist plan to reappropriate and reconquer the lost colonies,” he notes that of the three Baumann “exemplified the new milieu most explicitly.” See Probst (2006–7): 178. Richard Thurnwald enjoyed a career that was in many ways similar to that of Westermann as he had a much more international experience than many of his German anthropological colleagues. He obtained a post at Berlin University in 1924 and remained there until the 1950s. His major publication in Germany was Die menschliche Gesellschaft in iheren ethno-sociologischen Grundlagen, 5 Vols. (Berlin, 1931–5). In 1925 he obtained a fellowship to the Royal Anthropological Institute in London which open the way to a long – term association with the IIALC and numerous publications in Africa. His book Black and White in East Africa (London, 1932) was the result of an extended study visit to Tanganyika funded by The Rockefeller Foundation through the IIALC. In 1939 he edited Lehrbuch der Völkerkunde (Stuttgart); see also Robert H. Lowe, “Richard Thurnwald,” American Anthropologist 56 (1954): 863–867. Stuttgart: Enke, 1940: 397. Berlin: Deutscher verlag, 1941: 260p. Also see “Die Koloniale Aufgaben den Vӧlkerkunde,” Koloniale Rundschau XXXII#1; “Wir und die Eingeborenen,” Koloniale Rundschau XXXII#3. See Westermann (1941) Afrika als europäische Aufgabe: Ch. XII: 247-256. See Westermann (1941): 112–117. Also see CO, Nutrition in the British Empire (London: HMSO, 1939). Ustorf (1998): 102–112 citing Gunther Wolff’s memo on “Aufgaben der deutschen Kolonialpolitiek,” 11 November 1940; EMW-A 74. Also see Colonial policy Office of the National Socialist Party, “Guidelines for Colonial Policy Schooling,” Office of Schooling, Reich’s Leadership of the KPA- NSDAP, Berlin, October 1940. Stoecker (2007): 82–83. It should be noted that this represented an extension of the anthropological research on Africa POWs that had been conducted during World War I. See Andrew D. Evans, “Anthropology at War: Racial Studies of POWs during World War I,” in Penny & Bunzl (2003): 198–229. Stoecker (2007): 82. These only finally arrived in January 1948. See LSE archive, IAI307 42/65 D. Westermann: telegrams and letters from DW in Bremen to Mrs Wyatt, 12 October, 1945), H. Vischer, Lord Hailey (15, October 1945); November /December 1945.; report by Betty Gibson on a visit to Berlin 26 November 1945; DW to Mrs Wyatt, 24 June 1955.

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72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85

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See John Stuart, “Dorothea Lehmann and John V. Taylor: Researching Church and Society in Late Colonial Africa,” in Patrick Harries & David Maxwell (eds.) The Spiritual and the Secular: Missionaries and Knowledge about Africa (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdemans, 2012): 293–312. Africa XXVI (4) (1956): 329–331. Koln (1952). IAI/307 42/64/D Westermann, 30 July 1947. Ustorf (1998): 110 f. 34. I have not been able to establish the precise circumstances. IAI /307 42/65 DW to M Wyatt, 074 no date. Cited in Daryll Forde’s obituary, Africa XXVI(4) (October 1956): 330-331. B. Malinowski to J H Oldham: Malinowski Papers /9/12: 117–120. Also see correspondence on this issue between Oldham and the Rockefeller Foundation: Memorandum: Programme of the IIALC: Conversation with Mr J.H. Oldham, 12 October 1931. P. 3: Rockefeller Fund/1.1 Projects/475 African/Folder 1–6 Box 4775 IIALC 1931. See E.G. Malherbe (ed.) Educational Adaptations to a Changing Society (Cape Town: Juta, 1937). It was subsequently published as “Native Education and Culture Contact,” International Review of Missions 25 (1936): 480–515. Malinowski to Westermann, April 1934: Malinowski Papers: 29/20. Vischer to Lugard, 22 August 1941. IAI/307 42/65 DW: 069. Jell-Bahlsen (1985): 324. Murray (1938): 140. William H. Macmillan, Complex South Africa (London: Faber & Faber, 1930): 8.

Chapter 6

Donald Guy Sydney M’timkulu South African educationalist: 1907-2000

Introduction At the present time when South Africans are asking a variety of questions about the origins of our political and social culture it seems important to look to the years prior to apartheid in order to understand the diverse roots of our heritage. In a world where discourse about educational policy and practice is increasingly being reduced to statistical or computational analysis, it is of great significance to stress the role of education as a contributor to a humanistic vision of society at an international and local level in the first half of the twentieth century. In that context it is of particular significance to understand the role of individuals who helped to craft the ethos of public education in the metropolitan and colonial context. As the previous chapters have attempted to indicate, without an understanding of the complex world that such individuals navigated, we might fail to grasp important aspects of that story. As Colin Bundy has recently pointed out, biography has not always enjoyed a good reputation with historians as it has too often been associated with a “great man” approach to the subjects which often failed to adequately contextualize the lives of the subjects or relate them to “the climate of power” or the complexities of the societies in which they lived. Whether we turn to the biographies of Jan Smuts or Nelson Mandela, there has been a dominant teleological and nationalistic framework, emphasizing the “good fight” for the improvement of the nation or the emancipation of a particular group, which few biographers have been able to escape.1 It has only been in 193

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the international context of the move to locate biography in the realm of social history and recognize the “hybridity of identity” that the world of individual subjects has begun to be “rescued from obscurity.”2 In South Africa that process has not gained much traction in the years since 1994. Despite a slew of biographies, they have for the most part followed in the great man tradition and sought to affirm the dominant political theme of the heroic struggles of nationalist heroes and politicians and to locate such biographies within the evolving practices of African nationalism and resistance politics, often airbrushing other movements or aspects of political, social and economic life or of individuals who do not qualify for “heroic status.” An interesting question for the historian seems to relate to individuals who are not captured by identity politics (whether defined by ethnicity, gender, language, nationalism or class identity) but who crafted complex understandings of the evolving context in which they lived, and as in the present case, attempted to shape meanings from the complexities of colonial life that would provide a platform for professional engagement with educational policy. In that context it seems important to explore the lives of individuals who might provide insights into the complex layers of social life in colonial South Africa. This chapter seeks to explore the career of an influential black educationalist and member of the new intellectual elite and how he engaged with diversities of social, political and ideological issues from the time he graduated as a teacher in the early 1930s from the South African Native College (Fort Hare) to the time he went into voluntary exile in 1959, and beyond. Given the lack of a comprehensive body of work related to the intellectual history of black South Africans in the pre-apartheid era, I attempt through the life and career of Donald M’timkulu, “to highlight the complexity of these colonial lives.” Philip Zachernuk in his study of “Colonial Subjects” in Nigeria points out that “intellectual life was more diverse, accidental, tentative and complex than simplified characterizations can reveal.” His remarks about Nigeria seem to be extremely relevant to a nuanced understanding of South Africa’s emergent intellectual elite in the interwar years. Instead of the long search for those seen to be duped by “cultural imperialism” or missionary dogma, or ideas of the true African identity, he argues that “the Nigerian intelligentsia are best treated as the contemporaries of the intelligentsia in Britain, America and elsewhere, critically aware of relevant ideas, rather than an isolated or backward group lagging behind contemporary trends.”3 Paul la Hausse has also noted that few 194

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historians, whether liberal, Africanist or revisionist, have successfully entered the “poorly illuminated world” of the cultural intermediaries who inhabited the “betwixt and between location of second tier nationalist leaders” and made up the black elite in colonial settings. Although their identity often related to church groups, professional communities, cooperative societies or business activities – it was in most cases strongly shaped by the experience of the mission school. A study of the teachers and teacher organizations seems a likely place to begin if one wishes to illuminate the historical experience of this elusive group. Most significantly, La Hause argues that “their uneasy location makes their vexed relationship with authority and their frequently ambivalent stance towards the disenfranchised difficult to grasp in terms either of the metaphor of the mask or the dyad of collaboration/resistance.”4 Frederick Cooper has also commented on this issue. He has argued that positing a colonial modernity reduces the conflicting strategies of colonization to a modernity perhaps never experienced by those being colonized, gives insufficient weight to the ways in which colonized peoples sought – not entirely without success – to build lives in the crevices of colonial power, deflecting, appropriating, or reinterpreting the teachings and preachings thrust upon them … colonial power, like any other, was the object of struggle and depended on the material, social and cultural resources of those involved. The colonizer and the colonized are themselves far from immutable constructs and such categories had to be reproduced by specific actions.5

On this view a nuanced understanding of “cultural imperialism” involves an understanding of the nature of both domination and dialogue. In the process of seeking to understand the life and career of Donald M’timkulu, I attempt to make use of such a balanced interpretation of his educational philosophy which seeks to locate him as holding a balance between traditional African values and culture (the case for indigenous language teaching in schools) and the demands of modern life (the learning of the English language), as well as between the limits of liberal reformism in native policy and the radical demands of African nationalism or Pan Africanism. I seek to understand how he engaged with the variety of forms of missionary education and issues of educational reform that he encountered within the politics of the late colonial encounter. The focus is on his personal journey to engage with the national and international challenges of the times regarding educational policy. I stress his 195

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encounter with comparative models of education in relation to the experience of black Americans and colonized peoples in Africa and elsewhere, and how he navigated between the various models of educational reform, outlined elsewhere in this collection.

Lovedale Institution and Printer’s shop-1930s (J Wells, Stewart of Lovedale (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909): 210, 215

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Donald M’timkulu from R.L Peteni, Towards Tomorrow (1978)

Donald M’timkulu was involved in African teacher politics, the African National Congress (ANC), the All-Africa Convention (AAC) and liberal pressure groups such as the Joint Council of Europeans and Bantu (JCEB) and the South African Institute of Race Relation (SAIRR), continuing a tradition of negotiation and delegation that for many Africans had run its course by the late 1930s. But in the hiatus of radical politics brought about by the Depression, and the increasingly repressive nature of state policy, there appears to have still been a role for such engagement.6 In later years he appears to cut a rather isolated figure as one of the few Africans who remained on the executive of the SAIRR well into the apartheid era.7 After he left for Zambia in 1959 in protest against the introduction of Bantu Education, he worked with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the All-Africa Church Conference (AACC) in the new environment of African ecumenical cooperation in an independent Africa. M’timkulu’s quiet engagement with these issues was undramatic. The major concerns of his career involved the everyday business of teaching or managing the institutions he served, or engaging with the immediate issues affecting the provision of education to black South Africans. He was unusual in his acceptance of the many wider challenges involved in representing his community of educators and the students and parents he served, though in truth we have little detailed evidence of these everyday activities. This account simply attempts to chart the course of his life and career from the fragmentary evidence I have been able to assemble and to use this to

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build a picture of the world he inhabited, the challenges he faced and his contribution to our history. I only met Donald M’timkulu once, on a snowy November day on 1989, at his home in the woods near Elmira in Ontario, where he and his partner, Doris, entertained me for the day while I interviewed him about his experience as a Carnegie Scholar and student of Charles Loram at Yale University from September 1935 to February 1937. When we met, he was already over 80 years old but had remarkably comprehensive recollections of events that had taken place more than 50 years previously. He had been attached to Renison College at the University of Waterloo since August 1968, where he had been Professor of Sociology and Director of Social Development Studies.8 He had been one of the very few Africans selected for Carnegie Fellowships to Yale in the 1930s and it seemed strangely symbolic shortly before the end of apartheid that he should have found a new home so far from his native South Africa. I had a strong sense of a kind and welcoming man who was dedicated to education, and we immediately struck a note of collegiality. For many reasons I have never returned to those interview tapes in the intervening years. Then recently I read a number of references to M’timkulu and this spurred me to re-examine his career and expand on the material I had gathered both before and after our meeting in the hope that it might have some relevance to current debates about education and culture in South Africa and to an understanding of the educational context he inhabited. Piecing together the story has been a difficult challenge in the absence of any archival papers, and the fact that 60 years have passed since he lived in South Africa. Apart from my 1989 taped interviews, I had therefore to rely on a much more fragile construction of his identity from the evidence of what he did and what he wrote about in the fragments of material that I have been able to salvage from a variety of sources. Perhaps the most important and illuminating of those sources relating to his American experience are the three short articles he wrote on his visit to the black educational institutions in the South in 1936 with C.T. Loram and the Carnegie students of the Department of Race Relations at Yale. I have also been able to trace evidence of some of his activities at that time and a number of his publications subsequent to his return to South Africa in 1937. These related mostly to the changing nature of Native Policy and of “native education” prior to and during the early apartheid era.

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Background: Adams College, Lovedale and Fort Hare Donald M’timkulu was born in Ladysmith, Natal, on Christmas Day 1906, the son of a clergyman, Reverend Abner S. M’timkulu (ca 1875– 1954) and his wife Constance. Abner had attended a Methodist seminary in England. On his return to South Africa he spent the early years of his career as a Methodist minister in Ndabeni, Cape Town.9 In the mid-1920s the family moved to Pietermaritzburg and Reverend M’timkulu relocated to the Bantu Methodist Church (BMC) under circumstances which seem to indicate a degree of conflict with the Methodist Church of South Africa (MCSA). He eventually became president of the BMC. In 1929 he was a key member of the organizing committee of the National European Bantu Conference (NEBC) that was held in Cape Town under the chairmanship of Professor Jabavu and Howard Pim.10 He was one of the trustees of the Bantu Welfare Trust established in 1936 to forward the general aims of the SAIRR.11 He was deputy to John Dube in the Natal ANC while also being a prominent member of the AAC in the 1930s and taking an active role in Natal politics. Donald M’timkulu began school in Pietermaritzburg. He was identified as a talented student at an early stage and selected by Charles T. Loram, the Chief Inspector of Native Education in Natal, for a place at Amanzimtoti Training Institution (Adams College), the flagship boys’ school of the American Zulu Mission (AZM) of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Natal.12 From there he proceeded to Lovedale Institution in the Eastern Cape for Junior Certificate in the early 1920s, and thence to the SANC, the only place which offered a matriculation certificate to Africans. This enabled him to enrol for studies leading to a university degree with the University of South Africa. He is listed as a first-year student at Fort Hare in 1925. He subsequently obtained a double first class for a bachelor of arts degree in English and ethics in 1927.13 There is also some evidence that he also began studies for medicine at the University of Cape Town, but in later years he reported that “I soon realized that medicine was not for me. I transferred my affection to the arts.”14 In 1930 he received a Diploma in Education from Fort Hare which qualified him as a teacher.15 He was awarded a victor ludorum cup for sport in 1927 and 1930.16 He received a Queen Victoria Scholarship to study for an MA in English at the University of South Africa (UNISA).17 The degree was conferred at the Fort Hare

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graduation on 16 June 1932. This represented the first MA degree awarded by UNISA to a black student.18

Y.M.C.A Buildings, South African Native College (Fort Hare), Alice. from T.D. Mweli Skota, (ed.) African Yearly Register (1932) p402

The research for the MA related to the teaching of English in African schools. This was an issue which preoccupied him throughout his career. He claimed that he was encouraged by Alexander Kerr, the principal of Fort Hare, to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship based of his outstanding academic record, but M’timkulu was refused on grounds of race. Despite these setbacks, he maintained that Loram kept a “fatherly eye” on him over these years, and this was to have significant implications for his future career.19 While at Fort Hare M’timkulu was involved in student politics and he recalled that Loram, now as head of the Native Affairs Commission (NAC), was a frequent visitor and supporter of the institution.

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Commemoration stamps of the Fort Hare anniversary (PK)

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Max Yergan, the influential black American YMCA leader based at Fort Hare during these years and key organizer of the “Bantu Europeans Student Conference on Christian Students and Modern South Africa” in 1930, noted M’timkulu as “an interesting individual and leader of the Fort Hare Student Council who was responsible for assisting with the organisation of this highly controversial event sponsored by the Student Christian Association.” As Jo-Marie Claassens points out, despite the attendance of 344 delegates, including 130 students from Lovedale and Fort Hare, the conference was massively dominated by white liberals and caused major backlash for the Afrikaner churchmen who attended. The only politician who attended was Jan Hofmeyr, minister of education, who gave the opening address. Africans who spoke were R.V. Selope Thema, the cosecretary of the Johannesburg Joint Council of Europeans and Bantu, and Dr A.B. Xuma, of the ANC.20 M’timkulu subsequently returned to Adams College as an English teacher and was associated with the establishment of the Durban Bantu Social Centre,21 which was influenced by the American Board’s “social gospel” approach to mission work being promoted from the late 1920s by Frederick Bridgman, James Dexter Taylor and Ray Philips.22 All of this inserted him into a framework of liberal political engagement characteristic of the 1930s. As Paul Rich, Saul Dubow and others have pointed out, in this context, “the elaboration of segregationist ideology” had been strongly influenced by a number of people from Natal, including Maurice Evans, Howard Pim, Edgar Brookes, Charles Loram and Heaton Nicholls from the early post – Union era.23 Particularly significant for the present project is the prominent role of Loram in this group as an advocate of “cultural adaptation” and as an opponent of the approach to educational policy favoured historically in the Cape Colony which supported an undifferentiated approach to curriculum. My interest in M’timkulu is that he was able to engage with this set of initiatives dominated by “liberal” whites through the Joint Councils and the SAIRR, while always maintaining a degree of independence and integrity in relation to his African constituency and his role in defending African educational rights and the independence of the teaching profession. A key element of M’timkulu’s career was therefore his partial adherence to the liberal ideals of the Cape, which sought to promote a common curriculum for black and white high school students with due regard for indigenous language education in the primary school, and his partial agreements with the adaptationist/culturalist 202

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approach often associated with Loram and the Phelps-Stokes Commissions (see Chapters 1, 2, 4). But he also comes across as dedicated to the kind of education he himself had received at Adams College and Lovedale, which sought to prepare Africans for higher education on equal terms with whites. The skillful manner in which he was to navigate between those poles in the complex corridors of education policy in South Africa and the United States over the following 30 years provides the core of this story. M’timkulu subsequently obtained a post at Healdtown, the flagship Methodist school in South Africa that had been established in 1855.24 During this time he married Clytie Seleka, the daughter of the Seleka Baralong chief W.Z. Fenyang, a prominent member of the wealthy landowning elite of Thaba Nchu, who was a close friend of Sol Plaatje and backer of his newspaper Tsala ea Becoana.25 She was the niece of Dr James Moroko, physician, landowner and businessman, who was to become the president of the ANC between 1949 and 1952.26 Clytie had studied music and home economics at London Polytechnic.27 Together with her mother-in-law, Constance M’timkulu, she founded the African branch of the YMCA in Durban. They had three children, Thoko, Lizo and Thabiso. As mentioned previously M’timkulu developed an interest in the study of education based on his MA research related to the use of African languages in schools. While still teaching at Healdtown he was one of the few Africans who participated in the international New Education Fellowship (NEF) conference in Cape Town, organized by E.G. Malherbe and J.D. Rheinallt Jones in 1934 (see Chapter 2). The views he expressed in a session on “The Medium Question” within the overall theme on “Educational Policy and Practice,” reflect much of the debate on these issues that have persisted to the present day.28 While defending the importance of the use of African languages in primary schools and the need for the use of “the language in which the child thinks and in which its whole mental structure has been built up since infancy” if maximum cognitive development was to be promoted, he argued that one of the “chief reasons” for the neglect of Bantu languages at school was “the opposition of the Bantu themselves” who increasingly saw the command of English (or Afrikaans in certain geographical areas) as a key to entry into the modern economy and a mechanism for limiting inter-ethnic friction among Africans themselves. He points to the great issue of how and when to introduce the use of English into schools given the fact that the majority of children only attended for a very limited period. His overall call is for 203

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bilingualism if schooling is to contribute significantly to the national life of South Africa in which “Black and White have to live harmoniously side by side.”29 These are themes which were developed earlier in relation to the linguistic work of Diedrich Westermann (Chapter 5) and will be pursued later in relation to Samuel Mqhayi’s contribution to isiXhosa education (Chapter 7). The Carnegie Foundation support for this conference was a significant link in M’timkulu’s future career, as this connection was to lead to the opportunity to study in the United States as an alternative to the Rhodes scholarship. The conference gave M’timkulu his first insight into the educational policy world of the 1930s and the dynamics of participation in the patriarchal and patronizing colonial educational policy ethos, where African voices were hardly taken seriously. Given the political undercurrents of the conference, so lucidly explored by Sue Krige,30 it seems significant to note there were only five Africans, all from Southern African, who presented in a conference of some 150 delegates. At this time M’timkulu became involved in teacher politics for the first time, which was to provide a focus for much of his future career in South Africa. He was the president of the Fort Beaufort and Victoria East Teachers’ Association (FBVETA), which was affiliated to the Cape African Teachers’ Association (CATA), and he was a committee member of CATA in 1934, during the presidency of his mentor Donald Jabavu. He was appointed to the editorial board of its new journal, first called The Cata, but subsequently renamed The Teachers’ Vision. In the following year the journal noted that he was leaving to study in America and that he had resigned from this post. The journal congratulated him on “being granted an additional $1000 to continue studies for a doctorate in philosophy.”31

Donald D. Jabavu (Skota :158)

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During this time it would seem that M’timkulu had maintained his contact with Loram. As indicated earlier, Loram had been the Inspector of Native Education in Natal, then head of the NAC, a member of the second Phelps-Stokes Commission of Enquiry into Education in East Africa (1924),32 a key mover in the Joint Councils of Europeans and Natives movement, and from 1929, the first president of the Carnegie funded SAIRR. In 1931 he was the recipient of an honorary MA degree from Yale University, and soon after this took up the post of Stirling Professor of Education at this prestigious institution. In that position he was to be the chairman and director of the Department of Culture Contacts and Race Relations in the Graduate School. Despite the poverty of evidence regarding M’timkulu’s life at this time it seems safe to assume that it was through these networks and his associations with the Joint Councils, the SAIRR, Fort Hare and Loram that he was granted a Carnegie Fellowship to study at Yale from September 1935 to February/March 1937. After long delays in obtaining a passport he was finally able to take it up.33 At Yale he would be introduced to the world of late colonial education policymaking and the networks that Loram embraced, where philanthropic foundations like the Carnegie Foundation of New York (CFNY), the Rockefeller and Phelps-Stokes Foundations, in association with major missionary networks linked to the IMC, were attempting to establish a key base for colonial educational policy research and development (see Chapters 1 and 2).

The Carnegie Grant and Yale University Charles Loram has been mentioned previously in relation to the educational policy networks being explored in this collection. Yet the absence of a comprehensive biography of his life and career makes it difficult to gain a firm picture of the world that Donald M’timkulu entered in New Haven in the Fall term of 1935, five years into Loram’s stay at Yale, but it is essential to gain some understanding of that world in the context of the ideological currents of the 1930s if M’timkulu’s experience of, and response to, it is to be appreciated in relation to previous chapters.34 It is important to note that he was joining a small group of influential black South Africans who had had the experience of studying at Yale. Particularly important for this context is Z.K. Matthews, M’timkulu’s mentor and friend, who had also 205

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been a student at Lovedale and Fort Hare, and qualified as a teacher before becoming the head of Adams High School in 1925.35

Z.K. Matthews (Dictionary of African Biography III:15.)

As noted earlier, Loram, after studying law at Cambridge, had been the chief Inspector of Native Education in Natal and in 1914 took leave from this post to take up a scholarship from the Union government for graduate study at Teachers College where he completed a thesis on the topic of African education in Natal.36 James Campbell gives an excellent potted history of his subsequent career, showing the key aspects of Loram’s philosophy in relation to African education and its close linkages to many of the themes explored in the rest of this collection in relation to colonial education in Africa. While completing a doctorate on education at Columbia Teachers’ College, Loram conducted extensive research on Afro-American education, traveling to Hampton, Tuskegee and other historically black colleges. In 1917 he published The Education of the South African Native, one of the most influential books on African education ever written. Part history, part segregationist tract, the book was above all an elaboration of the potential value of the American educational models in Africa. Loram proceeded from two premises: first that segregation allowed blacks to develop at their own pace and thus offered a prudent middle path between “the twin follies of repression and racial equality”; second, that education should be adapted to the circumstances and needs of the host society, including, in the case of South Africa, the need for black labour. Loram’s recommendations flowed from three premises: curricula should be weighted towards industrial and practical arts with a carefully 206

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA chosen diet of higher education offered to future African leaders; use of vernacular languages in instruction should be increased, though the “ultimate supremacy of the European language” should be preserved; education should recognise Africans’ rural proclivities and “induce educated Natives to return to the land.”37

Loram’s agendas are extremely difficult to decode as he often seems to contradict himself – or as noted above in relation to other individuals referred to – he addressed different audiences in different terms. He promoted the view that colonial education should not simply be a copy of “Western Education” – with all problems that followed from these assumptions. Saul Dubow also notes that he had consistently supported an “anthropological approach” to educational policy during his tenure as chair of the Native Affairs Commission, essentially supporting a separate policy for native education in South Africa.38 On returning to South Africa he was offered the post of Inspector of Native Education in Natal and instituted an era of reform based on his American experience which placed the emphasis on educational management and adapted education.39 He was subsequently appointed by the South African Party government to head of the Native Affairs Commission. He was dismissed by Prime Minister Hertzog in 1928. Despite his considerable achievement in establishing the SAIRR at this time, this setback to his career seems to have influenced him to move to the United States. From the time Loram was offered a post at Yale University in 1931 his focus was to be on the study of “education for primitive or indigenous peoples,” or the issue of “education and culture contact,” which had emerged as a significant foci for research and development, although it was by no means recognized as a secure scientific field. Through the links he had developed with the Phelps-Stokes fund and the Carnegie Foundation he had come to be regarded as an expert on the promotion of the adaptationist approach to education in colonial Africa which emphasized the virtues of building rural communities and enhancing education for rural development as a means to isolate Africans from the “negative effects” of modernization and change. This approach had strong parallels to the policies he promoted in Natal.40 Soon after his initial appointment at Yale in the field of education in 1931, he was to expand his brief to become Chairman and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Race Relations. His success at Yale was an index to the degree of influence the Carnegie Foundation 207

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and American Protestant missions had on the institution. Like Felix Keesing in New Zealand and Hawaii, and Thomas Mcllwraith in Canada, his career rested largely on the promise that the study of “culture contact” and “race relations” in an “objective and scientific manner” would yield solutions to the intractable political issues facing the colonial powers, including the United States and Canada, in their relations to “subject peoples” or “backward peoples.”41 During the 1930s Loram attempted to advance solutions to these complex problems at various “conference/seminars” where he established a network of educationalists, academics and administrators committed to the field. As Richard Heyman notes, the significance of Loram’s initiative can be gauged by the fact that his students had attracted some $40,500 in grants by 1937.42 It seems that Loram’s program represented a ground-breaking racial initiative at Yale as blacks had not been admitted prior to this time. Yet the research profile and the long-term impact of the initiative were to be limited as the promised research and policy advice failed to be realized. In 1937 Loram set out in the graduate calendar the objectives of the Department of Culture Contacts and Race Relations: The work offered in the field of Race Relations has been set up for students interested in the effects of the contact of Western civilization on other civilizations and cultures and the race problems resulting therefrom. In particular it is designed to provide opportunities for the study and research for those who are engaged in work as officials, educators and missionaries among non-Western peoples.43

In defence of his Department’s role in policy development, Loram pointed out in 1937 that he had attended conferences in many parts of North America in addition to others in Africa, Hawaii and Europe, and that he had “undertaken fieldwork in Africa, the Near East, Hawaii, Japan, China and the Philippine Islands.”44 He stressed that his department had attracted and received generous support from Yale University and from other Departments in the Graduate School,45 and from a wide variety of funders such as the Carnegie Corporation, the General Education Board,46 the Julius Rosenwald Fund, the Phelps Stokes Fund. He stressed that this course focused on the teaching and development of applied knowledge and was disdainful of anthropological studies that failed to produce knowledge that was useful to government officials, missionaries and educators.47 208

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It is important at this point to make some comment on the role of the Carnegie Corporation in the strategies outlined. Loram’s initiative at Yale and the general thrust of Carnegie program need to be seen in the wider context of the ideology of American Foundation philanthropy in the 1930s. These initiatives, as Edward Berman has pointed out, were aimed at “fostering certain lines of enquiry and deemphasising others,” or “gatekeeping ideas” that would create a “common sense knowledge” about desirable lines of social and economic development both in the United States and in the international arena. The support of the Foundations for various educational configurations both at home and abroad cannot be separated from their attempts to evolve a stable domestic polity and a world order amenable to their interests and the strengthening of international capitalism.

The tendency on the part of the Carnegie Institute trustees “to support researchers whose political viewpoints mirrored their own, and whose conclusions tended to fall within the predetermined parameters acceptable to both the Foundation’s patrons and the researcher,” was a key element of the strategy. The idea was to create a common-sense knowledge that would inform the emergent generation of elite intellectuals in emergent states. This approach was aimed at creating circumstances in a changing world that would ensure that change was “predictable, manageable and consonant with the perceived economic and strategic interests of the USA.” The capacity of the Foundations to allocate capital to certain individuals (like Loram or Thomas Jesse Jones or Keesing) and strategically located cultural institutions (like the Phelps-Stokes Foundation or Yale University) represented a means of fostering these ends. Berman implies a general set of strategies here but admits that the contradictory nature of liberal capitalism was often demonstrated by the conflicts that arose within the class of people engaged in defining these strategies. The world inhabited by Loram and M’timkulu needs to be understood in the context of these ideological currents that defined the 1930s.48 In order to engage with practical policy dialogue, and to demonstrate the commitment of the program to applied research and practical experience, Loram organized a series of “seminar conferences” between 1934 and 1939. The first of these was held at Yale University in 1934 as part of a Summer Seminar under the 209

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auspices of the CCNY and the General Education Board with the theme of “Education and Culture Contact.” Nearly 100 delegates and graduate students met with distinguished faculty to discuss educational problems “arising out of the contact of widely differing races and cultures,” especially as they manifested themselves among racial minorities in the United States and among the colonial peoples of West Indies, Africa, British India and China.49 This event was followed by a series of conference/seminars: the 1935 Inter-territorial Jeanes Conference on Village Education held in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia;50 the 1936 Hawaii-Yale seminar in Honolulu;51 the 1937 North Carolina/Yale/Hampton seminar, and similar events in Colorado (1937) and Toronto (1939),52 all of which attempted to draw together experts in the field. A key feature of the courses offered in the Department of Race Relations was the annual student field trips to the South to provide exposure to the supposed lessons of good social and educational practice framed to promote “sound race relations,” held to be epitomized by the model educational experiment of Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee College in Alabama.53 M’timkulu was to make such a journey in the summer of 1936, and it was one of the major experiences of his stay at Yale which helped him to think through many of his assumptions about the nature of education. This was demonstrated by the contents of the interviews I had with him and by what he wrote in the articles published in The Teachers’ Vision in the following year.

Charles Loram, Professor of Education and Race Relations at Yale, Selby Ngcobo, South African student at Yale and Nathaniel Hathorne, of the “Indian Authority” at Pima Indian School, Sacaton, Arizona,1940 (photo courtesy of Richard Glotzer)

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University of Toronto/Yale University Conference: From C.T. Loram & T.F. McIlwraith (eds.) The North American Indian Today, September 4-16, 1939 (Toronto,1943).

The world that Don M’timkulu entered at Yale in 1935 was a space where Loram and his funders were hoping to find solutions to the complex problems of colonialism and race relations in what turned out to be the final phase of colonial development. These debates reflected those explored in the British and German contexts but take on different forms despite sharing common research and policy agendas.

Life at Yale: 1935–1937 Although M’timkulu did not leave any account of his immediate experience of Yale University, it is important to recognize that he was among the few blacks who breached these walls of white privilege. The only other South African students referred to by M’timkulu, who were in New Haven at the same time, were John Steytler, a Dutch Reformed Missionary from Nyasaland, Oscar Emanuelson from the Native Education Department in Natal and Milner L. Kabane, head of the Practising School at Lovedale.54 It has been possible to gain some sense of M’timkulu’s experience from a letter of advice from Z.K. Matthews to Alexander Kerr, the principal of Fort Hare, regarding the stay of Milner Kabane in 1934. 211

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From other evidence we know that M’timkulu had received a “grantin-aid” from the Carnegie Corp. of $1000,00, the same amount that was due to Kabane, and Matthews notes that this is sufficient to the needs since tuition was $300,00 per year and “University room rent” $8,00 a week (which he recommended rather than private boarding, as it gave easy access to “the facilities such as lectures, concerts etc. of which there are so many here at Yale”). Matthews was also most complementary about his fellow students and the support of the academic staff.55 M’timkulu played for the first soccer team at Yale, admitting humorously to an interviewer many years later that “of course the Americans are not very good at soccer.”56 The courses successfully completed by M’timkulu in the Department of Race Relations between September 1935 and February 1937 included the following: • The Introduction of Western Civilization to Non-Western People • The Education of Non-Western People • Social Anthropology • Ethnology • General Seminar in Education • High School and College Education57 Field trips, fieldwork and Christian work A key aspect of Loram’s Carnegie program at Yale was the Special Grant allocated for student field trips to provide for visits to black educational institutions in the United States. These trips, according to M’timkulu, were part of Loram’s “elitist idea” to get the groups to bind and form attachments and linkages that would prepare them for their roles in their own societies. The exposure to the experience of Southern blacks, in the modern urban context of Washington and Atlanta, and remote rural contexts such as those found in Penn Island or Virginia, would demonstrate areas of progress to the group and show them the diversity of responses in the field of education to the challenges of the context in which they lived. The visits included one teacher rural primary schools and the most advanced higher education institutions such as Howard and Fisk Universities and Tuskegee Institution, where they observed radically different models of education for black Americans. All this M’timkulu told me, he found to be “a very useful experience.” He also saw the members of the black elite that he encountered in very positive terms and was impressed by 212

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their leadership and commitment to community change for blacks, an experience, he said, that was to inspire him throughout his life. He remarked that “Loram was just showing this to us as an example of what had been done, not as a necessary solution to all black educational problems.”58 In a remarkable series of three articles, published in the CATA journal The Teachers Vision,59 M’timkulu gives his readers impressions of a visit to the black educational institutions in the “Deep South” in March/April 1936. This represents one of the few examples we have of a highly perceptive black South African who is aware of the ambiguities, contradictions and confusions which characterized debates on education and race relations in that troubled area of the United States in the post-Depression era.60 The goal of these tours has often subsequently been interpreted as being to advertise the merits of the Tuskegee model of adapted educational reform and racial conflict avoidance that had been central to the Phelps-Stokes educational philosophy in the South, and in Colonial African, which Thomas Jesse Jones and Loram had been advocating since the early 1920s. The group61 first visited Teachers College in New York and was briefed by Professor Mabel Carney62 and Nina Du Bois63 on the situation regarding education in the South at that time. He succinctly identifies the flaw in Mabel Carney’s argument in favour of a curriculum adapted to the needs of the Negro, specifically the rural Negro, in order to “create a sense of pride and individuality to help the Negro shed his inferiority complex” by asking how, if this were to be achieved, it would “avoid the Negro feeling that he has been singled out once more.”64 In summarizing this meeting, M’timkulu argues that the schools have to search to build the foundations of racial peace and that “when we all come to judge our fellows as individual men and not as representatives of groups, we shall then be on the highway toward the elimination of race prejudice.” On the rest of the tour, he battles with how to understand the implications of that message in the messy educational politics of the South, with the choice between building a separate/segregated educational sector for blacks and facing the political impossibilities of integrated education. In higher education he considers the third possibility of blacks being granted subsidies to study in the North. At all times he attempts to compare what he saw in the South to his South African experience. His key observation, and 213

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one clearly showing his awareness of the complexities of the education system for blacks in the South, is that “even the casual observer in the South cannot help noticing how lavishly the Southern states spend their money in fine and commodious buildings for their Negro colleges” while noting the contrast with the “obviously starved condition of Negro elementary education in the South.”65 Washington During their two-day visit, M’timkulu was able to view the segregated education system for blacks at its best. Visiting schools, the group found that there was “a sense of ease and independence about the men who were running these schools.” One of the key advantages of the dual system was demonstrated here where he noted “that the opportunity offered for leadership amongst the Negroes themselves is … greatest.” Yet he noted that separate schools are opposed to social integration and tend to perpetuate segregation by making it acceptable as a matter of course … a child brought up in a well-run segregated school with all its immediate advantage is not likely to fight segregation merely on principle.

He notes the contradictions and problems of reconciling this perspective with his broader view that “the Negroes, whilst accepting segregation as a necessary and temporary evil on account of the mores of the nation, ought, nevertheless, to fight it all along the line.” This tension highlights the unease that M’timkulu demonstrates throughout this tour and seems to have provided a key marker of his life in general.66 Schools and normal colleges: Penn normal and industrial school in South Carolina M’timkulu’s opening line of his report on Penn School shows his positive response to what he saw as the school’s close integration with the rural community: we found realization in actual life of the idea that the school should be the community centre … here was a school that had succeeded to a very large extent in knocking down its walls and becoming part and parcel of the community.

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This was an observation similar to one he had made on South Hills School (visited earlier). Penn School represented for him a glowing example of Progressive Education at it its best. Most significantly, he was impressed by the school farm where the senior pupils cultivated one-acre plots under the supervision of the farm manager and the school teachers. They visited at the time of the planting week when the school was closed to allow for the uninterrupted pursuit of agricultural activities linked to a community celebration of the event. He wrote that “all the industrial arts taught at the school centre focussed around the needs of a rural community. The boys are instructed in leather work, carpentry, blacksmithing, basketry, dairying and general farm work.” The girls were instructed in “the simple pursuits of rural life” such as gardening, dairying and poultry raising, but they also received an excellent training in home economics. They also made “clothes, rugs and mats from the cheaper kind of cloth material.” Penn was also a Normal School which offered a two-year teacher course for rural teachers. The student teachers were required to live at the school during this time, which orientated them to the tasks they would face as both rural teachers and community workers. M’timkulu was particularly impressed by the requirement that they also had “to make for themselves, whilst in training, all the materials that they are likely to need when they go out as teachers.” He thought that this was particularly applicable to South Africa where rural teachers in isolated bush schools often complained of lack of teaching materials.67 As Hunt Davis and others have pointed out more recently, the Penn School on an island off the coast of South Carolina was portrayed from as early as 1926 by Jesse Jones and Loram as an ideal model for industrial education in a rural community context. It was therefore an obvious destination for Loram’s group. M’timkulu was impressed at the way in which school and community were linked, and at the degree to which “book learning was integrated with the manual arts.” He did however make the point that Hunt Davis and others underscored in later years that the isolation of the island, “the lack of mobility of the population” and availability of agricultural land for the school were a major component in its success that might not easily be replicable in other contexts in the United States or in South Africa.68

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Tuskegee Institute near Montgomery, Alabama Tuskegee Institute lay at the centre of Loram’s tour of the South. It had been initiated in the age of Reconstruction after the Civil War and the liberation of slaves and was regarded as the classic laboratory of Industrial Education which emphasized the virtues of manual and skilled labour among rural blacks, strongly supported by Northern Philanthropy.69 Its supporters argued that this was just the first step of many towards making rural blacks ready for more diverse roles in society. M’timkulu cites Booker T Washington as emphasizing that industrial education meant that the student shall be so educated that he shall be enabled to meet the conditions as they exist now in the part of the South where he lives; … that every student who graduates from this school shall have enough skill, coupled with intelligence and moral character to enable him to make a living for himself and others; … to ensure that the institution sent every graduate out feeling and knowing that labour is dignified and beautiful – to make one love labour rather than trying to escape it.70

M’timkulu is well aware that by 1936 this model had been criticized by many “Negro leaders” (i.e. Du Bois, Garvey and others) “as aiming to educate blacks to be satisfied with their lowly condition and that it was a school that helped them to better themselves, but within narrow bounds that had been circumscribed for him by the White man.” He defends Washington by arguing that his “chief aim was to lay the proper foundations upon which his children and grandchildren could go on to higher and more important things.” Unlike many later critics of Industrial Education, M’timkulu is less harsh in his criticism as he concedes the potential value in industrial education. This is in part representative of his South African experience and was to be a theme to which he would return in the future. The Negro universities The group visited the Negro University in Atlanta, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Howard University in Washington DC, all of which had been established as higher education institutions in the mid-nineteenth century. M’timkulu praised them and was impressed by the amount of funding provided for them. He is also alive to the differences between the institutions, picking out Fisk as most praiseworthy. He praises them for their academic achievements and 216

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for producing leaders of the black community. This admiration seems to be predicated on their approximation to the institutions like Yale and Harvard rather than for any essentially “negro qualities.”71 This would seem to support the viewpoint of Zachernuk that a sound way of understanding the new intelligentsia is to see them as contemporaries of their equivalents in Europe and North America and not as something essentially different. Summary Despite subsequent widespread scepticism among policy-makers about the viability of the model, M’timkulu was prepared to admit at this time that Penn School was a valuable “demonstration house” for educational ideas. Since he wrote this report for Teacher’s Vision while still a student at Yale, it is of course not possible to know to what degree M’timkulu was expressing his own opinions and to what extent he was censoring his remarks to fit in with Loram’s views. This dilemma is captured in remarks cited by Kenneth King made by an earlier student from Uganda, H.K. Nyabongo, to the Jeanes funders when he noted that the students cannot tell you these things, because they are bound down by the money the Fund pays them. They must be silent, or they will lose whatever chance they have of getting an education. They accept the lessor of the two evils, feeling that sincere protest might be interpreted as ingratitude.72

This captures the essence of what Willem Saayman describes as “subversive subservience” or what Shula Marks called the “ambiguities of dependence”73 which provide a means of interpreting M’timkulu’s views. All this demonstrates how elusive and at times confusing was the delicate balance that students like M’timkulu were required to maintain. They were allowed a modest racial pride of the kind that Aggrey had typified, but without independence. As King points out, “to encourage the one emotion and not expect its frequent accompaniment (by its opposite) was at best short-sighted.”74 Precisely how M’timkulu reacted to this complex mix of influences and pressures is impossible to judge in any comprehensive way from the evidence available. The experience of visiting these institutions and talking to staff seems at best to have had a significant impact on him 217

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which coloured his overall reaction to the Carnegie experience at Yale, to the rest of his American experience and to his career in general. In the following years Loram widened his horizons in relation to these field trips. In 1937 he took students to Mexico and to the “Five Civilized Tribes” of Oklahoma, Georgia and South Carolina, and later to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.75 Conferences attended Although M’timkulu had not arrived in the United States at the time of Loram’s initial conference at Yale, he was to be influenced by the ethos it created. In 1936 M’timkulu accompanied Loram to the third Carnegie Conference, on “Education in the Pacific Area,” co-hosted by Yale and the University of Hawaii and held over five weeks in August. This event was initiated by Professor Felix Keesing, Professor of Anthropology at Hawaii University, and Loram. The focus was on “common problems facing educators in Pacific countries.”76 It drew together 66 educators and social scientists from 27 national and racial groups and was funded by the CCNY with a generous grant of $10,000. The delegates, who were drawn from the whole Pacific area and beyond, were “limited and carefully selected”77 and, according to Keesing, supported by the British, French and Dutch Colonial Offices and by the Japanese Foreign Office. Despite the “quite unofficial” nature of the conference, Keesing’s introduction to the book on the proceedings argues that every effort (was made) to locate the “findings” with a variety of influential educational organisations like the Institute of Pacific Relations, the Councils for Educational Research in Australia and New Zealand, the General Education Board, the Julius Rosenwald Fund, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and the Committee of Cooperation in Latin America.78

Loram argued that the initiative was addressed to “a questioning of the uncritical role that modern education was often held to have in the colonial context.”79 The agenda of the event was constructed around “common problems facing educators in Pacific countries.” In two chapters on “The Race Factor and Education” and “What is Indigenous Education?” the key themes of the conference are laid out. At the

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beginning Keesing sets out the questions to be faced by the conference: Do racial groups differ in their educability? What limitations and possibilities lie in the biological heritage to shape their response to the educational process? Are there people who must be educated in special ways because of their racial limitations, or who are not even worth trying to educate at all? How do attitudes and beliefs regarding race – colour prejudice or its absence – affect the aims, organisation, and methods of education?80

Revealingly, and in contrast to the practical/idealistic tone of much of the earlier Phelps-Stokes rhetoric, the conference laid a strong emphasis on the need for adaptation in education as a political imperative in dangerous times. The dangers of “detribalization” and its link to education were emphasized: More and more what the British call the “detribalized native,” the uprooted individual, finds his way resentfully back to his fellows, and becomes what was referred to variously as a “parasite”, a fomenter [sic] of “subversive” activities and “a menace to the community” generally.81

Loram noted that M’timkulu was ‘a very helpful member’ of the seminar/conference but he does not seem to have played any active part in the conference proceedings or had any opportunity to demonstrate his expertise. The only clue I have to M’timkulu’s participation in these events is provided in the context of a heated debate about Porteus Maze Testing82 which was directed, according to its author, “not upon the problem of racial superiorities and inferiorities but upon proving the existence of specific race differences.” The response from “a Native African member,” which could only have been M’timkulu as there were no other Africans present, was that such testing was “iniquitous.” He continued, demonstrating a revealingly piqued tone: I would have more faith in intelligence tests if they are applied by anthropologists rather than psychologists. Actually intelligent South Africans would not submit to casual testing by a white outsider. He would have to gain entrée to the native society. Again if I came and tested people in the slums of New York and London and applied that to the whole of white people, would that be acceptable? The psychologist assumes all black people are alike, and takes fifty or so individuals from whom to

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M’timkulu told me that he had remained in Hawaii for three months after the conference to “conduct research” for Loram, but there is no evidence of any outcomes in the Loram Papers.84 By the time the next Carnegie joint Yale/University of North Carolina/Tuskegee Institute seminar conference was held in 1937, with the theme of “The Education of the American Negroes and the African Natives,”85 Donald M’timkulu had already departed from the United States for Britain on his way home to South Africa. After that Loram was also to continue his project with a seminar/conference on “The North American Indian Today” sponsored by Yale and the University of Toronto held in Toronto from 4–16 September 1939.86 In general, Loram was inclined to recommend the old formula of adapted education once again, but what is different here is a frank admission that this is not enough since the reservations are so crowded that deliberate efforts have to be made to educate some of the children for life off the Reservation. Very surprisingly, given his previous career, he admits “that it is surely romanticism to expect that 350,000 American Indians can for ever remain outside the mainstream of American civilization.”87 This seems like a contradiction to the whole philosophy that he had been propagating since his days in Natal. There is no evidence of how Loram came to change his views, but it is possible that his interactions with Donald M’timkulu might have contributed to this. It is also quite possible that Loram’s career was largely built on his ability to suit his message to his audience in the manner referred in Baise’s work on B.T. Washington (see Introduction). Although it would take a good deal of further research to investigate these issues more fully, it needs to be emphasized once again that the work engaged with at these conferences lay well outside of the framework of the emerging discipline of comparative education that was developing by this time at higher education institutions like Teachers College or the Institute of Education,88 or in the context of the conferences of the New Education Fellowship and the IMC (see Chapters 1 and 2).

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Summary – at the end of the Yale period On M’timkulu’s departure from Yale, Loram noted that “in addition to his studies at Yale he has done fieldwork under my direction among Negroes and Indians in this country.”89 Although I found five papers on these topics in the Loram Papers, they appear to be simply opinion pieces which do not reflect any evidence of fieldwork or any mention of M’timkulu’s contribution. Loram further noted that by February 1937 M’timkulu had “completed the comprehensive and special examinations for the doctorate except the presentation of an acceptable thesis.” This would lead one to assume that he completed his coursework for the MA, and M’timkulu is often cited as having such a degree from Yale, but I have not been able to find evidence of the granting of such a degree. In the testimonial and letter to Betty Gibson at the IMC in London, and by proxy to J.H. Oldham and Malinowski at the IAI, at the end of M’timkulu’s stay at Yale, Loram identified him as a promising student who was likely to succeed with his doctoral research project on “Mission Reserves in Natal.” He suggested that the IMC might find a means to support him on a research trip to Germany and Norway to access “original (presumably mission archival pk) material” related to his topic. He stated that as soon “as his thesis was accepted and the special fees are paid, he will receive the degree of PhD in abstentia.” Curiously, in the testimonial, Loram adds that “with Yale University’s full approval and indeed partly at my suggestion Mr. M’timkulu is proceeding to London University to take courses in the Institute of Education before returning to South Africa to take up work in his native land.”90 My sense is that this hasty and premature departure from Yale had been brought on by some conflict between Loram and M’timkulu, and that Loram had set him a task that was impossible to achieve as a study of the “Mission Reserves in Natal” would have required a research background in history that neither M’timkulu nor Loram had. Yet in my interviews with M’timkulu I detected no sign of animosity towards Loram, so I might be wrong. As far as I have been able to establish M’timkulu was not formally registered at London University, nor was he the recipient of Carnegie funding available to members of the Overseas Division or the Colonial Department, but it is possible that he attended lectures and seminars.91 An important insight into M’timkulu’s views at this time is gained from accounts of his re-connection in London with Max Yergan, the black American YMCA leader he had been associated with when 221

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he was a student at Fort Hare. Through Yergan he met Ralph Bunche, Paul and Essie Robeson, and George Padmore, all prominent black Americans resident in London at this time.92 David Anthony, Yergan’s biographer, notes that Mtimkulu, along with Z.K. Matthews and Yergan, “sharing some church background and social gospel leanings,” found it difficult to relate to the radical Pan-Africanism of the others. Relatively unique for South Africans, this contact with black Atlantic intellectuals must have been a stimulating experience for M’timkulu and an opportunity to engage with his own assumptions in the face of radical alternatives. As Zachernuk notes, it is important to take note of these reactions and responses, and not to dismiss them, as they were also part of the fabric of international intellectual life at the time.

West African Students Union, London 1930s T.D. Mweli Skota, (ed.) African Yearly Register (1932) p391.

The return to South Africa: 1937–1959 Soon after he returned to South Africa Don M’timkulu assisted Ralph Bunche with the arrangement of his schedule during his brief visit to South Africa from September 1937 to January 1938.93 When Bunche met Alexander Kerr, who was the principal of Fort Hare from 1915 to 1948, and had been the recipient of a Phelps-Stokes grant to 222

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visit black colleges in the American South, Kerr identified M’timkulu, along with Donald Jabavu, Z.K. Matthews and Drs Roseberry Bokwe, A.B. Xuma and James Moroko, as the outstanding products of the institution.94 From an interview in Durban, we get a brief view of M’timkulu’s personal opinions on the state of affairs in South Africa at the time of his return in the years after the crisis of Hertzog’s Native Bills of 1936. Despite his earlier links with Jabavu and the AAC initiative in 1935, M’timkulu expressed the view that the organization was not getting much support in Natal as the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) was still “strong and active in the province.”95 This lack of support he attributed to the fact that the goals of the AAC had been developed in relation to the issue of the Cape franchise, and that Zulus are not interested in the franchise because it is foreign to their experience; their thinking is entirely in terms of land and more land. They think that if they can get more land their problems will be solved.

At the same time M’timkulu saw the chiefs, who had control of the reserves, as “very definitely … the mere puppets of the government … the people cannot expect support from them.” Although he saw the new Native Representative Council as a mere “sop to the natives,” he thought that in relation to Zululand it had some value as it gave the Zulu their first taste of the franchise and thus “had important educational value.”96 In 1938 M’timkulu succeeded Z.K. Matthews as headmaster of the High School at Adams College where he remained for nearly ten years. In 1947 he followed in John Dube’s footsteps as principal of Ohlange Institute, where he remained until 1955. Between that time and his departure in 1959 into self-imposed exile, he joined Z.K. Matthews at Fort Hare, as a senior lecturer in the Education Department. The few aspects of his life that I have been able to trace during this time will be dealt with thematically in terms of M’timkulu’s various roles as a professional educator, a leader of teacher organizations, an educational policy critic in the ranks of the ANC and the AAC, and a member of the SAIRR advisory committee on education. In all of these roles he was an outspoken public critic of the segregation and emergent apartheid policy, and in particular of apartheid education. The views he expressed represented a blend of his mission and Cape liberal background, his experiences at Yale, his interaction with the challenges of black American education in the post-Depression era, 223

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and his encounter with Pan-African trans-Atlantic politics. His engagement with the new politics of an age of increasing segregation and the final onslaught on the Cape liberal tradition, in addition with his involvement with African nationalist politics in various forms, informs the rest of his career.

Fields of activity Head teacher role Adams College

From the time he returned to South Africa, the major focus of M’timkulu life was on high school education for Africans, firstly as headmaster of Adams College at Amanzimtoti from 1938 to 1947, where he had been a student in the 1920s. Adams College had been established by the ABCFM in 1853. In 1940 the control of the college was handed over by the AZM to a local board of governors, and management was vested in a non-profit-making company – Adams College (Inc.).97 In the 1950s the school was closed down as a result of the Bantu Education Act of 1953.98

The Loram Library, Adams College, Amanzimtoti, Natal

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By the time M’timkulu took over as headmaster of the high school in 1938, under the overall principalship of Edgar Brookes,99 it included a high school, a teachers’ training college, a theological college, an industrial school and a music school. The high school comprised 220 pupils and 12 teachers. Since 1928 students had been able to write the Joint Matriculation Board examination which provided entrance to higher education.100 A key nine-year period of M’timkulu’s life was absorbed with the management of this important institution where “with a mixed staff of Europeans and African teachers” he filled this delicate role with distinction, excelling in the resourcefulness with which he handled human situations, and demonstrating the practicability, under wise leadership, of assigning functions on the basis of intellectual and personal qualifications without reference to colour or race.101

The lack of a comprehensive history of the institution, and the absence of an archive for this period, means I have been able to find little information on his day-to-day life and specific achievements.102 Soon after he returned to Natal, M’timkulu also became involved in public life, addressing the Durban Parliamentary Debating Society in the City Hall on 23rd May 1938 on the motion “that is in the best interests of South Africa as a whole that there be no differentiation in the aims of the education of both the Black and the White races of this country.”103 He also taught as a part-time lecturer in sociology at Natal University from 1943 to 1946.104 In an article in South African Outlook, he made a forceful appeal for greater economic freedom and opportunity for Africans and characteristically emphasized his appeal for equality: It is the lack of economic opportunity – the sense of doors being barred and closed against him that bears hardest on the Africa… . In a country composed of so many diverse groups, different in language, colour, standards of living, ideals etc. we need … a unifying idea which will overleap colour lines, find a unity in diversity, and enable a man to stand unafraid before his peers, to be judged as a man and not merely as a representative of his group. A new generation so nurtured (by education pk) would, I believe, when their time came to take the reins, find a solution to our colour problems better than we have done.105

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Although M’timkulu departed from Adams College in 1947 to take up the post of principal at Ohlange Institute after Dube’s death, he remained a member of the Council of Governors in December 1955, when it met with an official delegation from the Native Affairs Department under the leadership of W.A. Maree, MP, Chairman of the Permanent Commission on Native Affairs, one of the foremost proponents of Bantu Education, to consider the future of the College. The tone of the visit was captured by the fact that the officials refused to shake hands or dine with black members of the Council, M’timkulu and Reverend Alpheus Zulu, who had both been critical of Bantu Education at a recent conference of the Natal African Teachers’ Association.106 It can only be assumed that this left an indelible impression on M’timkulu. Ohlange Institute

M’timkulu was principal of Ohlange Institute from 1947 to 1956. Heather Hughes provides a detailed account of the growth of this unique educational institution inspired by John Dube’s dream of an independent African educational experiment.107 A product of Inanda mission, Dube studied at Oberlin College in Ohio from 1888 to 1890 and was strongly influenced by the ideas of Booker T. Washington, who had recently established the Tuskegee Normal in Alabama. From the time of his return to Natal in 1892 Dube was to pursue the model of a self-help “Bantu-Controlled School” and community-based institution broadly along the lines of those American institutions with an emphasis on African identity and the virtues of work and industrial crafts. Dube soon ventured into the establishment of his own school in 1904, which in due course came to be known as Ohlange Institute. His school received no government funding until 1924, but his energetic fund-raising secured the success of the school in the long term. By 1918 it had progressed from an industrial school to the provision for the Junior Certificate, and in 1948, soon after M’timkulu arrived, began to offer of Matriculation classes. From 1925 it catered for girls’ education.

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John Dube (Skota :144)

When M’timkulu took over as headmaster, after Dube’s death in 1947, the school had 700 students, 300 of them boarders, with an all African staff of 30. At that time the management of the school was transferred to a Board of Trustees.108 Soon after his arrival M’timkulu made a statement concerning the goals of the school: In its educational ideals, the Ohlange Institute of today still holds to the ideas of its founder. Every student, from the lowest class to the highest, has to work with his hands for many hours per week. Every student who passes through our full High School course learns some trade for at least one year, whether he is to be a clerk or a doctor. At the same time, the very highest standards of intellectual achievement are maintained in a Christian atmosphere where the fundamental aim is to develop a Christian outlook towards life. Like its founder, Ohlange believes in the co-operation of Black and White for the good of our common country; but it also believes that his co-operation can only achieved it highest success when the African has learned to stand in his own feet and do things for himself.109

Donald M’timkulu reached the peak of his educational career during his years at Ohlange, where he was able to balance the various educational strategies that he had embraced in earlier years. They were also the years when he was to be most actively involved in broader issues of educational policy contestation with the emergence of a new challenge for African educationalists posed by the formulation and implementation of apartheid education. 227

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His long associations with a number of key educational establishments, Adams College, Lovedale, Healdtown, Ohlange Institute and the South African Native College, as well as his academic background and links with African teachers’ association in the Cape and Natal, placed him in a strategic position as an African spokesman on educational policy. Educational leadership and teacher organizations

Given the lack of research on African teacher politics at this time, it has not been possible to trace the details of M’timkulu’s role, but it is clear that he retained his commitment to this field of activity throughout his life even though he was to increasingly focus his energies on the Joint Councils and the SAIRR in the post-War era when many Africans had deserted these forums. As a key educationalist in Natal from the late 1930s, M’timkulu was to play an important role in the organization of the profession. As mentioned earlier, he had been associated with CATA in the early 1930s, when Donald Jabavu was the driving force in that organization. When M’timkulu addressed the FBVETA as its president in 1933 he stated that there had been many positive improvements in recent years and called for the members to dedicate themselves to the aims of good education. To do this they needed to strive to keep themselves apace of modern developments – pointing significantly to contemporary “thought-provoking books” by Victor Murray, Robert Moton and Leonard Barnes, as well as the Report of the New Economic Commission and the Carnegie (Poor White Commission), which, he argued, were vital keys to an understanding of contemporary educational issues.110 He was also for a brief time the editor of the CATA journal The Teachers’ Vision prior to his departure for Yale. These connections linked him to the national organization, the South African Native Teachers’ Federation (SANTF), which had been established by Jabavu as early as 1921, with the aim of coordinating the activities of the many African teachers’ associations that were emerging.111 Because of his move to Natal after his return in 1937, and partly because of the links between CATA and the more radical AAC, M’timkulu comes to feature prominently in the Natal Bantu Teachers Union (NBTU) between 1942 and 1950, and in 1950 was awarded the honour of a Life Presidency. He was also the president of the South African Teachers’ Federation (SATF) from 1939 to 1953 during which 228

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time he was said to have “consolidated the organisation.”112 As president, he addressed the NBTU conference in Durban in July 1942 on “Teachers and the People.” He argued that the object of a good teachers’ organization should be “to safeguard the interests of all teachers and to educate one another as part of their task; to encourage sound, efficient and zealous work among teachers,” and to inspire one another to realize the true value of education, through having an intelligent interest in the education of their children and to seek means for the succour of the general public and for the upliftment of the Bantu race on sound moral, social, educational and economic lines.

He focused on “the relations of our teacher associations to their communities and the need to emphasise their social responsibility towards those communities.” He also stressed the leadership role of teachers, as they were the only large group of intellectuals in these communities, and the importance of setting an example to the people they serve, reflecting the best that he had seen in the South. He seems to agree with the widely held view that teachers needed to hold a balance between the old traditional ways and the new ways of thinking and the challenges of life in new urban contexts. This indicates clear signs of his learning under Loram’s influence with a degree of emphasis on the need for a community focus on questions of education if the gaps between “our Bantu culture” and the challenges of the new era were to be satisfactorily engaged with.113 All this fits neatly with the definition of the characteristics of the new African intelligentsia of Nigeria as defined by Zachernuk previously. The 1940s marked a period of reinvigoration for the ANC in which the patriarchal politics of the 1930s was being superseded by modern ideas of equity and citizenship. As Dubow points out, the time had come when the segregationist compact of the 1930s “based on issues of land and trusteeship” had passed and, “inspired by the worldwide fight against fascism, the young ANC intellectuals increasingly demanded citizenship as an entitlement rooted in South African birth, citizenship and belonging.”114 As president of the SATF in 1942, Donald M’timkulu, with his father, Abner M’timkulu as Acting President of the Natal ANC prior to Xuma’s victory in 1945, was involved in the drawing up of the educational aspects of the “African Claims” initiative of the ANC. These were adopted at the annual conference in December 1942. “African Claims” to education were stated in the following terms:

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Chapter 6 1. The education of the African is a matter of national importance requiring state effort for its proper realization. The magnitude of the task places it beyond the limits of the resources of the missionary or private endeavour. The right of the African child to education, like children of other sections, must be recognised as a State duty and responsibility. We therefore demand that: a)

The State must provide full facilities for all types of education for African children

b) Education of the African must be financed from General Revenue on a per capita basis c)

The state must provide enough properly built and equipped schools for all African children of school-going age and institute free compulsory primary education.

d) The state must provide adequate facilities for secondary, professional, technical and university education. 2. We reject the conception that there is any need of a special type of education for Africans as such, and therefore we demand that the African must be given the type of education which will enable him to meet on equal terms with other peoples the conditions of the modern world. 3. We also demand equal pay for equal qualifications and equal grade of work for all teachers irrespective of their race or colour. We also urge that pensions, conditions of service, and other privileges which are enjoyed by European teachers should be extended to African teachers on equal terms. 4. We claim that the direction of the educational system of the African must fall more and more into the hands of the Africans themselves, and therefore we demand increased and direct representation in all bodies such as Education Advisory Boards, School Committees, Governing Councils etc., which are responsible for the management and the shaping of policy in African schools, Institutions and Colleges and/or adequate representation in all bodies moulding and directing the country’s educational policy.115

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This was a reflection of the views M’timkulu, as president of the Natal African Teachers’ Association, had expressed in June 1949.116 When interviewed by the Natal Mercury at that time M’timkulu made one of his most forthright political statements: Tribal society is doomed. More education facilities are needed to serve as a bridge over which Africans can pass into modern society. The African must be integrated into the democratic structure and institutions of this country.117

Not only did M’timkulu pursue these goals in opposition to apartheid and Bantu Education, but they were the general principles that informed his work in later years when he was involved in the rebuilding of education in Zambia and elsewhere. Yet in terms of his commitment to the need for education to be adapted to the African environment he never turns entirely away from Loram’s stress on local language, culture and community. South African Institute Race Relations Parallel to his work with the teacher organizations and the ANC, M’timkulu was to participate in the work of the SAIRR. He had a long association with the organization which had been one of the major achievements of Loram career prior to his departure from South Africa. M’timkulu was an executive member of the SAIRR Committee for Natal from 1946 and on the national executive from 1946 to 1950.118 He was the first African president of the Durban Joint Council in 1950.119 M’timkulu was a key participant in the SAIRR’s national conference on African education in 1943, which was fundamentally in support of the ANC “Claims” regarding education.120 On this general platform a national conference on African education was called by the SAIRR and attended by leading educationalists and key African spokesmen on education, including Z.K. Matthews, R.H. Godlo, D.D.T. Jabavu, J. Nhlapo, Reverend E. Mahabane, S.T.J. Lesolong and Donald M’timkulu, who was representing the NBTU and the Federal Council of African Teachers’ Associations.121 M’timkulu joined a delegation to Jan Hofmeyr, the minister of finance and native affairs, to present their demands in 1943. Although these overtures have often been seen as futile by critics of liberal policy initiatives, Walsh points out that they did contribute to increasing the allocation for African education from 231

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₤225,000 in 1941 to ₤5.5 million in 1946–1947. The per capita grants increased from ₤2 10s 0d in 1942 to ₤6 4s 0d in 1949.122 M’timkulu also served on the Natal Provincial Commission on Native Education (1944–1946.) The report of this commission took the position that “African children must be educated in a way that will enable them to live successfully in a rapidly changing environment.” It acknowledged that “Africans themselves feel that their curriculum is inferior and that it is looked down upon by other races.” The report looked forward to a time when “the different races of this country shall have an almost identical education” and when “Universities will accept students of all races.”123 This was the last relatively independent government report on Native Education prior to the advent of apartheid in 1948. In 1952 another National Conference was convened by the SAIRR to consider the recommendation of the Eiselen Report on Native Education, and the imminent implementation of the policy of Bantu Education. M’timkulu is cited by Muriel Horrell as arguing that Africans were seeking for integration into the democratic structure and institutions of the country. To them one of the most effective ways of achieving this is by education – an education essentially in no way different from, or inferior to, that of other sections of the community.124

At a meeting to consider the memorandum produced by the conference she cites him as expressing himself in characteristically firm but nuanced terms: He expressed agreement with the memorandum (compiled by the SAIRR). He also agreed that it appeared to Africans that the Government’s intention was to suppress. What other conclusion could be reached when one small minority group set out to perpetuate its dominance, attempt to determine the destiny of the majority without consultation with them and to condemn them to eternal inferiority of status? If Africans were to accept the apartheid doctrine this would involve acceptance of inferiority and would be tantamount to spiritual death.125 Africans did realize that the Afrikaner nationalists, like themselves, were striving to preserve their existence, and that motives on each side were strong and powerful. It appeared to some that a clash was inevitable; but those present were in the Institute because they did not accept that inevitability. African organisations would not be interested in seeing the Institute become militant: they must fight their own battles; their souls 232

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA could not be saved by others. The Institute’s function should be to create an atmosphere in which negotiations would be possible. Each side was aware of the difficulties facing the other, but at present there was no opportunity for them to meet to discuss ways of achieving harmonious co-existence as fellow-citizens of South Africa.126

This provides an interesting insight into M’timkulu’s thinking and to answer questions about his partnership with white liberals at a time when mainstream African political opinion had turned away from this kind of collaborative approach. As headmaster of Adams College, he wrote that in a context where racial bitterness and distrust had increased sharply in African political circles … the mains effort of moderate leaders had turned to keeping some sense of balance and trying to check a tendency towards hate and African prejudice.

For him the SAIRR was therefore a useful, if limited, scientific tool for highlighting issues of contention like education. At the same time, Africans could not realistically expect political solutions to come from forums like this – “they must fight their own battles; their souls could not be saved by others!”127 (my emphasis). In 1953, M’timkulu participated in a symposium organized by the journal Theoria on “The Idea of Non-European Education” at which he was joined by an impressive panel of experts such as Edgar Brookes, Mabel Palmer, A.D. Lazarus, C.P. Dent and S.R. Dent.128 In October 1956 he attended the “All In” conference called by the Interdenominational African Ministers’ Federation (IDAMF) in Bloemfontein in the attempt to establish a united front against apartheid. In a paper commenting on the Tomlinson Report, Z.K. Matthews and Donald M’timkulu noted the general reaction of the IDAMF to the policies put forward in a resolution which stated that: Conference rejects the concept of national homes for Africans in certain arbitrarily defined areas for the following reasons:

a b

Africans are the indigenous inhabitants of the country, with an indisputable claim to the whole of South Africa which is their home. They reject the concepts on the further ground that there is no part of the country to whose development they have not made a full contribution.

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c

They reject the concept finally because it facilitates the exploitation and economic strangulation of the Africans and perpetuates white domination.

Matthews and M’timkulu go on to argue that the Commission and the White Paper “nowhere deals fully with what it considers to be the political future of the Bantu and the Bantu areas” and develop a strong critique of the supposedly scientific nature of the report – which is in large part simply a statement of government policy without any considered development of alternative critiques.129 The conference established a committee of enquiry into Bantu Education under the chairmanship of Z.K. Matthews. The committee included M’timkulu.130 Two months later, in December 1956, Matthews and Duma Nokwe were among the 160 people arrested in the Treason Trial that marked the beginning of times of severe repression by the apartheid government.131 During this time Donald M’timkulu was the author of important publications for the SAIRR: “The African” (1946),132 “The African and Education” (1949),133 “African Adjustment to Urbanization” (1955),134 “The Implementation of the Bantu Education Act” (with J.W. Macquarrie, 1958)135 and “Teaching English in Bantu Schools” (1958).136 In retrospect, while they do not provide highly original analyses of the context to which they spoke, they do present a coherent picture of educational policy as envisaged in opposition to apartheid education, and they provide us with an insight into M’timkulu’s thinking prior to his departure from South Africa in 1959. In particular he repeatedly warns against the “racial bitterness that is steadily growing amongst the youth of today” and the tensions that are evident in African political circles through the eyes of an observer at meetings of the ANC and the AAC. He throws particular emphasis on the plight of the urbanized and educated Africans and “a growing spirit of bitterness against the European which is sowing far and wide the seeds of mistrust and suspicion.”137 M’timkulu’s report to the SAIRR Council meeting on “The Changing Economic and Social Structure of South Africa” (17–18 January 1955) was entitled “African Adjustment to Urbanization.” He gave some attention to the harsh conditions in the “shanty town” inhabited by newcomers and the circumstances that give rise to the lack of parental control, rebelliousness of youth and delinquency. He identifies the key 234

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problems related to this group (a) access to education (b) access to private property (c) the search for new forms of social organization and the “growing sense of insecurity amongst urban Africans.” This is perhaps his best effort at presenting a general overview of the issues at stake in South Africa on the eve of the apartheid era.138 I have not been able to discover any evidence of his participation in or reaction to the ANC debates about the boycott of schools after the implementation of Bantu Education.139 The National Conference called by the SAIRR to consider the Tomlinson Report on Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas within the Union of South Africa140 in 1957 marked a turning point in the critique of the new apartheid policy. A key paper at the conference held in Cape Town from 15 to 16 January 1957 was presented by Z.K. Matthews and M’timkulu. In this they identified the failure of the Commission and the subsequent White Paper to deal with the longterm economic and political goals of apartheid for Africans in South Africa and asserted that it would be impossible to get large-scale mass African support for the plan. In this paper, “The Future in the Light of the Tomlinson Report,” they argued that the Report revealed only a set of principles that suited the future needs of white security and not the rights of the African majority. The paper pointed to the government rejection of the proposals by the “All In” church leaders conference in the previous year as an indication of the representative opinion of Africans. Matthews and M’timkulu’s paper can be seen as an “endeavour to provide an … African view regarding the future envisaged for them in the South Africa of tomorrow.”141 Education policy debate

Soon after he arrived back in South Africa, Don M’timkulu wrote a lengthy article for The Native Teacher’s Journal on “The Medium of Instruction.”142 He was picking up on a theme that he had first tackled in his MA research and at the NEF conference in 1934.143 The paper identifies a key educational debate and reflects agreement with the presidential address in 1934 by Albert Luthuli, a fellow alumnus and teacher at Adams College, at a time when he was the president of the NATA.144 He identifies language as a key issued in South African education: the point at issue is the extent to which a Bantu language should be used as a medium of instruction in preference to a European language in African schools. In his article Luthuli cites Diedrich 235

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Westermann, Victor Murray and Father P.W. Schmidt, all contemporary experts in the field of linguistics and language teaching, to support his call for home language education as the only sensible option for primary education on the grounds that it establishes desirable psychological attitudes to learning and enables the development of conceptual understanding, whereas the use of a foreign language like English simply leads to rote learning and passive attitudes to schooling.145 The adoption of a policy by the Natal Education Department of “vernacular education as the medium of instruction” (a continuation of the tradition of Loram) brought this issue into political prominence in Natal during the 1930s as many parents had opposed the trend on the grounds that it disadvantaged their children in relation to their prospects in the job market. The real issue that framed this debate for Luthuli and M’timkulu related not simply to the medium of instruction but to the amount and quality of education available to African children because they both mention that over 90 percent of children only had the chance of a year or two of schooling and that the focus should be on ensuring that they gained something tangible from the experience. Only once students had progressed to the higher standards did Luthuli and M’timkulu see value in adding English to the curriculum or transferring directly to English as a medium of instruction, and then only when the teachers themselves had sufficient command of the medium to make this into a worthwhile experience for learners. In later years M’timkulu simply emphasizes the importance of English as a medium of instruction, possibly for political rather than educational reasons, as a reaction to the ideology informing Bantu Education on indigenous language instruction. With hindsight the focus of these contributions seems curious, as they are both strong calls for the use of the vernacular as a medium of instruction in African schools, something that was subsequently associated with Bantu Education. But at that time, as is the case at the present day, the virtues of instruction in the vernacular were being stressed by experts. Again, this points to the continuities relating to policy issues that we have noted in attempting to calibrate the nature of the relationship between Loram and M’timkulu – and the parallels between the way in which they navigated policy issues at different times and in different contexts and the relevance of historical debates to present-day policy. In another article on the subject in 1958, again in the face of Bantu Education language policy, M’timkulu argued for a policy that placed 236

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English teaching at the centre of the curriculum in African schools “as it enabled the African child to share the rich cultural heritage of knowledge and ideas which western culture has to offer … it is the key to the wider world beyond Africa.” Here he gives little attention to the claims made for indigenous languages or, given the context of Bantu Education language policy, to the logistics of language policy in the primary school.146 This emphasizes the need for biographical researchers to grapple with the shifting viewpoints of the subject over time and with changing circumstances encountered in making curriculum choices. It emphasizes the need to reject approaches that emphasize rigid or static positions adopted by black intellectuals in relation to educational provision. M’timkulu’s position on the issue of language policy changes with the shifts of policy by government and what he came to see to be politically relevant at specific moments. Fort Hare Donald M’timkulu’s was a senior lecturer in the Education Department of the SANC and warden of Elukhanyisweni Residence between 1956 and 1959, when the institution accommodated about 500 students. He was the only black warden at the institution. In an interview with Donovan Williams in later years he remarked that even at the time of his appointment he had “arrived with few illusions” and “he expected trouble” as Fort Hare proved to “be close to boiling point, but that he hoped he might possibly help to damp down the rising temperature.” In retrospect he thought that if staff and students had stood together resolutely more could have been achieved, but the combination of student unrest in 1955 and a lack of common purpose between black and white staff weakened any attempt to resist the new policies. Williams notes that during these times M’timkulu was “a stabilising influence in the tense circumstances of Fort Hare; an oldfashioned gentleman-scholar, a Methodist, moderate in his views, but firm in his approach to discipline, students’ needs and college problems.” He notes that he seems to have been the embodiment of his Xhosa name: “Big Tree.”147 In 1956 M’timkulu was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Natal for his contribution to education.148 In terms of the new apartheid education policy for Higher Education, Fort Hare was first affiliated to Rhodes University in 1951 as a preparatory step towards “independent status” under the control of the Minister of Bantu Education. Fort Hare University College was 237

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thereafter transferred in terms of “maintenance, management and control” to the Department of Bantu Education in 1959.149 In the interregnum there was considerable tension on the campus and the students were angry that the staff and the missionary authorities of Lovedale and Fort Hare for not put up stronger opposition to the new policies. M’timkulu noted that “the students considered the lack of missionary opposition to government control … as a betrayal of Blacks to the White Nationalism Government’s masterplan for apartheid.” As Warden of a key residence he was involved in mediating a variety of disputes between the authorities and the Student Representative Council.150 All members of staff were subsequently informed by the Department of Bantu Education on 23rd September 1959 that under the Universities Extension Act, their services contracts would be reviewed. Some staff, including M’timkulu, then “resigned in protest against the fundamental alteration in the character of the institution which had earned itself an honoured place among institutions of higher learning, not only in South Africa but in the continent as a whole.”151 His last act of service to Fort Hare was to organize a meeting of Fort Hare alumni in October 1959 and the establishment of “The Fort Hare Union.” Although Matthews first considered returning to a private legal career in the Eastern Cape, both he and M’timkulu eventually decided to go into self-imposed exile. They developed strong links with the new AACC in its engagement with church policy and involvement in the shaping of a new social and educational framework for independent Africa. M’timkulu is reported as “warning prophetically before he left that the system of education was one aspect of apartheid that would have a more devastating effect on South Africa than any other.”152 After 1959 Before he departed from Yale, M’timkulu had found the time to author a pamphlet on A Positive Christianity for Africa for the Agricultural Missions Foundation of New York.153 After leaving South Africa in 1959 he now took up this work again in the radically changing world of Africa after uhuru. He subsequently spent several years in Zambia, where he was associated with the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation in Kitwe, an interdenominational centre that served as a place of worship, study, consultation and reconciliation, 238

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and by the time he arrived there it was supported by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.154 It meant extensive travel and networking aimed at the development of unity and cooperation among Protestant churches in Africa. He lived with his family at the Mindolo Centre in Kitwe where he became one of the “staff family.” He remained in that position until the Kampala Assembly of the AACC in 1961 and was subsequently appointed as the Principal of Mindolo in September of the following year. Here he continued a close relationship with the AACC. When interviewed by a reporter from the Mindolo Newsletter about how he felt about being appointed to the principalship he replied: I am very happy. I am an educationalist at heart and by profession. I would like to spend the rest of my working days doing what I feel best equipped to do. At the same time I wish to combine my interest in education with work done by Church-related agencies. That is why I felt called to Mindolo.

In 1961 Clytie M’timkulu toured Africa on behalf of the Committee of Co-operation of Men and Women of the WCC. She also represented African women at the 75th anniversary of the United Church Women of the United States and used the opportunity to study for a year at the Merrill-Palmer Institute in Detroit for a diploma in Family Training and Welfare work. She subsequently engaged in voluntary work at the Mindolo center at the Women’s Training Centre.155 As co-organizer with Z.K. Matthews, and Director of the Planning Committee of the AACC conference on “Christian Education in a Changing Africa” in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in December 1962, M’timkulu noted that, in post-independence context, state control of education appeared to be in contradiction to the church-related schools policy. However, he argued, in keeping with his experience in South Africa and with the statements of the ANC’s “African Claims” document of 1942, that: I am one of those who believe very firmly that the provision of educational facilities is pre-eminently the responsibility of the State. The State has a duty to educate its citizens. This is its right, and is one of the distinguishing marks of good government. We, as Christians, should be deeply concerned with good government, and so our greatest service to the nation would be to see to it that the State provides the best possible education for its citizens, thus providing a base on which good government can be established.156

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From his base in Kitwe, M’timkulu contributed to the New Delhi Report of the Third Assembly of the WCC held in 1961157 and subsequently became the first general secretary of the AACC from 1960 to 1963.158 He was also a key organizer of the All-Africa Youth Assembly held in Nairobi in 1962–1963. In his contributions to Edwin Rian’s collection on Christianity and the Challenge of Africa Today (1963), and his article on “Some aspects of Zulu Religion” (1977), he continued to demonstrate his involvement in issues relating to religion and culture.159 In 1965 M’timkulu left Mindolo to join the Provincial Inspectorate of Education in the Central Province of Zambia from 1965 to 1967.160 He also continued to carry forward his work on teacher organizations as a consultant to the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Professions (WCOTP) between 1971 and 1978, and he was the author of a Report on National Teacher Organisations in Southern Africa.161 In 1977 he was awarded a fellowship at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, at that time a key centre of Third World and Development Studies. What is perhaps particularly significant in relation to understanding the essence of M’timkulu’s beliefs and recommendation by the 1970s is that he comes to recognize that “given the realities of the (post-colonial situation), it seems that for many African countries some form of socialism is the only system able to provide an effective answer to the vast and varied problems they face,” but that “in the pursuit of the common goal of development, success has been unequal.” In the field of education, he adheres to aspects of Loram’s philosophy of adaptation in the new context of independent Africa. He points to Julius Nyerere’s Education for Self Reliance 162 as a promising example of the kind of rural community focus of change that he supports. In 1971 he published a booklet on Beyond Independence: The Face of the New Africa. This was written for the (American) National Council of Churches, African Department, which sought to provide an overview of contemporary Africa for an African-American readership. He reiterated his view that the church in Africa needed “to be concerned with development … understood to mean not just economic growth but social growth as well, for the aim of a more humane society.”163 In this he restated the ambiguity of his views about educational policy that had been the hallmark of his thinking from the 1930s:

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THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA In the new emphasis on rural development, success will not be achieved unless it is accompanied by a radical rethinking of primary school education so that the content and the curriculum will be more suited to the needs of the rural child and will no longer take him away from the land. Of course, the danger of such a suggestion is that it could lead to two closed systems, one for the rural child and the other for the urban child – and inevitably the urban child would have better access to the highest educational levels. Bridges between the two systems could be devised, but whatever they might be they would be open to tremendous political fire. Nevertheless, it would seem that some attempts must be made to find a workable solution along these lines.164

There is both an echo of Loram in these words and a wise understanding of the complex world of educational policy development in the modern African context! In the course of my attempt to understand the complexities of the career of Donald M’timkulu, Heather Hughes’s work guided me to an incident which seems to illustrate the particular dilemmas he faced. She notes the innuendo which blacks used when addressing whites in the historical context being explored previously. She points to the instance of Charles Dube, president of the Natal Native Teachers Union, who in one speech could both praise Loram’s promotion of manual work in schools on the grounds that Afrikaners and Africans alike persuaded their youth to “till the soil”, and underline its narrowness by pointing out the “marvellous advances” of West Africans who had their own judges and magistrates.165

If we are to understand or interpret M’timkulu’s career, it requires that we take this ambiguity into account. But that does not seem to be sufficient in itself to interpreting his complex identity. My understanding of the man I interviewed in 1989 was not of someone beset by the entanglements of the colonial man so often presented in recent literature. He seemed frankly appreciative of the experience and opportunities he had been afforded through his association with Loram and other “liberals” in South Africa and at Yale, while at the same time retaining a critical distance. Whether this is something that he had acquired over time, or whether it had always been his own position, I am not able to judge. He certainly seems to have reflected many of the characteristics of the new African intellectual that Zachernuk identifies above. This leaves room for 241

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multiple identities in a complex world where he was able to reconcile playing the game between the restraints of complying with the guidelines he received from his powerful mentor and his funders during his Yale years, and retaining a critical view of the issues to be confronted in pursuing a sound educational policy for black South Africans. I can only trust that the views and opinions that Donald M’timkulu conveyed to me in 1989 conveyed a frank assessment of his life and career – and his view of the world as he had experienced it. M’timkulu was the chief speaker at Westminster Cathedral and at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary celebration of the birth of David Livingstone in 1963, as well as at the UNO headquarters in New York in 1968 for the commemoration service for the long-time Botswana ambassador, Z.K. Matthews. This would seem an index of his capacity to bridge the multiple worlds of a modern “colonial” man. In 1967/8 M’timkulu left his post in the Zambian Education Department and moved to the United States after his separation from Clytie. He joined his son, Lizo, who was studying in Pittsburgh. He was also scholar-in-residence in International Studies at Pittsburgh University and he subsequently spent time as a scholar-in-residence at Wittenberg and Miami University in Ohio and at Kent State University.166 In the summer of 1968 he took up a post in Inter Cultural Studies at Western College, Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. A new home in Canada From 1968 until his retirement in 1990 M’timkulu was on the staff of Renison College at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. He cited his experience gained on community development programs in South Africa and Zambia, as well as a post as “Curriculum Specialist on international programmes for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare,” as the background to this appointment. At first, he worked with Principal Rees to establish new courses in social science and international affairs as part of a program to provide a wider curriculum that was specifically aimed at reforming the traditional training of social workers, and at the introduction of an innovative interdisciplinary program which would lay emphasis on social concerns and the study of social issues, with a specific focus on a Third World Development Studies program. This was clearly the education revolution of the 1968 manifesting itself in Waterloo.167 In 1972 he became professor of social development and director of social 242

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development studies. For a short period he was acting principal of Renison University College (1971–1973)168 and academic dean (1974–1980). There is evidence that he was a much-valued member of staff.169 The Donald M’Timkulu Award was established at Renison College in commemoration of his career and his contribution to the institution. He was a member of the American African Students Association and the Canadian African Studies Association. He was at times a consultant to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) from 1970 to 1977. He was remembered by a long-time Canadian colleague, Michael Bird, for his capacity to blend two things – intellectual detachment and compassionate engagement … his personal kindness … and the manner in which he reminded students that the litmus test of authentic humanity is to be found in the unflagging dedication to social responsibility.170

I interviewed him in November 1989 just as apartheid was coming to an end. He mentioned that he had been able to visit South Africa in 1979, and again in 1982, when he attended a symposium on “The University in Africa” at the University of Zululand and the University of Natal. He was a UN observer during the Namibian independence elections in 1989–1990. I have not been able establish whether he was able to return to South Africa again prior to his death in 2000 or whether he left an archive that would enable a wider and deeper study of his life. Although he spent most of the later part of his life outside of South Africa and traveled on an international passport, he never forfeited his South African citizenship.171 At the end of our conversations, I suggested to Donald M’timkulu that he had an extremely optimistic view of change and asked him how he thought he might relate to the events taking place in South Africa in this era of almost inevitable political transformation. He acknowledged that he felt out of step with the developments of the late 1980s and seemed doubtful that his views would be well received. He was apprehensive of the rapid changes and the quick solutions that seemed to be dominating the political and educational landscape at the time, when he was still committed to a gradualist view of change in society. Although he admitted that Loram was an ambitious man, he expressed a great deal of sympathy for the general approach that he had taken. Although he appraised Loram as having had a liking for power, and a desire to be seen as an international figure, he did not 243

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interpret this negatively. He thought that it was to be seen in the light of his desire to “do things for others.” The fragile sense of an individual’s identity that emerges from this investigation seems to indicate that it is best to proceed with caution when attempting to understand the nature of the emergent intellectual colonial elite in Africa. Donald M’timkulu was a man of his time and space and a product of mission schools of colonial South Africa. He was also a committed educator who defended the rights of Africans to a schooling equal to that of their white colleagues, and to an education that allowed blacks to achieve their potential in the modern world. The tradition that he sought to defend was destroyed by the advent of Bantu Education – and as he predicted at the time this would be one of the most damaging losses that apartheid would inflict. South Africa is still fighting to catch up that lost ground more than two and a half decades after the end of apartheid. While Donald M’timkulu’s battles for educational change in South Africa might continue to be seen in ambiguous terms, his contribution to establishing a forum for considering the history and nature of educational policy in South Africa seems to deserve more attention than it has received to date. He seems to be the “Groot Boom” (M’timkulu) of African educational thinking in South Africa – though he might have rejected that racial identification.

Notes 1

2 3 4

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Colin Bundy, “Unloved Stepchild or Clio’s Daughter? Some Thoughts on the Relationship between Biography and History,” paper presented at the History Department Seminar, University of Cape Town, 14 September 2016. The classic text being E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963). Philip S. Zachernuk, Colonial Subjects: An African Intelligentsia and Atlantic Ideas (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000): 1-18, 175–176. Paul la Hausse, Restless Identities: Signatures of Nationalism, Zulu Ethnicity and the history of the Lives of Petros Lamula (c 1881–1948) and Lymon Maling (1889–c1936) (Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2000): 258–264. For further references on this issue, see: Thandika Mkandawire (ed.) African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development (London: CODESRIA/Zed Press, 2005); Mcebisi Ndletyana (ed.) African Intellectuals in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century South Africa (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008).

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7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20

Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkley: University of California Press, 2005): 16–17. For more background on this, see Paul Rich, White Power and the Liberal Conscience: Racial Segregation and South African Liberalism (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984); Saul Dubow, Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919–36 (Oxford: Macmillan, 1989): Pt. I; Edward Feit, African Opposition in South Africa: The Failure of Passive Resistance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967); Peter Limb, Norman Etherington, & Peter Midgley, Grappling with the Beast: Indigenous Southern African Responses to Colonialism 1840–1930 (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa (London: C. Hurst & Co, 1970): 348. D.G.S. M’timkulu, “Brief History of the Development of Academic Programmes at Renison College,” mimeo supplied by Renison College archive (n.d.). He was appointed with Reverend Patwell Matshikwe and four others as a member of the Ndabeni Location Advisory Board in 1925. SASAP: SAB/URU/LEER/730/01/325/1 (1925). NEBC, Cape Town, 6–9 February 1929 (Lovedale Press, 1929). See the First Annual Report of the Bantu Welfare Trust (1936–1937). J. Dexter Taylor, One Hundred Year of the American Board Mission in South Africa (Durban: E.P. & Commercial Printing, 1935) Chapter on: Education: pp. 34–43. The Fort Hare calendars for 1928 and 1936 indicate the curriculum that he followed. See interview in Durban News, 28 March 1956. South African Outlook, 1 April 1930: 84. Calendar of the South African Native College (1936): 106. These scholarships had been founded by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope. The value of the scholarship in 1928 was £150 per annum tenable for three years (University of Cape Town Calendar, 1928: 65). Lovedale and Fort Hare Notes, South African Outlook, 1 July 1932. DM Tape 1. See David H. Anthony, Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold War Warrior (New York: New York University Press, 2006): 99; Christian Students and Modern South Africa: A Report on the Bantu European Student Christian Conference held at Fort Hare from 27 June to 2 July 1930 (Fort Hare: Student Christian Association, 1930); JoMarie Claassens, “A Conference that Could Have Changed Our World: Fort Hare 1930,” Alternation 4(2) (1997): 136–161.

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24

25

26

27 28

29 30

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See Mwelela Cele, “Co-opting Durban’s Black Urban Dwellers: The Establishment of the Durban Bantu Social Centre,” http://kznhass.net/files/seminars/Cele2009.pdf See Richard Elphick, The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa (Scottsville: UKZN Press, 2012): 138–142. Rich (1984): Ch. 2. Rich (1984); Saul Dubow, “The Elaboration of Segregationist Ideology,” in William Beinart & S. Dubow (eds.) Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa (London: Routledge, 1995): 146; Edgar H. Brookes, History of Native Policy in South Africa (Cape Town: Nasionale Pers, 1924); Native Education in South Africa (Pretoria: van Schaik, 1930); A South African Pilgrimage (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1977); Maurice Evans, Black and White in the Southern States from a South African Point of View (London: Longman Green, 1915). See Leslie A. Hewson, “Healdtown: A Study of a Methodist Experiment in African Education” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rhodes University, 1959); Trevor Webster, Healdtown: Under the Eagles’ Wings – the Legacy of an African Mission School (Cape Town: Methodist Publishing House, 2013). Mweli Skota lists him as “perhaps the foremost leader of the Barolong at Thaba Nchu, the owner of a large farm and a progressive farmer who was much respected by Africans and Europeans in the Orange Free State, who took a great interest in the educational, social and political affairs of his people. See The African Yearly Register (Johannesburg: R.L. Esson & Co., 1932). See Interview with M’timkulu: Durban News, 28 March 1956. Also see Walshe (1970); Z.K. Matthews, “A Short History of the Tshidi Baralong,” Fort Hare Papers, June 1945, http://uic.unisa.za/bitstream/handle/10500/5566/zkm_A2_42; Isaac Schapera, The Tswana (London: International African Institute, 1953). Moroko’s first wife was also a daughter of Chief Fenyang. She was reputed to have been the first black woman to play in the Durban Philharmonic Orchestra (telephone interview with Tony Mbeya – her grandson. 2 July 2017.) E.G. Malherbe & J.D. Rheinallt Jones (eds.) Educational Adaptations to a Changing Society: Report on the South African Education Conference held in Cape Town and Johannesburg in July 1934, under the Auspices of the New Education Fellowship (Cape Town: Juta, 1937): 470–483. Malherbe (1937): 471–473, 543. Susan Krige, “Segregation, Science and Commissions of Enquiry: The Contestation over Native Education Policy in South Africa, 1930-1936,” Journal of Southern African Studies 23(3) (1997): 491-506. Also see “Church, Liberals and the State: Secularization and

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31 32

33 34

35

36 37 38 39

40 41

Segregation in African Education” (unpublished M. Ed dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1994). The CATA, I (4) 1935. Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in East Africa: A Study of East, Central and South Africa by the second African Education Commission under the auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, in cooperation with the International Education Board (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1924). D.G.S. M’timkulu: Passport to proceed overseas: NASA: SAB/NTS/LEER/2713/ 01/212/301/1 (1935–1937) For background, see R.D. Heyman, “C.T. Loram: A South African liberal in Race Relations,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies V(1) (1972): 41–50; Martin Legassick, “C.T. Loram and South African Native Policy” (unpublished MSS., n.d.); R. Hunt Davis, “Charles T. Loram and the American Model for African Education in South Africa,” in Peter Kallaway (ed.) Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984): 108–126; Richard Glotzer, “Charles Templeton Loram: Education and Race Relation in South Africa and North America,” in P. Kallaway & Rebecca Swartz (eds.) Empire and Education: The Shaping of a Comparative Perspective (New York: Peter Lang, 2016): 155–176. Zachariah K. Matthews, Freedom for My People (ed. Monica Wilson) (Cape Town: David Philip, 1981); William Saayman, “Subversive Subservience: Z.K. Matthews and Missionary Education in South Africa,” Missionalia 25(4) (1997): 523–536. Published as Charles T. Loram, The Education of the South African Native (London: Longmans Green, 1917). James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion: The American Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995): 308–309. Saul Dubow, “Understanding the Native Mind: Anthropology, Cultural Adaptation and the Elaboration of Segregationist Discourse in South Africa, c 1920–1936,” Cape Town, CAS Seminar, 22 August 1984. Kenneth King Pan-Africanism and Education (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971) gives an excellent account of that educational philosophy. In specific relation to Loram’s career in Natal, see Brahm Fleisch, “C.T. Loram and the Transformation of African Education in Natal 1918– 1939” (unpublished mimeo circa, 1994) Oscar Emanuelson, “A History of Native Education in Natal between 1835 and 1927” (unpublished M.Ed. dissertation, UNISA, 1927): Chs. VII, VIII, XI. Felix M. Keesing, Education in Pacific Countries (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1937); Mcllwraith & C.T. Loram (eds.) The North American

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45 46 47

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Indian Today: papers from a seminar/conference held at the University of Toronto in 1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1943). See also Julie McLeod & Fiona Paisley, “The Modernization of Colonialism and the Educability of the ‘Natives’: Transpacific Knowledge and Education in the Inter-War Years.” History of Education Quarterly, 56(3) August, 2016: 473–502. Heyman (1972): 49. “The Department of Race Relations at Yale University,” by Charles T. Loram, Department of Race Relations, Yale University, 3 February 1937. CTL Papers 10 II 1 22. Loram set out the aims of his department in “Race and Group Relationships as a University Study,” CTL 10 II 2 56 (1937?). According to M’timkulu this course was mainly about race relations in the United States (DM Tape 2). These were rather exaggerated claims as little of what he published deserves the epithet of research even if judged by the standards of the time and the field of sociology. It is more accurately described as “comment.” In particular, for the Departments of Education, Anthropology, Sociology and Public Health. The General Education Board contributed $10,000 to the expenses of the Yale University Summer Seminar in 1934 and an equal amount to the Hawaii/Yale Seminar Conference in 1936. In this regard Loram’s rhetoric of science in the service of state policy was similar to that often proposed by Malinowski and others in the British and European context, though there was little overlap between their approaches to the field of research. Edward H. Berman, The Ideology of Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983): Ch. 1: 15–18, 30; Heyman (1970). See Oversea Education VI(2) (January 1935): 75–76. Report of the Inter-Territorial “Jeanes” Conference held in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, 27 May–6 June 1935 (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1936). Keesing (1937). Thomas Forsyth McIlwraith & C.T. Loram (eds.) The North American Indian Today (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1943). See James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: The Autobiography if Booker T. Washington (New York: Carol, 1902); Bieze (2008). DM Tape 2. See John Steytler, Educational Adaptations with Reference to African Village Schools – with Special Reference to Central Nyasaland (London: Sheldon Press, 1939); Emanuelson (1927).

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 55 56 57 58 59

60

61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68

Z.K. Matthews Papers, A1.18: Z.K. Matthews to (Alexander) Kerr. 20, January, 1934. Durban News, 28 March 1956. See IMC/CBMS Box 1226, File L. B.36-B.37. Testimonial for D. M’timkulu by C.T. Loram. 2 February 1937 and a letter from C.T. Loram to Betty Gibson, IMC, 10 March 1937. DN Tape 2 and 3. I am not sure that I agree with this but I am simply reporting what Donald M’timkulu told me. Don M’timkulu, “ ‘Down South’, A report of a tour through the Southern States undertaken by members of the Department of Race Relations in the Graduate School of Yale University, under the direction of Prof. C.T. Loram”: March 19th – April 13th, 1936. See The Teacher’s Vision IV(4) (September 1937): 17–23; V(2) (December 1937): 20–28; IV(3) (March 1938): 15–23. Also see Sol Plaatje, “An Account of the Visit (to Tuskegee)”; see Brian Willan, Sol Plaatje: A Biography (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984). See Ch. 11: Z.K. Matthews, Native Teachers’ Journal XIII(4) (July 1934): 159–163. I have been unable to establish who the other members of the group were but M’timkulu told me there were three blacks. D.M. Tape 2 Mabel Carney was an international expert on rural education. She studied at Teachers College, Columbia University and joined the faculty after the publication of her thesis, Country Life and the Country School (Chicago, 1912). She visited South Africa in 1926 and also attended the New Education Fellowship conference in Cape Town and Johannesburg in 1934. See Malherbe (1937): 291, 301, 309, 341, 498. Also see R. Glotzer, “The Career of Mabel Carney: The Study of Race and Rural Development in the United States and South Africa,” Safundi 1 (April 2003): 1–23. She was the wife of W. E. B. Du Bois. See The Souls of Black Folk (New York: original published 1905- Signet, 1969). The Teachers’ Vision IV(1) (September 1937): 17–18. The Teachers’ Vision V(2) (December 1937): 23; also on this topic, see Anderson(1988): Ch. 5. The Teachers’ Vision IV(1) (September 1937): 20–22. The Teachers’ Vision IV(3) (March 1938): 15–18. See Richard Hunt Davis Jr., “ ‘Producing the Good African’: South Carolina’s Penn School as a Guide for African Education in South Africa,” in Agrippah T. Mugomba & Mougo Nyaggah (eds.) Independence without Freedom: The Political Economy of Colonial Education in Southern Africa (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1977): 83-112.

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Max B. Thrasher, Tuskegee: Its Story and its Work (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969); Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee and its People: Their Ideals and Achievements (New York: Appleton, 1916). citing Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: University Books, n.d.) (first published in 1902): 203. For further comment on Washington, see Introduction pp. 23–24.) The Teachers’ Vision IV(3) (March 1938): 22–23. Kenneth King, Pan-Africanism and Education (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971): 231–232 citing Nyabongo to Jones, 22 January 1934, File B-4, Phelps Stokes Fund Archive. See Saayman (1997): 523–536 citing L. De Kok, Civilizing Barbarians: Missionary Narrative and African Textual Response in 19th Century South Africa (Johannesburg: Wits Press/Lovedale Press, 1996); Shula Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986). King (1971): 237. CTL Papers: Circular letter to Former Students and Friends, 1 June 1938. I found little trace of these events in the Loram archives at Yale. Keesing was the Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Hawaii. See Loram Report on Department of Race Relations, Yale University, 1937. CTL 10 II 22. Keesing (1937); 1: see also McLeod & Paisley (2016): 473–502. C.T. Loram Papers: Writings: Series II Box 1 Folder 34: 8p. Keesing (1937): 46. Ibid.: 60–61; for a critique of the arguments around detribalization and its dangers, see A.V. Murray, The School in the Bush (London: Longmans Green, 1929/1938); W.H. Macmillan, Africa Emergent (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938). See Chapters 2, 3, 4 of this volume. Stanley D. Porteus was Professor Clinical Psychology at the University of Hawaii and Director of the Psychological and Psychopathic Clinic, Territory of Hawaii. See his The Psychology of a Primitive People, A Study of the Australian Aborigine (London, 1931); Primitive Intelligence and Environment (New York: Macmillan, 1937) and The Porteus Maze Test and Intelligence (Palo Alto: Pacific, c1950). For a review of his work, see C.M. Doke, Bantu Studies 12(1938): 64– 65; The work of Laurence Fick in South Africa was to follow on this path. See his The Educability of the South African Native (Pretoria, 1939). For an outline of research of this field at the time, see R.A.C. Oliver “Mental Testing for Primitive Races,” Yearbook of Education (1935): 560–570. See also Saul Dubow, Illicit Racism: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand

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86 87 88 89 90

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University Press, 1995): Ch. 6 “Mental Testing and the Understanding of the “Native Mind”: 197–245. Keesing (1937): 56. I unfortunately have no record of these events from M’timkulu himself. DM Tape 3. His colleague at Renison College also refers briefly to M’timkulu’s study of race relations in Hawaii. http://uwaterloo.ca/donald-g-s-mtimkulu For the background to the reforms in Native American education in the 1930s, see Margaret C. Szasz, Education and the American Indian: The Road to Self-Determination since 1928 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1999); Joseph Watras, “Progressive Education and Native American Schools, 1929–1950,” Journal of Educational Foundations (Summer–Fall 2004): 81–104; Phelps Stokes Fund, The Navajo Indian Problem (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1939): Phelps-Stokes papers MG 162. See McIlwraith & Loram (1943). Ibid. See I.C. Kandel, Comparative Education (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933); Henry Lester Smith, Comparative Education (Bloomington: Educational Publications, 1941). IMC/CBMS Box 1226 File L.: 2 February 1937: Testimonial for D M’timkulu by C.T. Loram. IMC/CBMS Box 1226 File L B36-B37: 2 February 1937: Testimonial for D. M’timkulu by C.T. Loram. The Colonial Department of the Institute of Education as the foremost center for the study of education in the British Empire and Commonwealth at the time – see Clive Whitehead, “ ‘Not wanted on the Voyage’: A Study of the Colonial Department, ULIE, 1927–1956,” DICE Occasional Papers, No 11, March 1988. The Calendar of the South African Native College (Fort Hare) for 1936 notes that M’timkulu was the recipient of a May Esther Bedford Fellowship. For more details on this, see Ch. 7. Ralph Bunche was a black American professor of Political Science at Howard University from 1928 to 1950. He was the author of A World View of Race (Washington, DC: Bronze Booklet Series, 1936) and was subsequently a Nobel Prize Winner; Paul Robeson was at the height of his career as an actor but had enrolled as a student at the SOAS in London in 1934 because of a desire to further his knowledge of Africa. He subsequently spent some time in the USSR; George Padmore, was a radical black historian now resident in London after spending the early 1930s as an active member of the Communist Party in the USSR, see How Britain Rules Africa (London: Wishart Books, 1936). Bunche spent some time at the University of Cape Town on a grant arranged by Isaac Schapera.

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See Bob Edgar, An African American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J. Bunche 1937–8 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1992): 127. Ibid. Helen Bradford, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union in the Countryside: 1924–1930” (University of Cape Town, PhD dissertation, 1985). Edgar (1992): 295. See Adams College archive held at the Campbell Library, UKZN. This archive only refers to the final period of the College’s history in the 1950s. According to M’timkulu a fire in the library/archive had destroyed the earlier records in 1947. Also see Natal Mercury, 3 March 1947. See Adams College catalogue, Campbell Library. George C. Grant, The Liquidation of Adams College (For private circulation, 1954). Edgar Brookes was a distinguished educationist, author, and liberal leader, who had written a key book, Native Education in South Africa (Pretoria, 1930) defending educational segregation, but subsequently became a major critic of such policies when he was the principal of Adams College from 1934 to 1945. DM Tape 1; See G.C. Grant, “Educational Institutions: Adams College,” Native Teachers’ Journal XXX(4) (July 1951): 526–534; Sylvia Vietzen, “Total Institution or Beacon of Light: Some Reflections on Adams College” (London: ICS Papers, 1988). Sydney F. Bush, Honoris Causa: Laudations Spoken in Presenting Honorary Graduands in the University of Natal, 1949–1967 (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1968): 46–7; During this time M’timkulu developed a close working relationship and friendship with Edgar Brookes (personal communication with Heather Brookes, granddaughter). See Oscar D. Dhlomo, “A Survey of Some Aspects of the Educational Activities of the ABCFM in Natal as reflected in the history of Amanzimtoti Institute, 1835–1956” (M.Ed. dissertation, Univ. of Zululand, 1976). “Native Education in South Africa,” The Natal Mercury, 24 May 1938. See Durban News, 28 March 1956: “M’timkulu: an honour for my people”; Bush (1968): 47. D.G.S. M’timkulu, “From the Bantu Point of View,” South African Outlook, 20 September 1938: 23–24. The conference of the Natal African Teachers’ Association, with M’timkulu as president, had condemned Christian National Education at its conference in June 1949; see “African Condemn C.N.E,” Natal Mercury, 5 July 1949. See also Meghan Healy-Clancy, A World of Their

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111 112 113 114

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Own: A History of South African Women’s Education (Scottsville: UKZN Press, 2013): 30–31. Heather Hughes, First President: The Life of John Dube Founding President of the ANC (Auckland Park: Jacana, 2011): Ch. 5: 51; Smangaliso R. Kumalo, Pastor and Politician: Essays on the Legacies of John Dube (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster, 2012). It is important to see this project and endeavor in the context of other independent educational projects in the first half of the twentieth century – see Andrew N.M. Paterson, “Contest and Co-option: The Struggle for Schooling in the Independent African Churches of the Cape Colony, c 1895–1920” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town, 1992). See Manning Marable, “John L. Dube and the Politics of Segregated Education in South Africa,” in Agrippah T. Mugomba & Mougo Nyaggah (eds.) Independence Without Freedom: The Political Economy of Colonial Education in Southern Africa (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1977): 113–128; Hughes (2011). Donald M’timkulu, “Ohlange Institute: Its History and Development,” Native Teachers’ Journal XXIX(2) (January 1950): 21–24. D. Mtimkulu, “The Native Teacher’s Part,” The South African Outlook, 2 October, 1933: 205–206; Murray (1929/38); Robert Russa Moton, What the Negro Thinks (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929); Leonard Barnes, Caliban in Africa: An Impression of Colour Madness (London: Gollancz, 1930); UG 22–1932: The Native Economic Commission Report (Holloway Commission); The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report by the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch: Pro – Ecclesia-Drukkery, 1932). Catherine Higgs, The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D.D.T. Jabavu of South Africa, 1885–1959 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1997): 37. Randall L. Peteni, Towards Tomorrow: The Story of the African Teachers’ Association (ATASA) (Geneva: WCTOP, 1978–9): 83–87. Donald D. M’timkulu, “Teachers and the People,” Native Teachers’ Journal XXII(2) (January 1943): 62–65; Peteni (1978–9): 85. Saul Dubow, “South Africa and South Africans: Nationality, Belonging, Citizenship,” in Robert Ross, Anne Mager, & Bill Nasson (eds.) The Cambridge History of South Africa, Vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012): 50. “African Claims in South Africa,” document adopted by the ANC Annual Conference, 20–22 December 1942. D. M’timkulu is listed as a member of the drafting committee. See T. Karis & G. Carter, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1884–1964, Vol. II (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1979): 219–220, 222–223; Peteni (1978–9): 85.

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“African Condemn C.N.E,” Natal Mercury, 5 July 1949. “Education and the Native,” Natal Mercury, 5 July 1949. See SAIRR Annual Surveys. Henry Swanzy, Quarterly Notes of African Affairs, 49(196) (July 1950): 179. See South African Outlook, March 1943; Oscar Wollheim, “Crisis in Native Education,” Race Relations 10(2) (1943): 37–39; E. Rheinallt Jones, “A Ten Year Plan,” Race Relations 10(2) (1943): 40–41. Walshe (1970): 315–316: P.A.W. Cook, “Non-European Education,” in Ellen Hellman (ed.) Handbook on Race Relations in South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1949): 365; SAIRR, Report of the Proceedings of the National Conference Convened by the SAIRR to Study the Report of the Commission on Native Education (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1952). Walshe (1970): 315–317. Walshe points out that the 1949 per capita grant needs to be compared with the ₤42 allocated to Europeans. See Report of the Provincial Committee on Native Education (E.W. Thomas Report) (NP 5–1946): 3, 73. Muriel Horrell, A Decade of Bantu Education (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1964): 8–9; “Report of the Proceedings … (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1952). This notion of “spiritual death” in the face of colonization can also be located in the work of inter-war German anthropologists like Diedrich Westermann and Bruno Gutmann. See Ch. 5) and Jürgen C. Winter, Bruno Gutmann, 1876–1966: A German Approach to Social Anthropology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). RR 145/1954 19/5/1954 JH Walsh (1970): 280. citing D. M’timkulu, “The African,” Race Relations 13(1) (1946): 4. Theoria (1953) Special Edition: 20–22. Z.K. Matthews & D.G.S. M’timkulu, “The Future in the Light of the Tomlinson Report,” Race Relations Journal XXIV (182) (1957): 12–19. Members of the committee were: Transvaal: D. Nokwe, G.M. Pitje, E. Mphahlele; Natal: P.V. Mbatha, O.O. Silakane & D. M’timkulu; Cape: A.P. Mda, T.T. Letlaka; OFS: L.K. Ntlabathi and two others. See Karis & Carter (1979). Vol. III: 77–79, 89. See Lionel Foreman & E.S. Sachs, The South African Treason Trial (London: John Calder, 1957). Race Relations, 13(1) (1946): 1–5. Race Relations, 16(3) (1949): 56–63. SAIRR Council Meeting, 17–20 January 1955: Theme: Changing Economic and Social Structure of South Africa: Session 20/1 NonEuropean Adjustment to Urbanization – papers presented by D.

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135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142

143 144 145 146 147

148 149 150 151 152 153 154

M’timkulu of Ohlange Institute and E.G.N. Njisane, University of Natal. RR, 185/54–16/5/54. Race Relations 13(1) (1946): 1 Race Relations Journal XXIV(182) (1957): 12–19; Race Relations Journal 16(3) (1949): 56–63; RR 36/5 (1955); RR 225/57 (1958). South African Outlook 88 (August 1958): 123–125. D. M’timkulu, “The African,” Race Relations XIII(1) (1946): 1–5. D. M’timkulu, “African Adjustment …,” SAIRR RR.36/1955. See Tom Lodge, “The Parents’ School Boycott: Eastern Cape and East Rand Townships, 1955,” in Peter Kallaway (ed.) Apartheid and Education (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1984): 265–295. U.G. 61–1955. Race Relations Journal XXIV(182) (1957): 12–19. RR/185/54–16/11 54. The Native Teacher’s Journal XX(1) (October 1940): 9–15; this was also published in The Teachers’ Vision VII(2) (December 1940): 6–14. It was the theme of his speech to the NBTU in 1941. (Peteni (1978– 9): 85). Malherbe (1937): 470–473. Native Teachers’ Journal XIV(1) (October 1934): 30–34. See also Albert Luthuli, Let My People Go: The Autobiography of a Great South African Leader (London: Collins, 1962) especially Ch. 3. For Westermann, see Ch. 5; Murray (1929). “Teaching English in Bantu Schools,” South African Outlook 88 (August 1958): 123–125. See Alexander Kerr, Fort Hare: The Evolution of an African College (New York: Humanities Press, 1968); H.R. Burrows, A Short Pictorial History of the University of Fort Hare (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1961): 81; Donovan Williams, The History of the University College of Fort Hare – the 1950s: The Waiting Years (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, c2001): 76–77. Bush (1968): 46–47. Personal communication with Jillian Viljoen, UKZN Library. 21, April 2016. In accordance with Government Notice No. 168 (Government Gazette of 21st August 1959 p. 12.) issued in terms of sub-section (2) of the University of Fort Hare Transfer Act, 1959 (Act No 64 of 1959.) Williams (2001): 74–76, 200–201, 390, 402, 427, 502, 561–562. Burrows (1961): 44–45, 81; Matthews (1981): 197. For M’timkulu’s comment, see News 24 archive on his obituary 30/10/2000. D. M’timkulu, A Positive Christianity for Africa (New York: Agricultural Missions Foundation, 1937). Peteni (1978–9): 84. The Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation had its origins in the work of the International Missionary Council (IMC)

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from 1932 on the Copperbelt and Merle Davis’s work on the welfare and education needs of the area (see Merle Davis, Modern Industry and the African (London: IMC, 1933; see Ch. 1); “Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation,” in James R. Sheffield & Victor P. Diejomaoh (eds.) NonFormal Education in African Development (New York: African American Institute, 1972): 190–195. Mindolo Newsletter, No. 10 (October 1962): “Donald M’timkulu becomes the first Principal of Mindolo.” The All – Africa Church movement originated in a meeting convened by the International Missionary Council (IMC) in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1958. For an overview of this initiative, see the AACC Provisional Committee, Africa in Transition: The Challenge and the Christian Response (Geneva, 1962). Also see David G. Scanlon in International Review of Education 9(4) (1963–4): 445; and Church, State and Education in Africa (New York: Teachers’ College Press, 1966). D. M’timkulu, “Message to Christians in South Africa”: 322–325, 198– 201, 322–325 (WCC: Association Press, 1961) Published Proceedings (on-line) See D. M’timkulu, The Mission Church in Africa Today (Toronto: Board of World Mission, United Churches of Canada, 1962); “All-African Church Conference,” International Review of Missions 51(201) (January 1962): 63–66; “Drumbeats from Kampala”: Report of the first assembly of the All – Africa Churches conference held at Kampala from 20–30 April, 1963 (London: Lutterworth Press, 1963); “The All-Africa Church Conference,” Journal of Modern African Studies I(1) (1963): 109–110. Edwin H. Rian (ed.) Christianity and World Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); D. Mtimkulu, “Some Aspects of the Zulu Religion,” in Newell S. Booth Jr. (ed.) African Religions: A Symposium (New York: NOK Publications, 1979). D. M’timkulu, personal cv.; Daily Kent Stater Llll (46) January 1968: African Scholar in Residence: Dr M’Timkulu to lecture.” Morges, Switzerland, WCOTP, 1974. See Peteni (1978–9): 85. Julius Nyerere, Nyerere on Education: Selected Essays and Speeches, 1954–1998 (Dar es Salaam: HakiElimu: E&D Ltd.: Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, c2004). Donald M’timkulu, Beyond Independence: The Face of the New Africa (New York: Friendship Press, 1971): 19. Ibid.: 40. Hughes (2011): 208 citing Natal Native Teachers’ Journal (October 1920): 4–6. Daily Kent Stater, Llll (46) (12 January 1968). Many thanks to Tony Mbewu, M’timkulu’s grandson, for this information. M’timkulu, “Brief History” (n.d.): 1.

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 168 Peteni (1978–9): 7, 84. 169 See A Memorium by Michael Bird, a long – time colleague. http://uwaterloo.ca/renison/donald-g-s-mtimkulu 170 Ibid. 171 M’timkulu (1971) cover note.

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The modernization of tradition? isiXhosa language education and school history 1920–1948 – reform in the work of Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi*

*

Special thanks to Jeff Peires for his generous assistance with this project and to the Librarians at Cory Library, Rhodes University.

Introduction Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi is a much-neglected figure in South African history. Prior to the publications of Jeff Opland and his collaborators in recent years, his work has only been available in isiXhosa.1 He has primarily been regarded as an imbongi (a traditional poet), but his published poetry and literary work, in addition to his writing as a journalist, historian and educationalist, demonstrate that he had a wider and significant long-term impact on Xhosa society. He emerges as a major interpreter and mediator of the engagement between indigenous Xhosa culture and tradition, and the colonial or modern world, of the first half of the twentieth century. Leo Shoots, his most recent biographer, sees him as a provider of “an alternative intellectual approach to the social world.” He notes that Mqhayi’s work is “deeply engaged with the social questions that emerge from the process of colonization” by “expressly honouring the old (culture) and allowing it to shape the present but always recreating that tradition to meet the present in new and creative ways.” Mqhayi’s 259

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contribution to literature and to history is unique and powerful because he is able “to maintain a coherence within the ‘Xhosa world view’ – to reinterpret it and use its metaphors and ‘common sense’ knowledge to interpret the new world.” His history is not formal history but part of a “longer project regarding the national consciousness of the Xhosa people.” Its significance lies in its promotion of a positive view of Xhosa history and culture while at the same time recognizing that change was inevitable.2 As indicated in previous chapters, the focus of education in the African colonial context of the interwar years was on “adapted education,” an omnibus term that was held to present a Progressive educational version of curriculum development. The response of African communities and of the new African educated elite to these reforms was always ambiguous. “Industrial education” was usually regarded by them as being of inferior quality and part of an attempt to deny Africans access to the skills, languages and culture of the Western world and the new global scientific culture. Yet they also valued their indigenous cultural inheritance. Their response to notions of cultural adaptation was thus often complex. Given the fact that most students who attended mission schools only managed to remain for a few years, the question of indigenous languages of instruction took a central place in the discussions. The need to prepare vernacular teachers and vernacular schoolbooks, particularly School Readers, as a foundation for that education, was a major preoccupation of missionary educators and policy-makers in the 1930s.3 On a purely practical and pedagogical, rather than cultural, level, it was widely accepted that indigenous language instruction/learning in the early years was essential for gaining access to the 3Rs, but the extent to which that emphasis was to be maintained in the later years of primary school and into secondary school was much debated by all parties.4 An essential issue in this context relates to the kinds of balance African educationalists were able to maintain when they had limited power and influence in relation to educational policy debates and policy-making. The specific context in which I attempt to probe the problem is not the colonial context referred to in the earlier chapters but the very specific politics of the Cape Province of South Africa in the era after Union in 1910, where the access of Africans to education was much contested in the context of the evolving politics of segregation. The focus will be specifically on issues related to the

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schooling of the isiXhosa language group located predominantly in the Ciskei and the Transkei.5 Samuel Mqhayi was a significant actor in these debates. He identified with Rharhabe Xhosa traditions but was also a member of a prominent mission family and a product of the Glasgow Missionary Society (GMS) flagship mission school at Lovedale Institution. He was in one aspect a traditionalist but also a representative of the emerging mission-educated elite of the Eastern Cape. He was a fierce protagonist of Xhosa historical traditions and culture which he had imbibed as a teenager at the end of the nineteenth century in Gcalekaland, the heartland of traditionalist country. He acquired an abiding commitment to his culture and people which propelled him through a career which spanned half a century as a schoolteacher, a journalist, poet, imbongi, writer of novels and isiXhosa language expert. In that context Mqhayi’s contribution to isiXhosa language schoolbooks represented a remarkable, if largely unrecognized, contribution to South African literature and politics. What makes him unique is not only his multi-layered identity but also the fact that he was able to use the medium of print to pass on to his people aspects of the Xhosa language, cultural traditions and heroic stories about Xhosa history that were in danger of being lost, while at the same time being a defender of mission/state education as a necessary right for his people in the modern world. Mqhayi’s life and career are a reflection of the complex challenges confronted by colonial educators in the early twentieth century that I have attempted to represent in this series of chapters. As Jeff Opland and Jeff Peires have shown,6 he was an extremely brave and heroic defender of the Xhosa cultural heritage in an age when the brutal colonial battlefields of the nineteenth century had been supplanted by the political struggles of the new elite to find a place in a “unified” Union of South Africa after 1910. Writing exclusively in isiXhosa,7 he managed a remarkable balance between commitment to his Xhosa heritage and a critical engagement with the wider African and global political community. As Opland notes, “in his oral declamations and through a lifetime devoted to writing, Mqhayi chided and praised, denounced and celebrated the peoples of South Africa.”8 The focus of this chapter is on his oblique engagement with the education system through his involvement with the provision of Xhosa poetry anthologies and participation in the development and implementation of a new orthography for the isiXhosa language. Significantly, he was 261

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centrally involved in the preparation of School Readers for Xhosa children. The provision of standardized orthographies was part of the broader attempt to bring science to the colonial order in the 1930s by facilitating the spread of a print culture. My aim is to understand the complex dynamics behind the construction of school knowledge in the colonial culture of the Eastern Cape in the 1930s, which integrated international “scientific” expertise and understandings of language and literature for colonial youth with the dynamics of local knowledge and indigenous culture.

Samuel E.K.Mqhayi 1938 from D. Westermann, Afrikaner esrzahlen ihr Leben (1938)

Mqhayi as imiBongi addressing the Prince of Wales in Kingwilliamstown, The Graphic, KWT :13/ June 1925.

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The new and old monuments to S.E.K Mqhayi at Ntabazuko (2018)(PK)

Background On the edge of the German settler village of Berlin (now called Ntabozuko) in the Eastern Cape stands the recent monument dedicated to one of the most celebrated poets and authors of the isiXhosa language, Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi (1875–1945).9 In the latter part of his life, from 1926 to 1945, he lived a few miles outside of the village at his hilltop home of Ntab’ozuko (also variously called Mount Glory or Tilana Hill). From here he worked at crafting a literature that integrated the Xhosa imbongi oral tradition with modern published Xhosa literature. Opland sees him as being particularly significant for being the first imbongi to successfully bridge the gap between Xhosa oral and written productions, a poet “whose pre-eminence influenced and invigorated the flagging oral tradition.”10 Many Xhosa people who were educated in mission schools in the area prior to the advent of Bantu Education in 1953 remember having read Mqhayi’s work and recited his poems which celebrated Xhosa culture, traditions and history.11 Yet it is only recently, with the publications of Jeff Opland and his collaborators, as well the work of Jeff Peires, and Patricia Scott,12 that the broad corpus of Mqhayi’s work has been made available to a wide public and in English translation. Daniel Magaziner assists us in an understanding the ambiguities of Mqhayi’s work with specific reference to the dilemmas of the black artist on a global stage during the 1930s:

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Chapter 7 Black intellectuals were caught in a bind. If they insisted that the race progressed best through the extraordinary striving and success of individual geniuses, they risked dissolving their Africanness into the stew of colonial modernity. But if they argued that Africans’ genius emerged from the traditions, trials and tribulations of their race, they risked allowing race to determine not only the content but also the form and limits of African (artistic) success. Robeson13 noted with disgust that black artists were aping the white man at a time when white artists were using African sculptural inspiration to great critical success… . Whereas editorialists urged artists to fill their canvases and stage their dramas with accounts of the community’s progress through the modern world, local primitivists contended that black artists’ first obligation was to preserve African aesthetic traditions – the authentic genius of the natives, which was widely imagined to be under threat.14

In that context Mqhayi was unyielding in his commitment to Xhosa culture and language while accepting many of the features of the modern world if they respected the rights of all citizens – although he seldom speaks directly or specifically on issues of contemporary politics.15 His subtle, dry, ironic and not infrequently harsh and sarcastic tone was a feature of his writing that reflected his imbongi tradition and identity.16 When he was invited to Healdtown to perform before the students, Nelson Mandela was deeply impressed and later recalled that when Mqhayi spoke his last word, he dropped his head to his chest. We rose to our feet, clapping and cheering. I did not want to ever stop applauding. I felt such intense pride at that point, not as an African but as a Xhosa; I felt like one of the chosen people.17

His work has been lauded by the many scholars who have written on twentieth-century African literature, including A.C. Jordan, 18 Peter Midgley,19 Sizwe Satyo,20 D.B. Ntili and C.F. Swanepoel.21 He was featured in a special edition of South African Outlook in December 1975.22 A number of academic dissertations have examined his work in recent years, including those of Clifford Dikeni,23 Wandile Kuse,24 Zithobile S. Qangule,25 Ntombomzi R. Mazwi26 and Leo Shoots.27 Yet none of these works focus specifically on Mqahyi’s role as a historian and an educator. Drawing on these works I want to make a case for the considerable significance of his role in these areas. To do this it is necessary first to briefly sketch his historical background and the context in which he worked, and to try to 264

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understand the forces that motivated him, as well as to attempt the difficult task of interpreting his historical work and how he attempted to engage with the social, political and literary context in which he found himself. I wish to shine the spotlight on his historical work and his potential contribution to South African historiography which has to date been largely neglected. Most importantly, I am seeking to understand how successfully he was able to use his position as both an imbongi and social activist, as both a Xhosa man and a product of mission school education, to promote views that were in general alien to the formal school curriculum of the Cape Education Department, and to most, if not all, of the missionaries who played a significant role in shaping what they saw as an appropriate “civilizing” education for the Xhosa up to the 1950s.

Geneological origins Samuel Mqhayi was from a Thembu and Xhosa background – with links to the imiDange and amaRharhabe. Jeff Peires holds that he would have seen himself as a Rharhabe! In his autobiography Samuel Mqhayi traces his background to Thembu origins. Mqhayi’s Mzima ancestors had in late eighteenth century moved southwards under their numzaza (homestead-head), Sheshegu, to settle with the imiDange in the area that subsequently came to be known as Victoria East and Fort Beaufort. The village of Sheshegu, based at the extreme southern end of the Victoria East district, near to Peddie, took the name of the leader. In this context Sheshegu flourished and was joined by many followers. The son of Sheshegu, Mqhayi28 (Samuel’s grandfather) rose to prominence as a warrior and praise-singer and was invited to become a councillor at the Great Place of Ngqika, the paramount chief of the Rharhabe (1778–1829). He subsequently moved from the imiDange “to settle at Jadu near to Seymour.” 29 He reports that his grandfather subsequently died in battle during the War of Hintsa (1835).30 The eldest son of Mqhayi, Krune (1800–1895) was an attendant to Kona, the son of Chief Maqoma.31 He subsequently “settled among the missionaries at Macfarlane,” a GMS mission station in the Tyhume Valley near to Lovedale, and rose to prominence in the church and had considerable influence on his grandson, Samuel.32 Krune’s son, Ziwani (1830–1920), the father of Samuel, was educated at Lovedale. He was known for his humility, self-control and patience and became a 265

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churchman in his later life. He was a linguist, and a teacher, and in his youth, he engaged in transport-riding with his uncle, which meant that he traveled widely. Along with the Ndlambe chiefs Toyise and Dyani Tshatshu, he defied Mhala’s orders, supposedly based on instructions from Sarhili, to kill their cattle in the Cattle Killing 1856.33 The Ngqika were driven beyond the Kei River during the Ninth Frontier War of 1877–1878 (the War of Ngcayechibi) and were subsequently relocated by the colonial authorities to what came to be known as Gcalekaland in the Centane area. Between 1885 and 1890, Ziwani moved from Zinqhayi near to Victoria East to the homestead of his brother Nzanzana, who was a headman in the Centane area. Ziwani’s heart seems to have remained focused on church matters as he moved to Grahamstown around 1890 where he eventually became “a leading man in his church, famous for his counsel, his preaching and his singing.” In the context of the various battles and tensions of his own life, which I outline later, Samuel Mqhayi presents a remarkably heartfelt defence of his father’s and grandfather’s Christian commitment and integrity towards his people, despite his own critical stance towards the missionary endeavor.34 Samuel Mqhayi’s life and career were strongly influenced and shaped by this rich and varied historical background and the variety of influences that he attempted to document in relation to the history of his people.

Mqhayi’s education Samuel Mqhayi was born in 1875 at the Gqumahashe mission station in the Tyhume Valley near to present-day Alice. At the age of six he was sent to Evergreen mission school. His account of his early education in and out of school provides a unique glimpse of the everyday life of a Xhosa child at the time. It also reflects some to the tension that existed between Xhosa and Mfengu boys in the Valley.35 The school fell under the supervision of Reverend Elijah Makiwane, a controversial leader of the new mission elite in the Eastern Cape, an associate of his father.36 As noted earlier, Samuels’s father, Ziwani, moved to Gcalekaland in 1885. This provided the teenage boy with range of experiences that would shape his future life. Samuel was removed from school at Macfarlane in the Tyhume Valley, and for the next few years only attended school irregularly in Centane due to his duties relating to 266

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herding his uncle’s cattle. But his general experience of traditional Xhosa life in the rural area was to provide him with a range of new experiences which fundamentally shaped his future life.37 In addition to his tasks of herding stock and associating with the traditionalist boys of the village through stick fighting and other pastimes, he writes that “in those six years I learned much respecting Xhosa life, including the refinements of the Xhosa language. I saw various Xhosa dances, and tribal rituals such as the initiation ceremonies of boys and girls; the work of the Xhosa doctors; all the details of marriage ceremonies. But what affected me most was listening to the chief’s counsellor, hearing and debating a law-suit.”38 All these experiences were to inform his later writing and his general career. His first major work Ityala lama-wele (The Lawsuit of the Twins) (1914?)39 was inspired by the importance of Xhosa legal systems. He wrote that his experiences at Centane gave him “insight into the national life of my people.”40 While at Centane he was also able to continue intermittent attendance at the mission school of Reverend J.M. Auld of the Presbyterian Church’s Columbia mission station, and he demonstrates great respect for his dedication and work among the Gcaleka.41 Despite his embrace of the Centane experience, Mqhayi claims that he yearned to continue his formal education. After his uncle Nzanzana died, his sisters came to fetch him, and in April 1891 he crossed the Kei Bridge and returned to King William Town by ox-wagon, where new clothes were bought for him. They then continued to Alice, where he proceeded with his education at the elementary school at Lovedale, entering the Standard 3 class during the jubilee year of the school. 42 After he passed Standard 5, he entered the teacher education class to prepare himself for the certificate examination. However, he claims that he “became restless and refused to go to school” in 1894 and never seems to have completed the teacher’s diploma.43 While at Lovedale he indicates that he also kept contact with the wider adolescent world, as he continued with his herding duties, and was respected for his prowess at stick-fighting. He also did manual work in the school gardens to obtain extra cash.44 His exit from Lovedale was influenced by his desire to attend initiation school. He states, “I did not want to be left behind.” Aware that both his church and the school were opposed to this, and fearful that he would be expelled if he went against their will, he chose to leave school and attend initiation school with 25 other boys in March 267

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1894, thus qualifying to become a Xhosa man. His explanation for this was as follows: In my own mind I felt that I was going to be a worker for my own people in my own country, a worker for the Gospel, for social service, in politics and in educational matters; and it was clear to me that I could not accomplish my work if I did not become a man as they were.45

In view of this decision, Mqhayi concluded that he would have to give up any hope of returning to Lovedale. But after being “spoken to most severely” by Reverend John Knox Bokwe, one of the leading ministers, he claims that he was able to reconcile himself to a dual identity as a Xhosa man and a Christian.46 He gives a moving account of how he was converted during a revival meeting in his village.47 In this regard he also gives acknowledgment to the influence of his grandfather, Krune, who also lived in the Tyhume Valley at that time, and to his prominent churchman father, whom he visited periodically in Grahamstown. After returning to school, he reports that “I perceived that there was no obstacle to my accepting the ‘Word.’ ”48 In this way Mqhayi came to accept and further reconcile a dual identity in relation to his cultural heritage.49 Before tracing Mqhayi’s career after his departure from Lovedale it seems important to note that he was to return to the institution from 1923 to 1925. At first it was intended that he assist John Knox Bokwe with a project to develop Xhosa literature, but after Bokwe’s premature death, he was offered a post as an elementary teacher. Although he stayed at the school for two years, he had disagreements with the principal, James Henderson. He reported working well with Henderson, but “in the course of time I could see that I was not well understood” and that “objection was taken to some of my views on the history of the Xhosa, and on other matters.”50 He subsequently resigned. I return to these issues below. Through his links with the GMS mission and Lovedale, as well as his contacts through his father and grandfather, Samuel came, from an early age, to associate with key members of the new educated elite in the Eastern Cape. Among them were Dr Walter Rubusana,51 Reverend Elijah Makiwane,52 Reverend P. J. Mzimba, John Tengo Jabavu, Isaac Wauchope (Dyobha),53 G.B. Sinxo, J.K. Bokwe and G.W. Tyamzashe. These men were central to the new African politics of the time.54 They were also to play a central role in Mqhayi’s further education.

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Mqhayi’s career On leaving Lovedale, probably in 1896, Mqhayi moved to East London, where he had previously vacationed with his uncle Reverend Walter Rubusana, a prominent churchman and leader of Xhosa politics.55 In 1897 he accepted a post at a school on the West Bank, secured for him by Rubusana. He maintains that he did this “out of respect to the minister,” but maintains that he did not feel committed to teaching as a career.56 During his time in East London he gained a wider vision of the issues of the day, and “an introduction to social questions, and the question of the relations of the races.”57 He became secretary to Rubusana’s Independent Congregational Church, a member of the Native Vigilance Association (Iliso Lomzi), the Native Education Association,58 and the Independent Order of True Templars (IOTT),59 all of which were at the time playing a role in Cape politics. In his autobiography he expresses considerable frustration with the lack of unity “among the black races” in pursuing goals which he considered would advance the cause of Africans. From 1897 Mqhayi began to submit poems to the new isiXhosa language newspaper in East London Izwi labantu (The Voice of the Bantu).60 Izwi served as a mouthpiece for the political views of the Xhosa/Thembu group in Cape politics and represented an alternative viewpoint to John Tengo Jabavu’s pioneer independent Xhosa newspaper Imvo Zabantsundu located in King Williams Town.61 The editorship of Izwi was initially in the hands of Ndlambe Chief Nathaniel Cyril Umhalla (Mhala)62 and George Tyamzashe.63 When Tyamzashe resigned Mqhayi became the sub-editor from 1897 to 1900. Based on his previous contributions to Izwi, Mqhayi was invited to join the staff of the newspaper. Never shy about promoting himself, he describes in his autobiography how he soon came to be known as IMbongi yakwaGompo (“the Gompo (East London) Poet”) but this title soon came to be replaced by IMbongi yeSizwe Jikelele (The Poet of the Nation). Dating from this time we have at our disposal elements of a large archive of Mqhayi’s newspaper writing that Jeff Opland and his associates have made available in English. He often wrote under the pseudonyms of “Nzulu Lwazi,” “Lord Seshengu” or “Traffic Manager.” Somewhere around 1900, in response to a call from Chief Kona, the eldest son of Maqoma, “my great-grandfather’s chief,” located near Centane, Mqhayi returned to the Transkei, apparently to assist with the general development of the area. However, he tells us very little about his stay. In the light of the death of the old chief he responded 269

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to a request by the new editor of Izwi, A.K. Soga, to rejoin the staff of the struggling newspaper, but it ceased publication in 1909.64 He then went back to teaching among the Ndlambe at schools managed by Rubusana at Mcontsho location near Berlin, and later at Mpongo, near Macleantown. As noted earlier, he was subsequently asked by Reverend John Knox Bokwe to join him at Lovedale on a project to promote the advance of Xhosa literature, but before this materialized Bokwe died in 1922. After some delay Mqhayi was nevertheless offered a post at the Lovedale Elementary School by John Henderson, the principal from 1906 to 1930. Mqhayi’s short stay at Lovedale (1922/3–1926) as a teacher was characterized by similar stresses to those he had faced at the institution as a student, such as the disagreements with Henderson mentioned above. Thereafter, although he was no longer employed there, he continued to have a strong association with the institution. Of particular significance was his association with William Govan Bennie, the Chief Inspector of Native Education in the Cape from 1920 to 1930 and a strong influence at Lovedale Press.65 Once he left Lovedale in 1926 Mqhayi writes that he “went to his former home at Mcontsho village in the Ndhlambe location” near the village of Berlin.66 He claimed that he soon “found there that there were houses crowding near it” and requested a new site where he might be able to farm on his own land. His aim was to establish a (modern) demonstration farm at the site that could provide a model for local agriculturalists. He reports that his request was “well received by the local authorities,” in the person of Chief Makinana of Tshabo Location, and he was subsequently granted an eight-acre site, though financial difficulties prevented him from developing the farm. He nevertheless established himself at his new home at Ntab’ozuko. At this place he felt that he could maintain his independence while playing an active role as an imbongi and as a participant in Xhosa cultural and political affairs. From here he was to conduct his life for the next 20 years until his death in 1945.67 Aside from his literary activities he claims that he played an important role in Xhosa politics and attained a central position in Ndlambe, Ngqika and Gcaleka affairs. He “presided over” gatherings of the chiefs and attended various functions and festivities – in part in his role as imbongi – but also in a more indefinable role as a guide to his people on cultural affairs. In 1930 he wrote to Bennie that he was “very busy” with the Easter festival of the Grand True Templers in East London and the Ntsikana Memorial celebration in Queenstown. 68 It 270

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appears that he was also a councillor and secretary to Chief Makinana at Tshabo Location,69 and chair of the Ciskei Native Convention, an annual meeting of the chiefs. He traveled with Makinana and often performed as an imbongi at local events.70 He emphasizes that, while he maintained “close contact with his own race,” he was also in touch with the European races and with “all religious denominations who worship the living God.”71 He stresses his role as the praise singer. He made prominent appearances at functions such as the visit of Edward, the Prince of Wales to King Williamstown in 1925.72 There is conflicting evidence regarding Mqhayi’s attendance at the first Bantu Authors’ conference held in October 1936, first in Bloemfontein, and then in Florida, Johannesburg, at the home of J.D. Rheinallt Jones, director of the South African Institute of Race Relations. It was convened by R.H.W. Shepherd, the editor of South African Outlook and manager of Lovedale Press.73 Discussions were held relating to “the existing obstacles to the publication of manuscripts” and the challenges of financing such publications. Shepherd put forward recommendations for the establishment of a central publishing house and a “Bureau of Literature for the Bantu.” A resolution was passed requesting the Inter-University Committee on African Studies to promote the new orthographical changes and to ensure that “competent Africans” were involved in these reforms.74 The meeting also attempted to link the issues of writing and publication in South Africa to wider considerations relating to the African colonial world. Margaret Wrong gave the keynote address. She was the head of the IMC’s International Committee on Christian Literature in Africa and a prominent representative of the IIALC’s initiative to promote a book culture in Africa. She emphasized the need for greater emphasis on the publication of works in indigenous languages.76 We have another strand of evidence relating to Mqhayi’s attempts to link up with the wider international world. In 1935 and 1936 he was the winner of the literary prize for the May Esther Bedford (MEB) Competition for Bantu Literature. In 1935 he was awarded the literature prize for the third part of U-Don Jadu (The First Xhosa Utopia)77 and in the following year he was the winner with his submission of Hintsa: a Historical Poem (later to be published in isiXhosa as U-Mhlekazi u-Hintsa).78 The MEB79 competition for Bantu Literature was an aspect of the activities of the MEB Fund established in 1935 to promote the development of research and teaching on colonial education in the 75

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Overseas Division of the Institute of Education (IOE) at London University.80 The initiative seems to have been designed as a specifically South African parallel to the “Prize Competition for Books in African Languages” initiated by the IIALC in 1929,81 and a complement to the CCNY’s fellowship program at the Institute of Education.82 The guiding hand behind the MEB Fund project was a member of staff of the Colonial Department, Bryant Mumford, who had previously been headmaster of Malangale School and the Director of Education in Tanganyika (1927–1933).83 His American heiress wife, Grace, had provided the funds, amounting to ₤1000 per annum, which aimed at making grants from time to time to the Institute of Education for educational purposes, including scholarships, research and travel grants, the establishment of a Colonial Library at the Institute dedicated to issues of colonial education, and the establishment of the Colonial Review, which was to function as a clearing house for information on colonial education.84

As an indication of the significance of the initiative for the IoE’s role in colonial education, the Delegacy (the governing council of the IoE) appointed a subcommittee to administer the MEB fund in 193785 under the chairmanship of Sir Percy Nunn, the director, Fred Clarke, the head of the Overseas Department, and the former director of education in Kenya, Herbert S. Scott. I have not been able to find much information about these issues beyond the fact the Competition for Bantu Literature was initiated in 1935 and that the prizes seemed to have been around ₤25. The focus of the competition was the promotion of literature, the arts, and music, with a specific focus on the promotion of indigenous culture and languages.86 The award was to be offered annually “under the auspices of London University for literature written in Bantu languages” and administered by the South Africa Native College at Fort Hare, with applications submitted to the headmaster. All such submissions for literature had to be accompanied by an English language translation.87 I have also not been able to find any evidence relating to the reception of these initiatives in South Africa beyond the fact that the competition was advertised in The CATA/The Teacher’s Vision, the journal of the Cape African Teacher’s Association.88

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Literary work It is to this work that I wish to turn, to emphasize its impact on Xhosa education through Mqhayi’s imbongi presentations, his published prose and poetry, and his newspaper work. In particular, I will review his historical writing and presentations, which have been the subject of discussion for over a century, but have never been explored in relation to the field of academic history.89 I will then attempt to evaluate the impact of this work on the education of children schooled in the isiXhosa language, particularly from the mid1930s. Aside from his prolific contributions to Izwi Labantu and Imvo ZabaNtsundu, Mqhayi embarked on a career as a published literary writer from the time he contributed to Rubusana’s landmark anthology of Xhosa poetry Zemk’inkomo megwlandini in 1906.90 Opland describes Mqhayi’s considerable contribution to Xhosa literature. He produced two collections of poetry (1927 and 1942), two extended poems (1923 and 1937), three novels (1907, 1914 and 1929), an autobiography (1939), two biographies (1921 and 1925), a monograph on sacrifice (1928) and the proceedings of the Ntsikana Day celebration (1926). He also translated works from English and Afrikaans into isiXhosa.91 Mqhayi’s major novels were U-Sampson (a novelette based on Sampson and Delilah) (1907) which was lost over time.92 This was followed by his first great success in poetry and prose, Italya lama wele (The Lawsuit of the Twins and other Xhosa Stories).93 This was a novel set in Hintsa’s time and is “a tribute to the traditional Xhosa judicial process.” It began as the story of the lawsuit in the context of a traditional Xhosa community, a suit which revealed the essential justice of the proceedings in the Chief’s court and the virtues of traditional life and custom. According to Shepherd, it “contains much valuable information regarding legacy process among the Xhosa and much historical matter from the Xhosa point of view.”94 Over time, and in different editions, Mqhayi added historical chapters which sought to explore various aspects of Xhosa history, life and tradition, as well as commenting on South African and World History. According to Peires, it represents the fullest surviving exposition of Mqhayi’s historical viewpoint which was concerned to counter the missionary perspective that Xhosa traditional ways were “pagan” and therefore incompatible with Christianity.95 A key issue to be noted with this work was that there were often long and short editions/versions – the 273

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latter primarily for use in schools.96 The precise nature and rationale for this editing has not been researched, but Opland notes that Bennie “slashed references to Xhosa/Mfengu tensions, the death of Hintsa, the warrior chief Maqoma, witchcraft in the Old Testament, John Tengo Jabavu’s politics and the causes of the frontier wars.” 97 An understanding of these revisions seems of great significance for the general arguments being pursued in this investigation related to the selective presentation of Xhosa history in schools that Mqhayi was concerned to challenge. In 1927 Mqhayi’s first collection of poems was an anthology prepared for use in schools. Imihobe nemiBongo (Anthems and Poems) (subtitled “Xosa Poetry for Schools”) was published by Sheldon Press in London after he apparently failed to find a local publisher.98 This was followed by Inzuzo: Amazwi okugabulaizicawu (Reward) in 1942.99 The first two parts of his controversial novel U-Don Jadu were published by Lovedale Institution Press in 1929.100 The novel represents an attempt “to craft a bridge between the present South Africa and the historical heritage of the Xhosa.” It was criticized for its “unrealistic idealism” by various commentators101 but has been praised in recent years for its attempts to understand the future. The third part of U-Don Jadu was awarded the first prize in the MEB competition in 1935.102 Mhlekazi u-Hintsa (His Majesty Hintsa the Great Unifier), a narrative poem in eight cantos, celebrated the death of Paramount Chief Hintsa and advocated a memorial to him. This was awarded first prize in the MEB African literature competition in 1936 and was subsequently published by Lovedale Press.103 Mqhayi also published biographies, including those of N.C. Umhalla (U.So-Gqumahashe),104 John Knox Bokwe (U-bomi bom-fundisi u John Knox Bokwe),105 and a tribute on the occasion of Ntsikana Memorial Day (Isikumbuzo zom Polofiti u-Ntsikana),106 as well as many other tributes to prominent African leaders in newspapers such as Imvo, Izwi, Umteteli, Abanto-Batho, The Bantu World, Umlindi we Nyanga and Umthunywa.107 One of the most significant productions of his later years was his autobiography, UMqhayi wase Ntab’ozuko: ibalwengu – S.E. Mqhayi, which was translated by William Bennie and first published in German in Diedrich Westermann’s path-breaking volume Afrikaner erzahlen ihr Leben.108 This publication was presumably the outcome of contact between Mqhayi and Westermann, when the latter visited the Eastern 274

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Cape in 1933 (see Chapter 5). Much of what I have written above relating to Mqhayi’s personal history is based on this source. Scott, Peires and Opland note that a number of Mqhayi’s important works were either refused publication by Lovedale Press, the only significant Xhosa language publishing house in the first half of the twentieth century, or were severely edited to remove what were considered to be “inappropriate” views, or ultimately lost in the publication process.109 The full edition of Ityala lamaWele was phased out during the orthographic revisions of the 1930s and the “offensive passages” were removed from the new schools’ editions. However, according to Peires, the burning questions raised in these texts “are still preserved in oral tradition to the present day.”110 Perhaps the most significant manuscript to disappear was Mqhayi’s “History of the Xhosa People” that was listed in Rowling’s bibliography as early as 1923.111 Both Peires and Opland refer to the history of this manuscript and the search for it by a variety of scholars, but it has not been discovered to date.112 Yet much of the material included in the volume is still available in some form in newspaper articles by Mqhayi, in the various revised imprints of Ityala lamaWele, or in the comprehensive collections of material available in the Opland volumes. Other works that are missing are his biographies of Rubusana and Makiwane, as well as Ulwaluko, his “polemic” on circumcision, all written in the 1930s,113 rejected for publication by Lovedale Press, and subsequently lost. Scott also lists as missing the manuscript of Izijungqe, “a collection of articles on games of Xhosa children and adults, and beliefs, customs on hunting etc. connected with the wild animals of the country.”114 My assumption is that some of this material, or at least something of the tone of his writings on history, found its way into the Stewart Xhosa Readers for schools that were published in the 1930s under the considerable influence of Mqhayi’s collaboration with Bennie (see below). In addition to the aforementioned, Mqhayi translated several works from English into isiXhosa and one from Afrikaans to isiXhosa. These included translations of Charles Kingsley Williams The Life of Dr Aggrey115; Ulimo: Incazelwe izikolo zase-Afrika eseZantsi or U-Limodi yolimo (Farming explained for South African Schools) by W.G. Dowsley and translated at the request of W.G. Bennie in 1922. 116 In 1945, possibly due to shortage of funds in his old age, Mqahyi undertook to translate G.C and S.B. Hobson’s Kees van die Kalahari for 275

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use in schools.117 This indicates that Mqahyi must have been proficient in Afrikaans.

The revision of Xhosa orthography Prior to a further exploration of Mqhayi’s role in the production of textbooks for use in Xhosa schools, it is necessary to take a short detour into his role in the “modernization” of the isiXhosa language during the 1930s when the orthography was being revised in keeping with the broader reforms of colonial language policy referred to above118 (see Chapters 1 and 5). These innovations were informed by larger scientific processes driven largely by German linguists, the IIALC, missionary organizations such as the IMC, and the British Colonial Office. This policy initiative aimed at the “standardization” of the orthography used for all African languages, including isiXhosa.119 That “standardization” according to “scientific conventions” was in part driven by the recommendations of the Colonial Office ACNETA regarding the promotion of “The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education” (1927)120 which required a degree of orthographical conformity given the multiplicity of languages and dialects in Africa and the increasing need for printed materials to be made available to Africans for religious, administrative and educational purposes. According to Lestrade, this process required the classification of Bantu languages and the unification of the various orthographies already in existence.121 As Hailey pointed out in An African Survey, language was to be considered as “an integral part of the individuality of a people” but it was necessary to encourage “the formation of larger language units” to make publication of books for Africa commercially feasible.122 By the 1920s, in the context of the increased publication of literature in indigenous languages of colonized countries, colonial governments and missionary organizations began to realize that, if increasing numbers of languages were to be reduced to manageable/standardized writing forms, it would be necessary to provide a scientific infrastructure to these processes in order to develop a uniform or “scientific” system of spelling and grammar for this complex process. To promote the teaching and learning of African languages, and the publication of indigenous literature for use in schools and public life, the colonial powers in general, and Britain in particular, undertook this challenge of developing standardized forms 276

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of transcribing such languages. When the IIALC was established in London in 1926, language policy issues were under the direction of Diedrich Westermann, the professor of African Languages at Berlin University. The IIALC published a Practical Orthography which laid out a phonetic alphabet for the use of writers and publishers of African vernacular literature (see Chapter 5).123 Despite local resistance, these initiatives were justified in terms of the need for rationalization of languages related to the needs of the publishing industry. Although the pattern of colonial rule in South Africa differed markedly from the rest of British Africa, moves were afoot to follow the guidelines as early as 1928. In that year the Union Government Advisory Committee on Bantu Studies was established. It was later to become the Inter-University Committee for African Studies. A Central Orthography Committee was convened under the joint leadership of the Native Affairs Department and the Universities, with Clement W. Doke as chairperson.124 Doke put the case for the new orthography at the influential New Education Fellowship conference in Cape Town/Johannesburg in 1934: For the development of vernacular literature an established and settled orthography is essential. In the past several forms have been used, even within one cluster (of languages). If one orthography is fixed to serve a unified language it should be as carefully and exactly settled as possible; and the principles laid down by the IIALC provide a sound and satisfactory basis for Bantu orthographies.

Although he subscribed to the new scientific definition of orthography that had been crafted in Germany, “which carried the authority of scientific knowledge,”125 he added an innovative edge to his recommendations by encouraging the participation of Africans in these discussions.126 Other members of the Central Orthography Committee were W.W.M. Eiselen, and D.D.T. Jabavu. The isiXhosa subcommittee was convened by William Govan Bennie127 and his successor, G.H. Welsh.128 Both Bennie and Welsh were closely linked to Lovedale Press, and Bennie was therefore in an influential position to play an important and largely unchallenged role, in promoting the role of Lovedale Press in the development and publication of Xhosa language, literature and school materials in collaboration with Robert H.W. Shepherd, the manager of the press between 1930 and 1955.129

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Bennie was the convenor of the Cape Orthographic Committee.130 Other members of the isiXhosa subcommittee were Robert Godfrey, Carl Nauhaus, John Henderson Soga, Canon C.J. Wyche, J.A. Engelbrecht and D.D.T. Jabavu. These efforts were coordinated with those of the committee established by the Lovedale Governing Council with similar goals focusing on the requirements of the school textbook market in the isiXhosa language and the work of Lovedale Press. Together they produced a general report. The responses to the isiXhosa report were considered by the Cape Advisory Board for Native Education between 1931 and 1933. 131 The Board established a subcommittee to consider the responses. This body consisted of G.H. Welsh, Canon Wyche, D.B. Davies, R.H.W. Shepherd, Jabavu, and – significantly – Mqhayi.132 The new orthography was then promulgated in the Cape Education Gazette and was set to be introduced by 1937.133 A Xhosa Grammar, revised and re-written in the New Orthography, authored by J. McLaren, and edited by G.H. Welsh, was published to accompany these changes.134 During this time Mqhayi reported that “Mr Bennie frequently consulted me on points of isiXhosa usage, grammar and vocabulary, for the benefit of teachers.” He added that they “assisted each other in various ways and today the language is on a firm basis largely though his efforts. Bennie continued to encourage me to help in developing isiXhosa literature by writing.”135 At this time Diedrich Westermann visited South African on a Carnegie Trust Grant, and was hosted by his former student W.W.M. Eiselen, who had been appointed as Professor of Bantu Studies at the University of Stellenbosch in 1933,136 and was a key member of the government’s Central Orthographics Committee. Although I have not been able to track direct reference to this, it seems highly likely that Westermann’s visit had been timed to coincide with the deliberations over orthography taking place in South Africa.137 As he visited both Stellenbosch and Alice, the home of the South African Native College (Fort Hare) and Lovedale in the Eastern Cape, Westermann would probably have met Mqhayi. This could explain how Mqhayi came to submit his autobiography for publication in Westermann’s landmark volume of African biographies, Afrikaner erzahlen ihr Leben, which was published in Germany in 1938.138 This predated the publication of U-Mqhayi Wase-Ntab’ozuko (Mqhayi of the Mount Glory) by Lovedale Press in the following year.139 It is in this context that Mqhayi seems to have been able to play a unique, and significant role in the development of isiXhosa language 278

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and literature for schools through his collaboration with Bennie on the revised orthography, the formulation of a new grammar,140 the revision of the Concise Xhosa-English Dictionary,141 and the conversion of the Xhosa bible to the new orthography,142 in addition to his contribution to Imibengo, an anthology of Xhosa Prose and Poetry,143 and the new Stewart Xhosa Readers for schools, a primary focus of this paper.144 It seems curious that Mqhayi would choose to be on such a committee whose goals would appear to be in conflict with his views on the need for pure Xhosa customs and language, free from “modernising” influences. This is particularly surprising since the new orthography faced “a storm of opposition from isiXhosa speakers” at the time and was held by many to “impose severe constraints on the production of Xhosa literature.”145 It might be that he decided to use the process to strengthen the role of amaNgqika.146 The precise nature of that collaboration is difficult to establish as Bennie does not formally acknowledge Mqhayi’s role beyond vague references to the fact that he “wields strong influence” and that “he has been glad upon occasion to have at hand a willing and reliable arbiter of isiXhosa words and language.”147 Peires and Opland are both critics of Bennie for this reason.148

Xhosa history for schools This extended account of Mqhayi’s life and career provides a necessary background to the particular focus of this chapter – namely a preliminary investigation of his impact on Xhosa school education through his rendering of Xhosa history in a poetry anthology, Imibengo, and a new series of Steward Xhosa Readers, both published in the new orthography by Lovedale Press in the early 1930s (see Appendices 7.1 and 7.2).149 By his own account of his association with Lovedale Institution both as a student (1891–1896) and school teacher (1923–1925), his sense that his perspectives on Xhosa culture and history “were not well understood” could be seen to represent a central element of his identity. His account of his conflict with Henderson concerning Xhosa history was described previously. For his perspectives on Xhosa history Mqhayi acknowledges his debt to his family and what he learned from this grandfather and father about his Xhosa identity, as well as the challenges faced by 279

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those who adopted Christianity and the “school” way during the trials and tribulations of the nineteenth century. Equally he gives fulsome praise to his experience of tribal life in Gcalekaland at the end of the nineteenth century – which had offered him the opportunity to experience traditional culture at first hand. He acknowledges his debt to Rubusana, Reverend P.J. Mzimba, Reverend Isaac Wauchope and Charles Sinxo.150 Although generally critical of the role of the missionaries and mission education, he acknowledges and affirms his Christian beliefs, and is generous in his praise of the work of some white missionaries like Reverend J.M. Auld. He also gives ample due to the few white magistrates he considers as having served his people well. Among these were William Girdwood,151 William T. Brownlee (Busobengwe)152 and Walter Stanford (Ndabeni).153 Although Mqhayi’s much anticipated History of the Xhosa People was never published, the significant point I want to develop – in line with evidence presented by Peires and Opland – is that the perspectives he advanced lived on in a variety of forms in his other published work which formed the basis of his historical writing for the Stewart School Readers. In that history Mqhayi sought “lessons from history to guide present conduct” and to ensure that the education of modern youth was “deployed for the benefit of the nation.”154 His close working relationship with Bennie on a poetry anthology for schools, Imibengo (1935),155 and the Stewart Xhosa Readers provided Mqhayi with a context in which he was able to pursue his educational ideals. Not only did he contribute his own work to these volumes, but he was involved in the process of selecting and editing other material for inclusion. On the evidence available from Peires and Opland, he appears to have been the largely unacknowledged co-editor of much of this material. His own contributions were either specifically written for this purpose, or, more often, drawn from the archive of his published works, or from his journalism.156 Mqhayi’s historical writing was following a tradition that had been initiated in the mid-nineteenth century. The early generation of Xhosa historical writers included William Gqoba (1840–1888), William Kobe Ntsikana (the son of the prophet), and Isaac William Wauchope (Dyobha).157 From the beginning of the twentieth century many more contributions to Xhosa history were to follow, including those by Rubusana, John Ayliff & John Whiteside, John Knox Bokwe, Tiyo Soga, Donald Jabavu, Mary W. Waters, W.D. Cingo, J.H. Soga, Victor Poto, Richard Tainton Kawa, Victor Pota Ndamase, David Darlow, Alfred Z. Ngani and Henry Ndawo. Surprisingly, the relationship between their 280

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writings and those of Mqhayi, and/or their relationship to modern historiography, does not seem to have been subjected to much critical examination to date. Mqhayi’s poems and historical writing reflect a wide panorama of topics and concerns. As Opland observes: running through these poems is a proud and fierce determination to maintain an identity rooted in custom and history, despite territorial dispossession and the steady erosion of human rights in a country that rendered its black citizens increasingly alienated and marginalized.158

The major focus of Mqhayi’s historical work can be located in his desire to link these goals to the historical traditions, customs and moral values that formed the basis of Xhosa identity. His historical work was therefore underscored by his desire to promote what he understood to be an authentic version of Xhosa history that was intimately linked to the traditions of the imibongo that he held so dear. The variety of material that he had generated over time provided the storehouse from which he drew when he was given the opportunity to participate in a unique project to provide Xhosa Readers for schools.159 Opland notes that the heroes of many of Mqhayi’s poems republished in the 2017 collection, drawn from a wide variety of sources, including newspapers, reflect a focus of interest typical of the new age in which they were written. The formal history syllabus of the Cape Department of Public Education aimed “to enrich the child’s ideas of the human forces which have made history,” and “to tell (chiefly in the upper standards) – the story of South Africa as a mission of civilization.” The extensive list of useful books compiled for the history teacher by Prof. E. A. Walker of the University of Cape Town in 1923, while being comprehensive, relied heavily on English history and the various publications of George M. Theal, the doyen of Cape colonial history. By the 1930s Theal had been succeeded by C. de K. Fowler as the major history textbook writer for Cape schools. Dorothea Fairbridge, A History of South Africa was also a widely used text.160 Peter A.W. Cook’s A History of South Africa for Native Schools161 is the only textbook I have been able to discover that was written specifically for African schools in the period under review. The only significant call I have been able to find for a “history curriculum that allows black South Africans to understand the world they live in order to adapt to 281

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changes (economic and social) which are transforming native life” and which should “neither despise (the African heritage) nor lament its modifications by civilization,” came from Wycliffe M. Tsotsi, a member of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) and the All African Convention (AAC).162 As this syllabus was not open to adaptation to Xhosa historiography, Mqhayi seized the opportunity offered by Bennie to collaborate with him in the production of a series of schoolbooks in the new orthography to promote his version of Xhosa history. As indicated, these contributions did not come in the form of history textbooks, but through the two publications in the 1930s that were edited by William Bennie – Imibengo, an isiXhosa poetry anthology, and the nine volume Stewart Xhosa Readers series, which were used throughout the school from Primers to Senior Grade. As noted previously, these issues have been referred to by both Peires and Opland but have to date never been subject to specific scholarly attention. Although there is insufficient space here to conduct a detailed analysis, I hope to demonstrate the potentially significant educational implications of these innovations. All I can attempt here is a summary of some of the historical topics and perspectives that were selected for inclusion in these Readers. The precise analysis of their interpretation of Xhosa history, and the nature of the historiography or historical accuracy of the events and topics chosen, will have to await further investigation. Imibengo W.G. Bennie’s Imibengo (Titbits): An Anthology of Xhosa Prose and Poetry (1935) was a comprehensive anthology of isiXhosa poetry that drew on the work of twenty three African contributors.163 He thanked Mqhayi for “all the help you gave me and the readiness of your assistance.”164 It was advertised as “an anthology of Xhosa Prose and Poetry, History, Biography, Allegory, the Essay, the Novel, and izibongo on the old tribal model.”165 It sold nearly 5000 copies between 1935 and 1942.166 When it was reviewed by G.H. Welsh. in Bantu Studies in 1936 it was praised for “covering the whole field of Xhosa literature … in its present range and quality.” It was held by this reviewer to be “unquestionably thoroughly representative of the work of Xhosa writers.” Welsh saw Mqhayi’s work as particularly praiseworthy for its “breadth of view and power to break loose from the narrowing influences of missionary education.” He reserved 282

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particular commendation for Mqhayi’s war poems: Umkhosi wemiDaka and UkuTshona kukaMendi, relating to the involvement of black South Africans in World War I.167 Other work by Mqhayi which focused on historical topics included: U-Rharabe (p. 129–140),168 Ida lamaLinde (The Battle of Amalinde) (p. 191–195);169 Kuw’e iGora KwaNyawuza (For you, hero of Nyawuzaland, (Pondoland) (p. 215– 218).170 The extracts from Ityala Lama Wele, “Isimangalo,” (Charges), “InTetho yeNyange” (Speech of the Month) and “IsiGwebo” (Judgment) highlight features of Xhosa law and custom.(p. 173–184).

Memorial to Africans who died in France during World War I (T.D. Mweli Skota, (ed.) African Yearly Register (1932) p434.)

The Stewart Xhosa Readers Lovedale Press’ Stewart Xhosa Readers (SXR) series171 was the successor to the earlier series of Lovedale Kafir Readers172 which had been widely used in the Eastern Cape since the late nineteenth century.173 Shepherd explained that this new SXR series …” contained much new material contributed by Bantu writers, good idiomatic translations of well-known stories from Europe, and a number of Bantu folk tales and typical poems. They are well graded and calculated to sustain the interest of the children and contain only the best Xhosa.”174 As explained above, the development of the new series of Readers was closely linked to the introduction of the new orthography as part of the “modernization” of educational policy in the Cape. Opland reports that Lovedale Press had originally appointed the novelist and 283

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poet, Guybon. B. Sinxo to undertake the task of the revision, but that he was “summarily removed and replaced by Bennie in July 1929.” 175 The final product reached far beyond the scope originally intended by Shepherd, allowing for a much wider framework of ideas to operate in the series, with Mqhayi’s work probably foremost in testing those boundaries set by Shepherd. A total of 235,000 books were published in this series between the early ‘thirties and 1942.176

The contents of Imibengo and the Stewart Xhosa Readers (SXR) The Stewart Xhosa Readers were published by Lovedale Press in nine volumes between 1934 and 1937. They included editions for Primer, Infant Reader, Std. I to Std. VI. and a Senior Reader. Various further impressions followed which seemed to have minor variations in content.177 This series was produced in the new orthography, which meant that it had a virtual monopoly of the market.178 A curious feature of the Std. V, VI and Senior works is that they include frontpiece photographs of members of the British royal family including Edward, Prince of Wales, (Std. V), King George V (Std.VI), and Queen Victoria (Senior Reader). The historical content included much that was written by Mqhayi. The extracts from Ityala lama Wele (Imibengo pp. 173–181) and U-Don Jadu (Senior SXR pp 116–122) provide insight into the life and customs of pre-colonial Xhosa society. Extracts from U-Rarabe (Imibengo p. 129–40)179 provide a dramatic history of the Gcaleka and Rharhabe, the Right Hand House of Phalo, and the eighteenth century migrations through the Transkei to their settlement in the Amathole basin in the early years of the next century where they first came into contact with the missionaries, and the conflicts with San and Khoi groups. Clement Doke reviewed the series very favourably in 1935–1936, arguing that “the books are of outstanding merit, carefully graded for class use according to difficulty and reading matter introduced.”180 He noted that the contributors included “well known native writers” such as J.J.R. Jolobe, John Solilo, H.M. Ndawo, and S.E.K. Mqhayi. In his view these books gave “the Xhosa speaking child and youth … a wealth of material in his own language suited to his needs from Infant School to University,” ensuring that Xhosa was better served in this regard than any other South African Bantu language.

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A short analysis of the Standard V text demonstrates that themes can be identified that reflect the content of Readers developed in England during the nineteenth century.181 The most popular theme explored related to issues of morality or values (eleven references). Biblical themes provided the focus of six extracts. Scientific content related to geography, biology and the environment were highlighted in four items (“our breathing”; “ploughing”; “green leaves”; “digestion of food”) and Classical mythology was represented in two extracts (“Circe’s Palace” “The Golden Fleece”). General South African history, in the form of an article on the Diamond Fields, provided the only wider historical item, which significantly pointed to the new industrial context rather than traditional or tribal history. In specific relation to Xhosa history there were six extracts relating to Ilanga lika Qilo (“The Drought of Qilo”) (p 21–26), U-Mbambushe (Bambushe – Hintsa’s dog) (p. 97–100), Igqira lemvula (The Rain Doctor) (translated from Douglas Dodd by SEKM. pp. 115–128), U-Suthu (The Chieftainess of Thembuland – daughter of Chief Tshatshu of the Thembu) (pp. 54– 60),182 and Ukutshona kula Mendi (The Sinking of the Mendi)183 all of them written or translated by Mqhayi.184 The SXR for Standard VI included material on “health” (with accounts of the action of the skin and the defences of the body against disease), Bible stories (the story of Ruth) and extracts from Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress, short extracts on mission history highlighting David Livingstone, Robert Moffat and the Kuruman Mission, Greek mythology (Theseus and the Minotaur), Arabic stories from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (p. 115–126), pieces on soil -erosion, the treatment of animals and the adaptation of plants, the history of the Gqunukhwebe clan, and a number of short stories and iintsomi.185 The Standard VI Reader also included “historical sketches,” including extracts on Ntsikana, Sarili, the Gqunukhwebe, Khama and “the work of the Labour Contingent in France” during World War I.186 Mqahyi’s contributions include essays on Ububele (Kindness) and Ithemba (Hope), and historical pieces on the Xhosa chief Sarili187 and the Xhosa prophet Ntsikana.

The Senior Xhosa Reader – for high school The Senior Xhosa Reader was a significant achievement designed to cap the project. In late October 1931 Bennie wrote to Mqhayi inviting him to submit “some good lessons” on Ntsikana, Sarili, Makanda, 285

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Ndlambe, Hintsa, Maqoma, and “some biographies, written for young people, free from contentions matter.”188 There are two pages of Bennie’s handwritten notes relating to his interaction with Xhosa authors and potential authors including J.K Bokwe, Tiyo and J.H. Soga,189 W.W. Gqoba, William Ntsikana, James Jolobe, Cage Yabe, Page Yako, F. Nomvethe, Alfred Solilo, H.M. Ndawo, Guybon Sinxo, and J. Masimisa. Mqhayi was of course also prominent in Bennie’s correspondence as he was a significant contributor, language adviser and cultural interpreter, as well as a translator of text from English to isiXhosa. Other correspondents included John Chambers, S.H. Schaife, F.W. Fitzsimmons, A.J. Haile, R. Godfrey, Alex Roberts, R.H.W. Shepherd, E.M. Chubb, G.E. Davis, J.B. Gardiner, J. Williams, Godfrey Callaway and Isaac Schapera.190 The history of the Xhosa people is told through various articles written by or translated by Mqhayi which are to be found in his handwriting in the Lovedale Archives.191 In total nearly half of the text bears the imprint of Mqhayi’s authorship or editing and translation.192 Perhaps most significantly there are extracts from U Don Jadu (pp 116–122); Ukufika kweTshawe (The Arrival of the Prince, pp 81–93), Aa! Lwangenda (Hail Langwanda/Ngqika) pp. 187–90;193 and a comprehensive response to Isaac Schapera’s contribution on the history of San, Hottentot (Khoi) and Coloured peoples which Mqhayi had translated (“Abu-Thwa, ama-Lamu, Nama Xhosa” (pp. 239–242)). Other pieces translated by Mqhayi were IsiHelegu se Grosvenor (The Wreck of the Grosvenor (an anonymous source) (pp. 63–68); UkwAkhiwa kwesiKolo (The Building of a School) by Shepherd (pp. 123–6); UVelidyam (J. Williams – the L.M.S. missionary to the Xhosa from 1816) pp. 193–198); UmFasi onesiDima (The Dignified Wife) (pp. 199–203/4) and UEpikteto (a classical Greek hero)194 (by J.B. Gardiner) (pp. 217–224). It also seems possible that the piece on the controversial figure of the Xhosa chief Maqoma (1792–1873) (pp. 190–192) might have been the work of Mqhayi as he had previously written on the topic.195 It is worth noting that there is no focus in the SXR on Hintsa, Ndlambe, Mhala (Umhala),196 or Nongqawuse,197 and little of Mqhayi’s prolific work on the biographies of modern Xhosa leaders and intellectuals such as G. Wauchope, R. Kawa, J.K. Bokwe, W.B. Rubusana and John Soga. Significantly, the theme of internecine Xhosa wars and conflicts between the Colonial armies and the Xhosa, which is a major focus throughout Mqhayi’s writing, is absent from the school books,

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barring the inclusion of the Battle of Amalinde (1818) in Imibengo pp. 191–5.198 Finally, the pieces by Mqhayi which were highlighted by Doke as being of particular significance were his accounts of contemporary political events related to the black South African participation in World War I, the South African Native Labour Contingent in France, and the Mendi tragedy mentioned earlier. The first is a searing and agonizing call to arms and loyalty to the British cause, but it is underpinned with all the irony of the situation in which “the dark skinned army” found itself. It invokes the heroic deeds of the African resistance against the British, while at the same time calling for loyalty to Britain and determination in the face of the forces with which the African soldiers are now confronted. The second is a lament for the victims of the Mendi disaster, in which 615 members of the Native Labour Contingent drowned in the English Channel after a collision with another ship in 1917.199 Mqhayi praises the bravery of the dead and writes them into the book of honour of the Xhosa nation.200 These broad accounts of the historical characters and events are rendered in the form of modernized imBongi presentations and provide a window into Xhosa history and culture. As Peires notes, these accounts have come to underpin an oral history of the Xhosa that has been widely accepted by Xhosa people as the “true version” of that history, which it would seem was popularized and perpetuated through the medium of the Stewart Xhosa Readers. The enormous challenge to researchers is to attempt to integrate that version of Xhosa history with the formal historiography that has emerged in the Post World War II era. The SXR series was designed by Lovedale Press to fit the IIALC formula in terms of the orthography and grammatical revision which had been formally adopted by the South African government in 1934. Peires notes that the Stewart Xhosa Readers “struck gold” for Lovedale Press, selling about 56,000 copies every six months in the early 1940s.201 The close connections between Lovedale Press and the officials of the Cape Department of Public Education in charge of Native Education for a twenty years period – W.G. Bennie and G.H. Welsh – meant that they were able to energetically drive the orthographic reform agenda to the benefit of Lovedale Press and presumably generate considerable royalties for Bennie in his retirement.202 Although Mqhayi gained little financial benefit from his involvement in the project, and indicates considerable irritation in his 287

Chapter 7

correspondence at Bennie’s patronizing manner and miserly attitude to the payment for his work, it would seem that Mqhayi’s decision to collaborate with the project provided advantages for him by opening the way for a significant initiative to promote an indigenous version of Xhosa history in schools that was not accessible through the formal history curriculum at the time.203

Conclusion The relationship between school knowledge and the colonial curriculum is extremely complex. The “adaptation” of the school curricula in Africa presented a variety of challenges. African education was not a blank slate onto which missionaries and colonial administrators could write their agendas – even if they had been able to agree on such agendas. Africans throughout the continent had a variety of responses to such proposals and at times used the policy language of the colonial state to pursue agendas that did not always coincide with the overt intentions of the colonial rulers or intentions of missionary educators. Culture and language had always presented colonial and missionary educators with dilemmas. If Africans were to be Christianized and “civilized,” they needed to be literate. But by the early twentieth century it was widely agreed that literacy could only be effectively acquired by children through their home language. These circumstances and this view required curricula and resource materials that promoted literacy in the indigenous language of the students – and such moves were irrevocably bound up with the process of reproduction (and perpetuation) of indigenous cultures and identities. Missionaries and colonial administrators in British colonies were often sympathetic to this view which, as mentioned earlier, accorded with the adaptationist interpretation of Indirect Rule and the recommendations of the Phelps-Stokes Education commissions as it catered for Progressivist ideals of self-fulfilment and identity with community. However, these educators and administrators became increasingly aware that this path encountered widespread resistance from colonial elites by the 1930s. The counter view, subscribed to by some missionaries and colonial officials by the 1930s, and widely accepted by the new African elite who were products of the mission school and sought entry into the job market and the economic and social structures of the colonial state, was one 288

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

which insisted on an education and a curriculum which was the same as that found in Europe or North America, or in the segregated South African context: the same education as that offered to whites. In other words, the language of instruction should be English, the major official language of the colonial state, and the degree of local influence on the knowledge of the school, particularly the high school, should be limited. It was in the specific context of the Eastern Cape and the Xhosa people that the interaction of three men was to help shape the nature of “Native Education” in the three decades before the advent of apartheid in 1948. Diedrich Westermann provided the scientific template for the orthographical revision of the isiXhosa language in terms set out in the language mandate of the IIALC between 1928 and the late 1930s. This provided a basis for the standardization of Xhosa orthography and the “modernization” of the Xhosa language that was to set the guidelines for future publication and printing in the language. It provided the currency for curriculum revision for Lovedale Press which held a near monopoly on schoolbook publication. Bennie facilitated that engagement through his influential position at Lovedale and in the Cape Department of Public Education, providing the link between the scientific revision of colonial policymakers, the South African government, the publishers of schoolbooks, and the writers and producers of the text to be printed in these books. Samuel Mqhayi, although largely hidden from view in the records, seems to have played a key role in setting the agenda and selecting the materials that appeared in the Stewart Xhosa Readers which at the time provided the backbone for a literate culture in the language. It was therefore within the ambit of the Xhosa language syllabus that there was scope for writing in isiXhosa, and this provided the limited opportunity for an assertion of Xhosa cultural identity within the constraints of what was considered acceptable to the Cape Education Department and the missionary press managers of Lovedale Press.204

289

Appendices Appendix 7.1

The works of SEKM which were included in Imibengo*

*

Scott (1976b): 21. I am working from the 1935 edition.

page 19–21 126–28 129–140 I II III IV 173–184 I II III 184–87 187–89 189–91 191–195 198–208 I II III 208–211 215–21

Aa! Mhlekazi omhle! (“Salute Glorious King”/Protest poem) ImiYolelo yowe1931 umNyaka (Declarations for the year 1931) U-Rarabe (ΓuΓarabe): (pub 1938) (“History of the Xhosa Nation”)205 KomKhulu UkuPhuma komkhulu IziFundu IziBongo ITyala lamaWele: (The Lawsuit of the Twins) (first pub, Lovedale, 1914) IsiMangalo (The Charge) InTetho yeNyange (The statement) IsiGweƃo (The sentence/judgement) UmKhosi wemiDaka (The Dark – Skinned Army) ((1916)206 Ukutshona kuka – Mendi (The sinking of the Mendi)207 Aa! Sifuƃa-siBanzi! IDaƃi lamaLinde (The Battle of Amalinde: 1818)208 Isithathu saƃaFundisi: (The third teacher) UBuluneni UBene omDala ULose omDala InKokeli (The Leader/the person who guides/shows the way) (from U Samson ??) Kuw’e iGora kwaNyawuza (kwaNyawuza = Mpondoland)

291

Appendices

Appendix 7.2

SEKM’s material included in the Stewart Xhosa Readers

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

292

IIncwadi Zesixhosa Zabafundi: Eyebanga lesibini Std. II “Inyaniso (Truth) 7 four-lined stanzas IIncwadi Zesixhosa Zabafundi: Eyebanga lesithathu Std. III “Isililo semoto” (The weeping/lamenting car) (8 stanzas) “Umfo endimthandayo” (The man I love) (5 four-line stanzas) IIncwadi Std. IV Zesixhosa Zabafundi: Eyebanga lesine “ILanga neNyanga” (The sun and the moon) “Inyibiba” (The lily) “Umnga” (Thorn Tree) IIncwadi Zesixhosa Zabafundi: Eyebanga lesihlanu Std. V “Intlanganiso yeeNyamakazi neziNja” (The meeting between the deer and the dogs) U-Suthu (Daughter of Chief Mvanxeni (Tshatshu) of the Thembu) Great Wife of Ngqika – mother of Sandile209 “U-Mbambushe” (Hintsa’s Dog) Translations by SEKM: Ilanga likaQilo (translation) (The Drought of Qilo)210 Igqira lemvula (Traditional rain doctor) Inkosikazi yaseba-Thenjini (The princess of Thembuland) IIncwadi Zesixhosa Zabafundi: Eyebanga lesithandathu: Std. VI Ububele (Friendliness/Kindness) 12 four lined stanzas UNtsikana (Ntsikana) USarili (Sarhili) Ithemba (Hope)

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

THE STEWART XHOSA SENIOR READER: Senior: IIncwadi Zesixhosa Zabafundi: Eyebaphambili211 • • • • •

• •

• • • •

Umbongo weentaka (Poem of Birds) 7 stanzas Iintaka ezibalulekilyou emaXhoseni – I & II & III.212 (Birds which are important to the Xhosa people) Imbeko (Honour/Respect) UmZi weeNyoka (City of Snakes – a visit to the snake park)213 Ukufika kweTshawe (The Arrival of the Prince of Wales) (1925) 1 AA! Zwe Liya Zuza!! (AA! The world is coming, coming) 2 Bayethe! Langa! Likhanya! (Praise) 3 Itshawe Lase-Britani (The Prince of Britain) Izilo ezikhulu (Big Animals). U Don Jadu: extracts 1 Iinciniba (Ostrichs) 2 Amakhwenkwe (Boys) 3 Iintombi (Girls) Iqakamba (Cricket) (Praises the competitive nature of the game of cricket) Aa! Lgwanda ! (Hail Lwaganda (Ngqika)214 Abu-Thwa, nama Lawu (Isaac Schapera’s on Khoi, San, Coloured history translated by Mqhayi) Abu – Thwa, ama-Lawu, Nama-Xhosa (SEKM’s response to Schapera’s piece on above).

Notes 1

Jeff Opland (ed.) with the assistance of Luvo Mabinza, Koliswa Moropa, Nosisi Mpolweni and Abner Nyamende, Abantu Besizwe: Historical and Biographical Writings, 1902–1944: S.E.K. Mqhayi (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2009); (ed.) with Peter T. Mtuze, S.E.K Mqhayi: Iziganeko Zesizwe: Occasional Poems 1900–1943 (Scotsville: UKZN Press, 2017); Patricia E. Scott (ed.) Mqhayi in Translation: A Short Autobiography of Samuel Krune Mqhayi, translated by W.G. Bennie (Grahamstown: Communication, No. 6, Department of African Languages, Rhodes University, 1976a). There are recent English translations of two of his most popular works, but given the complex history of these manuscripts, which is referred to later, these texts are problematic. See Thokozile Mabequa, The Lawsuit of the Twins (Cape Town: Oxford University Press,

293

Appendices

2 3

4 5

6

7

8 9

294

2018); Thokozile Mabequa, Nosisi Mpolweni, & Thenjiswa Ntwana, Don Jadu (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 2018). Leo J. Shoots, “The Sociological Imagination of S.E.K. Mqhayi: Towards an African Sociology” (MA. Dissertation, Cape Town, University of Cape Town, 2014): 38, 48–49. These School Readers were modelled on the experience gained in literacy work and publishing in England that stretched back to the origins of mass education in the nineteenth century. The policy focus on these issues in the inter-War era is demonstrated in: “Textbooks for African Schools: A Preliminary Memoir by the Council (of the International Institute of African Languages and Culture),” Africa, I (1928): 13–22. (Probably written Diedrich Westermann.) See Chs. 5 & 6. This remains the case to the present day in South Africa with policy issues around the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT). In 1935 there were 1730 Native mission primary schools, 14 Native training schools and 8 secondary schools in the Cape with a total African school – going population of 170,000. There were only 1000 students in secondary education. Of these only 60 were in Standards 9 and 10. The total funding for Native Education the province in 1932 was ₤274,000. See E.G. Pells, 300 Years of Education in South Africa (Cape Town: Juta, 1954): 138. Jeff Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry: Aspects of a Black South African Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); see especially Ch. 4; Xhosa Poets and Poetry (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998/UKZN Press, 2018); (2009); (2017); Jeff Peires, The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of their Independence (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1981) esp. pp. 175–179; “The Lovedale Press: Literature for the Bantu Revisited,” History in Africa 6 (1979): 155– 175; English in Africa 7(1) (1980): 71–85. His correspondence with W.G. Bennie in the Lovedale Press Archive (subsequently referred to as LPA) in the Cory Library at Rhodes University, demonstrates that he was fluent in English. It is important to note that this is the only archival source available on Mqhayi. Opland (2009): 27. His original homestead is situated about 5 km from Berlin on the old road between Berlin and East London on what would have been a white – owned farm at that time. A recent visit to the site, with members of Mqhayi’s family, confirmed Opland’s earlier report regarding the state of neglect of Mqhayi’s family grave and the monument erected in his honor at the formal commemoration of his life and career in 1951. Amongst the many dignitaries who attended the ceremony held in his honor at that time were J.A. Calata, A.W. Champion, A.B. Xuma and D.D.T. Jabavu. See Opland (2009): 1. For

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10 11

12

13 14 15 16

17 18

19

more on this, see A.B. Xuma’s address at the unveiling of the tombstone on 26 March 1951. On this occasion Xuma described Mqhayi as “our African Shakespeare” and as a great Christian committed to a future in which “there should be neither white nor non-white, but a common citizenship, a united South African nation.” See University of Witwatersrand Library: A.B. Xuma Papers 510326 cited by Peter Walsh, in Richard Elphick & Rodney Davenport (eds.) Christianity in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1997): 384, 463 f. 6. The new monument has been erected in the village of Berlin since 1994. Opland (1983): 259. I grew up and had most of my schooling in this village and in the 1950s. My father’s garage stands opposite the site of the recent monument, but given the peculiarities of colonial life, I have only recently discovered the work of Mqhayi and his contribution to South African culture. Also see Scott (1976a); also see Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi 1875– 1945: A bibliographic survey (Grahamstown: Communication No. 5, Department of African Languages, Rhodes University, 1976b). I draw heavily on this Autobiography for my account of Mqhayi’s life later. For more on Robeson, see Ch. 6. Daniel Magaziner, The Art of Life in South Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2016): 35. Although admitting that the evidence is inconclusive Opland argues that Mqhayi “seems to have been a long-standing consistent ANC supporter.” See Opland in Limb (2012): 221. Opland (1983), (2009), (2017). See also Opland, “The Isolation of the Xhosa Oral Poet,” in Landeg White & Tim Couzens (eds.) Literature and Society in South Africa (Pinelands, Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longmans, 1984): 175–195. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (London: Pan Macmillan, 2000): 49. Many thanks to Albert Grundlingh for pointing me to this reference. See A.C. Jordan’s obituary in South African Outlook in September 1945; see Francis Wilson & Dominique Perrot (eds.) Outlook on a Century: South Africa 1870–1970 (Cape Town: Lovedale Press, 1973): 537–544; A.C. Jordan, Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (Berkley: UCLA Press, 1973): 103–116. Peter Midgley, “Renaissance Men: Ntsikana, A.C. Jordan, S.E.K. Mqhayi and South Africa’s Cultural Awakening,” in Peter Limb, Norman Etherington, & Peter Midgley (eds.) Grappling with the Beast (Leiden: Brill, 2010): 215–243.

295

Appendices 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

296

Sizwe C. Satyo, “A Short History of Xhosa Literature,” in Albert S. Gerard et al. (eds.) Comparative Literature and African Literatures (Pretoria: Via Afrika, 1993): 65–89. D.B. Ntuli & C.F. Swanepoel, South African Literature in African Languages: A Historical Perspective (Pretoria: Acacia, 1993). South African Outlook, Vol. 109, No. 1255 (December 1975). Clifford Dikeni, “An Examination of the Socio-Political Undercurrents in Mqhayi’s novel Italya lama wele” (MA dissertation, University of Cape Town, 1992). Wandile Kuse, “The Form and Themes of Mqhayi’s Poetry and Prose” (PhD. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1977). He noted that the significance of his work lay “in the fact that he bridges nineteenth and twentieth Xhosa literature, that he was an oral bard in a literary age, and that he was a literatus carrying an oral tradition.” Also see “Mqhayi through the Eyes of His Contemporaries,” South African Outlook 109 (1975): 183–188, cited by Scott (1976b): 35. Z.S. Qangule, “A Survey of the Themes and Techniques in the Creative Works of S.E.K. Mqhayi” (PhD. dissertation, University of Cape Town, 1979). N.R. Mazwi, “Transcription, Edition, Translation, and Critical Analysis of the Biographical Poems Contributed by S.E.K. Mqhayi to Early Xhosa Newspapers” (PhD. Dissertation, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 2017). Shoots (2014). This is the name given to him in the Autobiography. See Scott (1976a): 6–7. The Jadu is a small river which runs into the Blinkwater, close to Fort Beaufort. It is in the Stockenstrom [Seymour] district. (Thanks to Jeff Peires for this information). Mqhayi’s major novel, U-Don Jadu is named after this place. Scott (1976a): 7–8. For more on Maqoma, see Timothy J. Stapleton, Maqoma: Xhosa Resistance to Colonial Advance, 1798–1873 (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1994). Scott (1976a): 10. Peires (1989): 196. Scott (1976a): 10. Ibid.: 13–18. R. Hunt-Davis, “School vs Blanket and Settler: Elijah Makiwane and the Leadership of the Cape School Community,” African Affairs 78(310) (January 1979): 12–31. Scott (1976a): 18–22; for a retrospective on his relationship with Centane and his critical views of much that he saw there, see Mqhayi’s article on his visit at the time of his marriage to Amy

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46

47

48 49 50 51 52 53

54

Cukuka, “At Centane,” (Kwa Centane), Opland (2009): 114–122, initially published in Imvo (4 August, 1914): 1. Scott (1976a): 19. Bennie notes that “this book was one of the classics of isiXhosa language and has been sold in thousands.” (Scott: 19). This has recently been translated into English; see f. 2 Scott (1976a): 19. See Reverend James M. Auld, Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol. V: 22. Auld was a missionary to the Gcaleka for fifty years, after he arrived in South Africa in 1875. The Blythswood Review, August, October, December, 1924; see also S.E.K. Mqhayi, obituary for “The Late Rev. J.M. Auld,” in Imvo (14 February 1933): 2, reprinted in Jeff Opland 49 (2009): 440–444. See James Stewart, Lovedale: Past and Present (Lovedale: Mission Press, 1886) Scott (1976a): 20–22. Ibid.: 23. Ibid.: 24. For Mqhayi’s tributes to Bokwe, see “Unfi I Rev. John Knox Bokwe (The late John Knox Bokwe) Imvo, 7 March 1922, 2; 14 March 1922, 4. Reprinted in Opland (2009): 193–198; U-Bomi bom-fundisi u John Knox Bokwe (The Life of Rev. John Knox Bokwe) (Lovedale Press, 1925/1946/1972). Sarah Duff gives vivid insights into the phenomenon of Christian revivalism in the Cape during the latter part of the nineteenth century, which seemed to have had a particularly strong effect on the rural areas and reached beyond racial boundaries. See S.E. Duff, Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony: Dutch Reformed Church Evangenicalism and Colonial Childhood, 1860–1885 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Scott (1976a): 22–25. For an elaboration of this theme, see also his second major prose work, U-Don Jadu (1929/1936). Scott (1976a): 32. See f. 56. See f. 37. See Isaac Williams, Wauchope: Selected Writings 1874–1916 (edited and translated by Jeff Opland & Abner Nyamende) (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 2008). For commentary on Wauchope’s role as historian, see pp. 75–158. Davis (1979): 12–31; Andre Odendaal, Vukani Bamtu! The Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in South Africa to 1912 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1984): 184–185.

297

Appendices 55

56 57

58 59 60

298

Walter Rubusana (1858–1936), grew up in the years after the Cattle Killing at Mnandi in the Somerset East district, as a member of the imiDange clan of Chief Bhotomani. His family were early converts of the London Missionary Society and were resettled at Peelton mission near Kingwilliamstown after Mlanjenii’s War (1850–53) under the supervision of Reverend Richard Birt. In 1874 he began his schooling at Peelton Native Training Institute, subsequently attended Lovedale, and was a teacher at Peelton for ten years before he was ordained as a full minister of the Congregational Church in 1884. In 1892 he moved to East London and established the Independent Congregational Church and East Bank School, in addition to a variety of other schools in the Berlin, Komgha, Macleantown, Mooiplaats, Stutterheim and Kingwilliamstown areas. He was a community leader in East London for the next forty years, a prominent member of the Native Education Association, and a moving force behind the establishment of the isiXhosa language newspaper Izwi labantu, set up in 1897. His other major achievement was the editing of the first comprehensive anthology of Xhosa poetry, Zemk’ inkobo megwalandini (There Go Your Cattle, You Cowards) (London: Frome, 1906/1911), to which Mqhayi contributed. When Mqhayi went to live in East London he was strongly influenced by the world he represented (see Songezo Joel Ngqongqo Mpilo, “Walter Benson Rubusana 1858–1910: The Making of a New African Elite in the Eastern Cape” (MA dissertation, University of Fort Hare, 1996)); S.E.K. Mqhayi, “I Jubulu ka Dr. Rubusana,” (Dr. Rubusana’s Jubilee) Umteteli (26 November 1932): 5–6 reprinted in Opland (2009): 48, 436–440; S.E.K. Mqhayi, “The Late Dr W.B. Rubusana,” in Opland (2009): 496–499 (first published in Imvo, 2 May, 1936, 2). Mqhayi also wrote a biography of Rubusana during the 1930s but it was rejected by Lovedale Press and the manuscript was subsequently lost. See Opland (2009): No 58: p. 591. f. 4. He nevertheless subsequently spent years teaching in various mission schools in Ndlambe territory near to East London. Mpilo (1996): Ch. 2; Scott: 29–32. Scott (1976a): 27. For further detail of this context, see Gary Minkley, “Border Dialogues: Race, Class and Space in the Industrialization of East London c 1902–1963” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, 1994. Odendaal (1984): 7–10, 294. Ibid.: 184–185. The IOTT is an international temperance organization that had branches in South Africa during the 1920s. Mqhayi reports that the first poems he submitted were entitled “The Country of the Ndlambe” and “Ntsikana,” topics that he frequently revisited in his long career. (Scott: 27).

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 61 62

63 64 65

66 67

For more on Imvo, see Scott (1976b): 16–17. Also see Catherine Higgs, The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D.D.T. Jabavu (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1996). Mhala, also known as Kondile, Mhalana, Mothameli or So Gqumahashe, was a minor son of the Ndlambe chief Makinana, who had been educated at St Augustine College, Canterbury as one of the sons of chiefs who were sent to be educated in England in the 1860s (see Scott: 27; Janet Hodgson, Princess Emma (Craighall, Johannesburg: Ad Donder, 1987); Zonnebloem College and the Genesis of an African Intelligentsia 1857–1933 (Cape Town: African Lives, 2018). See “SoGqumahashe (N.C. Mhala)” (Lovedale Press, 1921) reprinted in Opland (2009): 170–190. George W. Tyamzashe was one of the founders of Izwi and a prominent figure in the Eastern Cape. See T.D. Mweli Skota (ed.) African Yearly Register (Johannesburg: R.L. Esson & Co., 1932): 277. Scott (1976a): 29. William Bennie was the eldest son of John Bennie (1796–1869). John Bennie was a founder Glasgow Missionary Society (GMS) mission at Lovedale and Blythswood, and a great linguist and orthographer of the isiXhosa language. William Bennie’s role in the development of native education policy in the Cape has never been analysed systematically. Hartshorne claims that he was tasked with carrying out the recommendations of the 1919 Cape Education Commission which were closely aligned with the recommendations of Charles Loram expressed in the Education of the South African Native (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1917) and the subsequent reports of the Phelps Stokes Commissions (1922/1924) in relation to “adapted education” which had been resisted in the Cape until that time.(see Ken Hartshorne, Crisis and Challenge: Black Education 1910–1990 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1992): 225.) He introduced a new primary school curriculum which aimed at ensuring a differentiated approach to education for Africans emphasizing “the three Rs, moral instruction, hygiene, Native languages, nature study, handwork, agriculture and domestic science.” (E.G. Pells, 300 Years of Education in South Africa (Cape Town: Jula, 1954): 138) These reforms were supposed to ensure that the content of school knowledge was adapted to “African conditions and mentalities” and brought in line with the reforms taking place elsewhere in British Africa and in Natal. SADB, Vol. I (1988): 565– 567. For his relationship to Lovedale Press, see Peires (1980). Scott (1976a): 32. In 1929 he reported to Bennie “that I am not doing any particular work – I am just going about amongst the native people, doing their works without even a “thank you,” sometimes because they haven’t

299

Appendices

68 69 70 71 72

73

74 75 76

77 78

300

yet able (sic) to recognize what is their good. “He therefore offered his services to Bennie in relation to the Reader series as a writer and a translator. “I am more than willing to do your job because I know that it is for the good of the people I am trying to serve, and it puts a penny in the pocket.” LPA: MS 16,339(j)(2) SEKM to WGB, 21 December 1929. Lovedale Archives SXR correspondence 1935–50: SXR Mss 16,339(l)(ii): Mqhayi to Bennie, 24/4/1930. Letter from W.G. Bennie to Chief Makinana, 11/1/1936, LPA, SXR 1933–34, MS 16,339 (j)(7). In 1939 Mqhayi’s third marriage was to Makinana’s sister Winnie at St Katherine’s Church in Berlin. Scott (1976a): 33. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) visited South Africa in 1925; see Ward Price, Through South Africa with the Prince (London: The Gill Publishing Co., 1926); St J. Adcock, The Prince of Wales Africa Book (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1926); Scott (1976a): 33; Jordan (1973): 270; see I-Mbongi ye Sizwe Jikelele, A, Mzimb’Uyaquma (Hail, Steaming Body!), Imvo (31 March 1925): 3; reprinted and translated in Opland (2017): No. 27: 246–257; Illustrated London News, May 1925 various. Those attending included D.D.T. Jabavu, R.T. Caluza, B.W. Vilikazi, R.V. Selope Thema, D.M. Ramoshoane and Mngoaela. Apologies were received from J.J. R Jolobe, H.M. Ndawo, T. Mafolo, H. Maimane and R.R.R. Dhlomo. There is conflicting evidence regarding Mqhayi’s attendance. He claims that he attended but Couzens and Landreg list him among those who offered apologies. See White & Couzens (1984): 104–105. “A Conference of South African Bantu Authors,” Africa X(2) (April 1937): 231–233. See IIALC: Memorandum III, “Textbooks for African Schools,” Africa I(1) (1928): 13–22. Ruth Compton Brouwer, “Books for Africans: Margaret Wrong and the Gendering of African Writing, 1929–1963,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 31(1) (1998): 60–61. For an overview of these developments, see R.H.W. Shepherd, Lovedale and Literature for the Bantu (Lovedale Press, 1945): Ch. III. See also LPA: MS 16,436. The announcement regarding Mqhayi’s success in this regard was announced in The CATA, 4 December, 1936: 5–6. Parts I and II were published by Lovedale Press in 1929. His success in this regard was announced in The CATA III(3) (1937): 14. It was published by Lovedale Press in the same year. A

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79 80

81

82 83

84

85 86

87

translation by John Knox Bokwe is to be found in Patricia Scott, Mqhayi in Translation (Grahamstown, 1976): 35–47. I have not been able to trace who May Esther Bedford was or why the fund was given this name. See Richard Aldrich, The Institute of Education: 1902–2002: A Centenary History (London: Institute of Education, London University, 2002): 104, 118, 123; The IoE also received substantial support and funding for similar initiatives from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Phelps Stokes Fund. The IIALC competition received 207 entries by 1934 in eighteen African languages. The topics included novels, biography, tribal history, descriptions of customs and folk tales in languages specified for each year by the organizing panel. See “Prize Competition for Books in African Languages,” Africa VII(1934): 475–477; VIII(1) (1936): 109–111; IX(4) (1936): 544–545; XI(1) (1938): 99–100; XII(1): 96–97; XIII(1): 73. The only significant South African winner of this prize was Thomas Mofolo for his Zulu language novel Chaka. Aldrich (2001): 103–107, 125; also see “The Carnegie Corporation and the Institute of Education,” IoE Archives, 16/050/1/1. There is no comprehensive account of Mumford’s career. In 1934 he was appointed as a Lecturer in the “Education of Primitive People” and subsequent became head of the Colonial Department in the Oversea Division of the Institute of Education (IoE), which had been recently established by Fred Clarke, as part of the IoE’s initiative to become involved in colonial education. This was initially an honorary post. The Colonial Review was aimed to provide a precis of all current publications relating to colonial education and seems to have been conceived of as a supplement to the new IoE journal Oversea Education. Institute of Education Archives (IoEA) 1E/1/GVT/4 1939. The only records of the MEBF that I have been able to trace are in the Delegacy Minutes. As Daniel Magaziner notes, competitions were a significant aspect of inter-war Black culture in South Africa and this was part of a wider pattern of cultural revival. The Art of Life in South Africa (Scottsville: UKZN Press, 2016): 32–33. Source: www.indiana.edu/~libsalc/Africa/scripts/awards1/php?award=193 ). In 1935 the first prize was awarded to the sculptor, Ernest Macoba, and in 1937 the first prize was awarded to painters George Pemba and second prize to George Sekoto. There were also twelve competitors for a music competition in 1936–7 which saw Michael M. Moerane of Lovedale being awarded a prize of ₤20.

301

Appendices 88 89 90 91 92 93

94

95 96

97 98 99

100

101 102 103

302

The Teacher’s Vision 1(4) (1936): 14–16. Mqhayi’s receipt of the prize is commemorated on his memorial in Berlin. See Jordan (1972): 537–544; R.H.W. Shepherd, “S.E.K. Mqhayi,” in Bantu Literature and Life (Lovedale Press, 1945/1955/1964): 111– 115. See f. 56. For further details, see Opland (1998): 40–42, 46–47, 59, 65, 100, 270, 276, 288, 296–297. Opland (2009): 14. Lovedale Institution Press, 1907/09. Lovedale Institution Press, 1914, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1927 (old orthography); 1930; 1931 (8th printing – new orthography); 1937, 1953, 1970, 1978/1981, 1983.) Not only were there many different editions with additions and subtractions, including historical materials on Xhosa history, but there were long and abbreviated versions. R.H.W. Shepherd, Lovedale and Literature for the Bantu (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, – accepted in part fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of PhD, 1942); also see Opland (2006): 17–19; Opland (2009): 18–19. Peires (1981): 177. Qangule (1979) explores the literary merits of the work and especially the value of additional historical material. Some critics, like Donald Jabavu, regarded the additions as irrelevant and detracting from the essential plot, while others like Qangule see these additions as an essential aspect of the work and its didactic purpose in the wider context. Opland (1998): 296. London: Sheldon Press, 1927. Johannesburg: Bantu Treasury Series, Witwatersrand University Press, 1942/3. This was “a collection of poems published earlier in various Black newspapers.” Qangule (1979): 11. It was reprinted in the new orthography in 1948, 1957, 1959. A revised edition was edited by J.J. Jolobe was published in 1974. S.E.K. Mqhayi, U-Don Jadu (Lovedale Institution Press, 1929): 77p. I have been able to trace further publication dates to 1941, 1944, 1949, 1951, 1967. The length of the publication seems to vary over time so to what extent it was revised or abbreviated is not clear. After the original edition it seems that it can be taken for granted that it was transcribed in the new orthography. This work has only recently been translated into English; see f. 1. See Scott (1976b): 10. Ibid.; South African Outlook 66 (1936): 23. Lovedale Press, 1937. Mqhayi’s initial work on Hintsa was a summary taken from a polemical publication by “Justus” (Reverend

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111

112 113

Robert Mackenzie with John Philip, Charles Grant and Baron Glenelg) The Wrongs of the Caffre Nation (London, 1837). He refers to it as Izoniwo zamaXosa. Mqhayi acknowledges his source in his preface to the 1931 edition of Italya lama wele (Peires personal communication). According to Patricia Scott the original 1914 version was translated into English by John Knox Bokwe for George Cory. It was published in Patricia Scott (1976a): 35–42. Lovedale Press, 1921. Lovedale Press, 1925. Caluza Press, 1926. Many of them are to be found in Opland (2009) with translations. Diedrich Westermann, Afrikaner erzahlen ihr Leben: elf selbstandardstellunden afrikanischer eingeborener aller Bildungsgrade und Berufe und aus allen Teilen Afrikas (Essen: Essener Verlaganstalt, c1938): 292–315; Umqhayi wase Ntabozuko: ibalwengu – S.E. Mqhayi (Mqhayi of the Mount Glory) (Lovedale Press, 1939)(republished 1947, 1952, 1957, 1964, 1974, 1975); the English translation by Bennie was finally edited and made available by Patricia Scott (1976). There is first mention of this manuscript in June 1936 when I. Oldjohn was asked to review the manuscript for Lovedale Press in the light of its forthcoming publication in English in London. We have no evidence of what occurred in this regard. LPA: MS 16,339(j)(7); for Oldjohn’s report, see “Mr Mqhayi’s manuscript,” 14 July 1938. For more background on this, see Jeff Peires, “Lovedale Press: Literature for the Bantu Revisited,” English in Africa 7(1) (March 1980): 80. A careful search of the Lovedale Press archive at Cory Library has failed to locate any of these manuscripts or produce any definitive answers to these issues. Peires (1981): 176–179. S.E. Mqhayi, “Native Customs, History of the Xosa People, Poems,” in F. Rowling (ed.) Bibliography of African Christian Literature (London: Conference of Missionary Societies, 1923): 75; the work is also mentioned by D.D.T. Jabavu in his Bantu Literature: Classification and Reviews (a paper written for the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, Lovedale, 1921). See Scott (1976b): 31. Opland (2009): 14–18; Opland (2017): xix f. 7.; Peires (1981): 175– 179. There is a positive reader’s report on the MSS dated 26 March 1935, and further reference to this in a letter to Mr McNab at the Lovedale Stationery Dept 15 May 1935 LPA: MS 16321 (c). As late as 1940 Mqhayi was still approaching Shepherd to publish the Rubusana biography and Ulwakulu. See Mqhayi to Shepherd, 6 February 1940. LPA: MS 16,339(j)(6)

303

Appendices 114 Scott (1976b): 31. In a letter to Bennie, Mqhayi asks what has happened to the MSS that he submitted to Lovedale Press in 1928. LPA: MS 16,339 (j)(2) SEKM to WGB, 21 December, 1929; In 1931 Bennie finally replies and states that although he cannot use this material in the Readers, he is prepared to offer Mqhayi ₤3 10s for the manuscript providing he gives him “full rights.” LPA, MS 16,339 (j)(5) WGB to SEKM, 23 October 1931. 115 London: Sheldon Press, 1935. 116 Cape Town: Nasionale Pers, 1922. 117 U-Adonisi wasentlango: ixulwe kumabali adumieyo, ibalwe ngu-George Cory. No S.B. Hobson; iquqlelwe esi-Xhoseni ngu S.E.K. Mqhayi (Lovedale Press, 1945/1949). This was originally published by van Schaik in 1932/3. 118 For a recent broader exploration of this process, see Kim B. Mathieson, “Learning South African Languages: The historical origins of standard Xhosa, and the uses to which the written form of the language was put c1770–1935” (MA dissertation, Cape Town: UCT, 2000). 119 Sarah Pugach, Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond: 1814–1945 (Anne Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012). 120 CO Africa No 1110 / 35501 May 1927 pp. 199–204; IIALC, “Use of the Vernacular in Education”: a resolution passed at the 8th Meeting of Executive Council, Rome, October 1930. 121 See G.P. Lestrade, “Bantu Languages and Dialects in South Africa, their Classification and Interrelationship. p. l. UCT Manuscripts and Archives, BC.255 B1.44” cited by Mathieson (2000): 193. 122 Lord Hailey, An Africa Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1938); see “The Problem of Orthography”: 78–102; cited by Gladys Oppenheim, Books for the Bantu (Report of the Visitors Grants Committee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1940): 5. 123 IIALC, Practical Orthography: Orthography of African Languages (London: IIALC, 1930); D. Westermann, “The Linguistic Situation and Vernacular Literature in British West Africa,” Africa 2(4) (1929): 337–351; Westermann & Iris Ward, Practical Phonetics for Students of African Languages (London: IIALC/Oxford University Press, 1933); Westermann, “The Standardization of African Languages,” Oversea Education, 6(1) (1934): 1–7; “Linguistic Work,” Africa IX(1) (1936): 103–104; “The Work of the IIALC,” International Review of Missions 26 (October 1937): 493–499; Report to the Rockefeller Foundation on the Work of the Institute (London: IIALC, 1939). 124 Doke was a former Baptist missionary in Northern Rhodesia, now head of the African Languages Department of the University of the Witwatersrand. 304

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 125 Mathieson (2000): 199. 126 C.W. Doke, “The Standardization of Bantu Dialects and the Development of Literature in the Vernacular,” in E.G. Malherbe (ed.) Educational Adaptations in a Changing Society (Cape Town: Juta & Co., 1937): 480–482. For more on Doke’s, see “A Preliminary Investigation into the State of the Native Languages of South Africa with suggestions as to Research and the Development of Literature,” a report of the sub-committee of the Inter – University Committee for African Studies, published in Bantu Studies 7 (1933): 1–102; “Vernacular Textbooks in South African Native Schools,” Africa VIII(2) (April 1935): 183–209; “Bantu Language Pioneers,” Bantu Studies 14 (September 1940). 127 See f. 67. 128 South Africa: U.G.29–1936, Interdepartmental Committee on Native Education, 1935–1936 (the Welsh Report) (Pretoria: Government Publications, 1936). 129 See Tim White, “The Lovedale Press during the directorship of R.H.W. Shepherd 1930–55,” English in Africa, 19(2) (Oct. 1992): 9–89; Peires (1979): 155–175. 130 Opland (1998): 284–286; William Bennie, The Practice of Orthography for Xhosa: report of the Advisory Committee of the Union Government on Bantu Studies Research (Hertford, England: Austin & Sons, 1931); “The Speech sounds of Xosa: The orthography of Xhosa,” South African Outlook (1931): 67–71; A Grammar for the Xhosa – Speaking (Lovedale Press, 1939); Notes on the New Xhosa Orthography (Lovedale Press, 1944). 131 I have not been able to find the relevant files in the Cape Archives Depot. 132 It is noticeable that J.H. Soga is no longer part of this group. This might stem for the fact that he expressed opposition to the whole process with particular regard to the lack of consultation that was a feature of the exercise. Mathieson (2000): 195. 133 Cape Education Gazette 32 (23 November 1933): 33, 1131; (1934): 360–363; Native Education: The Orthography of Xhosa (Cape Town: Cape Times, 1934); Cape Archives EDU 6/1/14; “A New Orthography for Xhosa,” communicated by W.G. Bennie to “Notes and News,” Africa VIII(1) (January 1935): 111–112; for a brief survey of these events, see Jeff Opland, “Orthographies and Education Departments,” in Xhosa Poets and Poetry (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998): 284–286. I have not been able to find any details relating to Mqhayi’s participation. 134 London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1936. Reviewed by A.T. Bryant in Africa XII(3) (October 1939): 374–376.

305

Appendices 135 Scott (1976a): 31. Of course, these remarks need to be interpreted with care given the context in which Mqayi found himself. For remarks on this feature of the colonial context, see Ch. 6. 136 See Andrew Bank, “The Berlin Missionary Society and German linguistic Roots of volkekunde: The Background, Training and Hamburg Writings of Werner Eiselen, 1899–1934,” Kronos 41(1) (2015); Cynthia Kros, The Seeds of Separate Development: The Origins of Bantu Education (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2010): Ch. 3; also see Ch. 5 of this collection. 137 See his “Die Eingeborenengesprachen Sȕdafrikas in ihren heutigen Bedeutung,” Europäische Revue 12 (December 1936): 1079–1084. 138 Westermann (1938). The original isiXhosa version of the manuscript is missing but we can probably assume that Westermann used Bennie’s English translation; see Scott (1976) when he produced the German version. 139 Mqhayi (1939): Scott (1976a): 5–34. Since we have no access to original manuscripts, the accuracy of the translations is contentious. 140 Bennie (1939). 141 J. McLaren, A Concise Xhosa-English Dictionary (Revised in the new Xhosa orthography by W.G. Bennie) (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1936). 142 See W.G. Bennie, Invangeli Ngokuba Ngu-Marko (St Marks Gospel in the New Orthography) (Alice, South Africa: Lovedale Press, 1934); The full New Testament version was published in 1937. 143 Lovedale Press, 1935. 144 Lovedale Press, 1933, 1935 and various subsequent editions. 145 Opland (1998): 285. 146 Mathieson (2000): 199. 147 W.G. Bennie, “Review of S.E.K Mqhayi, U-Mqhayi Wase-Ntab’ozuko,” Bantu Studies 14 (1940): 203–204.; also see R.H.W. Shepherd Bantu Literature and Life (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1955): 114 who notes that Mqhayi worked with Bennie as a “collaborator on Xhosa language, grammar and usage.” 148 It important to note that many of the orthographic revisions of the 1930s fell away by the 1950s when H.W. Pahl’s new Greater Dictionary of Xhosa (OUP) recognized the need for more flexibility. Mathieson (2000): 205–206. 149 See Opland (2009) “Mqhayi as Historian”: 16–23, 534; Peires (1981) “Xhosa Historical Writing,” 175–179. 150 Scott (1976a): 26. 151 Ibid.: 20; William Girdwood subsequently became a Presbyterian missionary at Thuthura (Tutura) Village near Butterworth/Centane. 152 Opland (2009): No. 52: 454–461. 153 Ibid.: No. 53: 462–465. 306

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 154 Ibid.: 23–25. 155 Peires (1979): 164–165. 156 A rough estimate of his contributions to the Senior Stewart Xhosa Reader indicates that either through his own contributions or through his translations of English texts and selection of Xhosa language materials amounts to something like fifty percent of the whole. 157 Peires (1981): 175–179. 158 Opland (2017): p. xx. 159 Some of the correspondence I discovered in the Lovedale Archives confirms the significance of the series in promoting an “authentic version” of Xhosa history. Cage Yabe wrote from the Agricultural School in Flagstaff praising the books for “providing a platform for understanding ‘native history.’ ” (Yabe to Bennie, 16/8/1935) Also see N.M, Ndawo, Matatiele, to W.G. Bennie, 16/8/1935. LPA, SXR Corr. 1933–34. Ms 16,339 (j)(7). 160 first published Oxford University Press in 1918. It was still being reprinted as late as 1948. 161 London: Longmans Green, first published in 1932 and had many editions. 162 There is very sparse information on the teaching of history in black schools at this time. See C.D. Wagner, “The Teaching of History in Native Schools,” Native Teachers Journal 2(3) (April 1921); Wycliffe Mlungu Tsotsi, “The History Syllabus in the Native Primary School,” The Teachers’ Vision V(3) (March 1939): 11–14; V(4) (June 1939): 9– 10. 163 For a list of the contributors, see LPA: MS. 16,339 (j)(7) 164 Bennie to Mqhayi, 18 December 1935, LPA, MS 16,339 (j)(7) 165 See Shepherd (1945): 105. (It comprised 286 pages and cost 4/4d.) 166 LPA: MS 16,339(j)(7) List of books in stock. 167 Book review by G.H. Welsh, Bantu Studies 10 (1936): 366–369. Ukkhosi wemiDaka (The Dark Skinned Army) was first published in Imvo on 31 October, 1916: 5 and UkuTshona kukaMendi (The Sinking of the Mendi) had been included in the 1922 edition of Italya lama wele. They can be found in translation in Opland (2017): 192–199, 202–207. See also Chris Dunton, “From Mqhayi to Sole: Four Poems on the sinking of the Troopship Mendi,” Cross/Cultures 168 (January 2013). 168 Opland (2009) references this: Nzulu Lwazi (One of Mqhayi’s non de plumes) as follows: “U-Rarabe,” Umteteli (18 August, 1928): 8; (1 September, 1928): 5, and notes that an earlier version appeared in Imvo (10 September, 1912): 1; (1 October 1912): 6; (8 October 1912): 6. This provides a good example of how Mqhayi’s work developed.

307

Appendices 169 The great battle between Ndlambe and Ngqika forces in October 1818 in which Ngqika was defeated. Based on Nzulu Lwazi, Idabi lama Linde (The Battle of Amalinde) Umteteli, (1 December, 1928): 10; (8 December, 1928): 10. See Opland (2009): 311–322. 170 This is a praise poem for the historian W.D. Cingo, stressing his royal descent, with some introductory remarks about the Transkei Bunga of which he was a member. 171 Lovedale Press: 1934–1937 (many editions and impressions through to the 1950s). 172 I have been able to find examples of this series dating back to 1890 when it was titled Incwadi Yokuqala yaba fundi (Lovedale Kaffir Readers) (Lovedale Press, 1890); also see Rowling (1923). 173 The only competitor in the market for Xhosa Readers at this time seems to have been the Longmans Kafir Reader, published from around 1910. In the 1950s, presumable in an attempt to cater to the demands of the new Bantu Education policy under apartheid, a new series of Readers was launched by Lovedale Press. These would probably merit further investigation. See D. Barnard & J.J. Jolobe, Isikhokelo kwii titshala ngakusyenziwa kwee (Henderson Xhosa Readers) (Lovedale Press, 1954). 174 Shepherd (1945): 105–106. 175 Opland (2009): 20. Guybon Sinxo was Mqhayi’s son in-law. 176 For details of sales, see LPA: MS 16,339(j)(7) 177 The series was advertised in The CATA, I (4)(1935). They were being sold at the same prices in 1948. 178 The only other major new series of Xhosa Readers were the Healdtown Kafir Readers (London: Longmans) edited by Reverend Candlish Koti and published between 1928 and 1941. This series replaced the earlier series, Longmans Xosa Readers, edited by Robert Godfrey. See review by G.P. Lestrade in Bantu Studies 10 (1936): 117–118. 179 reprinted in Opland (2009): No. 28: 275–294 – first published in Umteteli, 18 August 1928: 8; 25 August 1928: 5. 180 Clement M. Doke, book reviews, Bantu Studies 9 (1935): 83–84; Africa 9(1) (January 1936): 132–133. 181 This was the only full translation of one of these texts into English that I have been able to find. It was done on commission from Shepherd around 1939 by I. Oldjohn. It appears that the purpose of the translation was not to publish the texts in English, but to provide a template to be used in the translation or adaptation of the SXR to Zulu, Sotho and Tswana educational contexts. See also f. 125. See SXR MS 16,340 (d)(2).

308

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 182 This item seems to have caused some concern as it was revised and moved from pp. 54–60 to pp. 128–131, and was apparently later removed. 183 Opland (2017): 202–207. 184 As indicated above, the content sometimes varies in different editions. 185 Review by C.M. Doke of SXR, Bantu Studies 9 (1935): 83–84. 186 Doke, Bantu Studies 9 (1935): 83–84; Doke, Africa 9(1) (January 1936): 132–133. 187 Also see Mqhayi’s article on “Sarili” in Imteteli, 22 August 1931; 15 September, 1931. Opland (2009): No. 40: 382–390. 188 W.G. Bennie to SEKM, 23 October 1931, LPA, MS 16,339 (j)(5) 189 There is a long letter from John Soga to Bennie in answer to his request to used material from his and his father’s writing for the SXRs. See J.H. Soga to Bennie, Miller Mission, Elliotdale, 5/5/34: LPA 16,339 (j)(6). 190 See Contents page of Senior Reader: LPA: MS 16,345. For a list of all the “European contributors,” see LPA, 16.339 (j)(7). 191 See LPA: MS 16,345. 192 A good example of this collaboration is given in a letter from Bennie to Mqhayi on 28 June 1934 in which he requests detailed assistance on factual issues related to Xhosa history. LPA: MS 16,339 (j)(6). 193 See Opland (2009): 27: 258–273: 45 originally published under the pseudonym Nzulu Lwazi as “U-Ngqika” in Umteteli (2 June 1928): 6 and (9 June 1928): 5–6 and pp. 582–583 and in Umteteli (20 August 1932): 9). 194 Epictetus was a classical Greek philosopher who professed a robust faith in the power of the will to overcome the cares and sorrows of life. 195 See Opland (2009): No. 12: 123–143. 196 See Ibid.: No. 16: 160–191 and No. 41: 390–400. 197 See Ibid.: No. 7: 84. 198 See Ibid.: No. 32: 310–322. Other notable direct references to these conflicts in Mqhayi’s wider work are: “The Battle of Waterkloof (1852),” Opland (2009): No. 38: 361–370; “Mlanjeni’s War (1850– 53),” Opland (2009): No. 38: 360–370; and “The War of the Axe,” Opland (2009): No. 50: 444–449. 199 See ref 170, 182. See also Albert Grundlingh, “The S.S. Mendi Disaster,” in War and Society: Participation and Remembrance: Black and Coloured South African Troops in the First World War, 1914–1918 (Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2014): 115–136. 200 The other theme of Mqhayis’ writing for the SXR series, which I will not deal with here, could perhaps be classified under the heading of “civics” or “moral education” as it was called at that time. The pieces

309

Appendices are as follows: Inyaniso (Truth), SXR Standard II, pp. 53–54; Itemba (Hope) SXR VI, pp. 169–171; Imbeko (Honour) SXR Senior, pp. 21–25; Ububele (Kindness) SXR VI, pp. 20–21; InKokeli (The Leader/the person who guides/shows the way) (Imibengo 208–211 (probably from U-Samson); Iqakamba (Cricket) SXR Senior 153–158.(originally published in Umteteli 6 December 1930, 5. 201 Peires (1979): 160. 202 STEWART XHOSA READERS: Source: LPA: SXR Corr. 1933–50 MS. 16,339 (j)(7)

Primer Infant Reader Std I “ II “ III “ IV “V “ VI Senior

Sales: 1930–June 1940 205,627 price 6d 124,370 8d 90,604 1/67.711 1/4 47,815 2/26,511 2/6 17,014 2/6 11,342 2/9 3,730 4/-

= = = = = = = = =

£5140 13s 6d £4145 13s 4d £4530 4s 0d £4514 1s 4d £4781 10s 0d £3313 17s 6d £2126 15s 0d £1559 10s 6d £746 0s 0d

Source: LPA: SXR Corr. 1933–50 MS. 16,339 (j)(7)

203 Mqhayi makes constant request in his letters to be paid royalties but is repeatedly fobbed off by Bennie. See LPA, MS 16,339(j)(6): SEKM to WGB 12 February 1934; WGB to SEKM, 26 April, 1934. An example of the miserly payment Mqhayi received for his work on the Senior Stewart Xhosa Reader can be found in the ₤2 10s he received for selections from “Don Jadu, Buluneli, Iqakamba and ImiYolelo ka 1931.” WGB to SEKM, 8 October 1934. See LPA, MS 16,339 (j)(6). A great deal of the correspondence is about payment for work done. The amounts paid were extremely small – never seeming to amount to more than ₤5/0/0. A particularly disquieting example of this relationship relates to Bennie’s grudging purchase of a suit for Mqhayi from a Muslim tailor in Cape Town. When this is set against Bennie’s royalties of ₤100 for the period January to June 1940 the extent of the injustice is revealed. 204 A rather sad footnote to this story is that Mqhayi came to be recognized after his death by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns through a prize that was given “vir oorspronklike bellettristiese werk in ’n Suid-Afrikaanse swart taal, geskryf deur ‘n swart person en woonagtig in the Republiek van Suid Afrika.” The “Mqhayi Prys vir Swart Literatuur” was offered between 1961 and 1973. The funding was donated by Shell (SA). The recipients of the 310

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA

205 206 207 208 209 210 211

212 213

214

prize were Moses J. Ngcobo (1961), E.A.S. Lesoro (1962), O.K. Matsepe (1964), S.R. Machaka (1965), T.N. Maumela (1967), R.R. Matshili (1968), M.T. Mazibuko (1971), I.T. Madisi (1971), O.K. Matsepe (1973). It seems noteworthy that none of these awards were made to Xhosa writers. based on Nzulu Lwazi, “U Rarabe,” Umteteli (18 August 1928): 8; (25 August 1928): 8; (1 September 1928): 5 reprinted in translation in Opland (2009): 274–293. See f. 153. Ibid. See f. 155. This is not included in Scott’s list of contents. See Scott (1976b): 21. See Opland (2009): No. 44: 414–421. For more on this, see Opland (2009): 10. f. 2., p. 547. The copy that I used from the UCT African Studies library was published after Bennie’s death in 1942. The material contributed by Mqhayi is listed in ULUHLU LWEZIFUNDO (Contents) of the SXR in Opland (2009): 534 and Patricia Scott (1976b): 22–23. It is important to note that there were also contributions by a number of other authors. These included sections on AmaMfengu (p. 99), UNqeno (p. 180), Ama Mbalu, Ama Gqunukhwebe (pp. 174–186), Umzilikazi (pp. 73–76), UMaqoma (pp. 190–193). This is not included in Scott’s list of contents. See Scott (1976b): 22. This is a translation of work by F.W. Fitzsimmons, the Director of the Port Elizabeth Museum and author of the path-breaking The Snakes of South Africa: their venom and the treatment of snake – bite (1910). This concerns a visit to the Port Elizabeth snake park, a major attraction in the Eastern Cape at that time. There is a picture of the snake handler on p. 68. See f. 206.

311

Conclusion Venturing into the field of colonial education confronts the researcher with a formidable set of challenges. The field is not well defined and although much has been written on the subject in different genres and in different times and places, the output of research usually lacked analytical depth, comprehensive relation to wider historical research and historiography, or extensive reference to archival sources. We often know what missionary educators or colonial officials thought about education in general terms and even how they differed in terms of goals and policy practices – but, in truth, we know very little about the actual realities of schools, classrooms and teachers in the African colonial context in the first half of the 20thC. Missionary accounts and official reports often present glowing reports of “progress” in the field, the structuralist/ revisionist accounts from the 1970s regarding notions such as cultural imperialism paint a picture of the passive recipients of colonial education and the silencing of the voices of the colonized – but comprehensive historical accounts of what actually went on, the actions of key actors in the field, or even institutional histories of educational projects, institutions and policies, are not easy to come by. What is clear is that various forms of humanitarianism played a key role in defining the meaning of education from the early nineteenth century – both in relation to the welfare and treatment if working class children in England and Ireland, and regarding the relations between the colonizer and the colonized in the South. As Lester & Dussart have shown, the history of this concept in relation to politics and policy in relation to the ethic of colonialism is extremely important and has not been given sufficient attention to date. They argue that “humanitarianism is …. an assemblage of ideas and practices with the ultimate aim of welfare to others in mind, but always through a particular global geography.” 1 They have demonstrated that the roots of what came to be called development policy in the post-World War II world, can be traced to Enlightenment notions of human rights and to humanitarian thinking associate with the Emancipation of Slaves and the activities of the Aborigines Protection Society (APS) in the British Empire and the English Poor Laws (1834). They also demonstrate how humanitarian, scientific (particularly ethnographic) and development discourses were forged. These were formulated and 313

Conclusion

transmitted via emerging policy networks both between the metropolis and the colonies and between the Southern colonies. They began to emerge in different places and times and under the tutelage of key policy makers. Over a long century of change in Britain and in the colonies, from the 1830 to the 1930s, networks were created for the consideration of ideas and proposals for colonial political, economic, social and educational policy were debated. My concern has been to explore the nature of humanitarian, scientific and development discourses and trajectories that impacted in educational policy and practice in the inter-war years, and to assess the extent to which these educational debates influenced global perceptions of the emerging discourse of development. Lester & Dussart highlight the continuities between humanitarian proposals for colonial policy in the mid – nineteenth century and the emergent Development discourses of the post WWII era. They point to the paradoxes and ambiguities that are a marker of such policies, In that context it is apparent that many of the themes pursued in the collection have a longer history than is often assumed. The stress on the relief of poverty, medicine and health care, welfare of the aged and disabled, provision of water supplies and sanitary policy, extension services in agriculture, the welfare of women and children, and education, which were key elements of the Development discourse from the ‘fifties to the ‘seventies, all had their roots in the politics of policy in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. My key task has been to explore nature of that humanitarian reform in the first half of the twentieth century, and to understand how it changed over time. The central actors in the story J.H. Oldham, Hanns Vischer, Lord Lugard, Arthur Mayhew, Frank Ward, W.B. Mumford, C.T Loram, Fred Clarke, T.J. Jones, W.E.F Ward, Victor Murray, Diedrich Westermann, and many others, all played complex roles and often bridged the gaps between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the scientific, the idealistic and the practical. The development of welfare and education policy for the colonial context had to take account of political realities at home and abroad, of the tensions between the secular and the mission realm, and increasingly, by the 1930s, the increasing influence of African nationalism and socialism in policy debates. The significant of the emergent fields of social anthropology and linguistics for an understanding of debates over race and eugenics and their relationship to educational policy are explored in the broad

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context of colonial policy, the specific African colonial context, and with regard to the South African. I highlight the role of Protestant mission, The New Education Fellowship, and American philanthropic foundations in the crafting of such colonial policy networks and demonstrate how they all expanded their engagement with scientific and managerial expertise in their engagement with the colonial state. African response to colonial education is demonstrated through the two case studies drawn from South Africa which highlight the careers of two very different actors in the field of education. Donald M’Timkulu is a representative of those who embraced colonial education in the context of the promise of citizenship and the Cape franchise in the face of an increasingly racist government policy over an educational career which spanned thirty years prior to the advent of apartheid education. Samuel Mqhayi was a cultural activist who defended the right of colonial peoples to retain their own culture, language and history within the new forms of formal education for blacks in South Africa during the era of increasing segregation. Neither of them directly opposed colonial education in the mission/state school of the time but sought to defend the rights of colonial people to define the nature of that education. Looking back from the twenty-first century it is important to assess the significance of this complex educational heritage in order to increase our understanding of the history of education in Africa, and to understand its relevance for contemporary educational policy debate.

Notes 1

Alan Lester & Fae Dussart, Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance Cambridge: CUP, 2014): 10.

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343

Index Aborigines Protection Society (APS), 2, 7, 313 Achimota College, 17, 108 Adams College (Amanzimtoti Training Institution), i, 27, 164, 199, 202, 203, 223, 224, 226, 228, 233, 235, 252, 324 adapted education see also Loram, C.T., 15, 56, 61, 63, 79, 85, 122, 129, 143, 155, 157, 158, 159, 176, 179, 180, 206, 207, 213, 220, 231, 260, 299 adult education, 66, 67, 94, 100, 125, 128 Adult Education, 131, 137 Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies (ACEC), xi, 3, 115, 317 Advisory Committee on Social Welfare, 125, 131 African child, 10, 103, 105, 106, 126, 157, 230, 232, 236, 237 African National Congress (ANC), ii, v, xi, 23, 24, 38, 76, 174, 197, 199, 202, 203, 223, 229, 231, 234, 235, 239, 253, 295, 318, 326 African nationalism, 10, 27, 44, 126, 168, 194, 195, 314 African Research Survey, 11, 19, 161, 168, 179, 341 Afrikanistik, 167, 179 Aggrey, James, 17 All - Africa Convention (AAC), 197, 199, 223, 228, 234, 282 All-Africa Church Conference, 197, 256 American South, 15, 223

Amery, Leopold, 141, 188 Anthropology and policy, 145 apartheid, iii, iv, v, vii, 6, 27, 78, 106, 114, 125, 127, 160, 174, 193, 194, 197, 198, 223, 227, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 243, 244, 289, 308, 315, 323 Asia, 41, 44, 46, 52, 54, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 98, 100, 101, 108 Auld, J.M., 267, 280, 297 Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), 108, 117 Axenfeld, Karl, 171 Bantu Education, ii, 33, 114, 160, 163, 174, 188, 197, 224, 226, 231, 232, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 244, 254, 263, 306, 308, 318, 326, 330, 334 Bantu Methodist Church (BMC), 199 Bantu Welfare Trust, 199, 245 Barth, Karl, 60, 65, 178 Bebbington, David, 42 Bennie, William, 274, 282, 299, 305 Berlin (Eastern Cape), iii, iv, xi, 18, 124, 151, 167, 168, 169, 171, 174, 175, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 263, 270, 277, 294, 298, 300, 302, 306, 330, 341 Berlin Mission Society (BMS), xi, 18, 101, 167, 171, 175, 176, 181 345

Index Beveridge Report on Social Welfare in the United Kingdom, 125, 131 Bokwe, John Knox, 268, 270, 274, 280, 297, 301, 303 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 43, 60, 81, 178 Bovet, Pierre, 94, 104, 107 Bridgman,Frederick, 202 British Commonwealth, 35, 95, 96, 97, 98, 107, 109 British Commonwealth Education Conference (1931), 97 British Social Hygiene Council (BSHC), xi, 19, 22, 38, 124 Brookes, Edgar, 148, 202, 225, 233, 252 Bunche, Ralph, 222, 251 Bundy, Colin, v, 193, 244, 321 Burstall, Sara, 127, 136, 325 Butterfield, K.L., 69, 70, 80 Buxton, Thomas, 44 Canada, 12, 98, 115, 208, 242, 256, 335 Cape African Teachers’ Assn (CATA), xi, 204, 213, 228, 247, 272, 300, 308, 318 Carnegie Corporation, 30, 94, 102, 104, 114, 115, 161, 208, 209, 301, 304, 324, 326 Carnegie Fellowships, 198 Carney, Mabel, 103, 114, 148, 213, 249, 324 Centane, 266, 267, 269, 296, 306 child rights, 126 China, 48, 49, 54, 55, 57, 64, 72, 77, 78, 83, 96, 208, 210 Christian revivalism, 297 Ciskei, 261, 271 Civil War (US), 15, 35, 216 Clarke, Fred, 17, 19, 73, 80, 90, 94, 104, 107, 112, 115, 148, 272, 301, 314, 328, 333

346

Colonial Academy (Berlin), 168, 181 Colonial Development (1929), 3, 9, 20, 22, 29, 125, 130, 131, 134, 161, 317, 322, 324, 341 Colonial Development Act (1929), 3, 9, 20, 22, 29, 125, 130, 131, 134, 161, 317, 322, 324, 341 Colonial Development and Welfare Act (1940), 9, 22, 125 Colonial Office (CO), xi, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 34, 38, 44, 48, 58, 59, 61, 64, 66, 83, 89, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 115, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 141, 143, 145, 146, 153, 158, 159, 163, 168, 172, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182,184, 189, 191, 218, 276, 304, 317, 327, 342, 343 Colonial Welfare Act, 141 communism, 79 community development, 42, 44, 62, 64, 144, 242 comparative education, vi, 2, 3, 14, 90, 220 Conference of British Mission Societies (CBMS), 101, 114, 116, 135, 136, 189, 249, 251, 318 Conference on Politics, Economics and Citizenship (COPEC), 60, 82 consultancy game, 80 Cook, P.A.W., 148, 254 Cooper,Frederick, 23, 38, 132, 195, 245 crime, 128 cultural imperialism, 44, 90, 110, 194, 195, 313 culture contact, 101, 104, 106, 123, 139, 143, 145, 146, 147,

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA 148, 149, 150, 153, 156, 160, 165, 207, 208 curriculum, iv, vii, 10, 13, 14, 15, 24, 25, 48, 50, 51, 57, 63, 64, 67, 72, 78, 99, 100, 120, 124, 129, 152, 157, 202, 213, 232, 236, 237, 241, 242, 245, 260, 265, 281, 288, 289, 299 Davis, J. Merle, 36, 75 democracy, 26, 43, 51, 95, 101, 108, 110, 111, 119 Department of Social and Industrial Research (DSIR), xi, 19, 48, 64, 70, 72, 75, 86, 87, 123 Department of Social Welfare, 125 Department of Social Welfare (SA), 125 Depression (Great Depression), 26, 46, 89, 93, 98, 100, 101, 112, 125, 141, 145, 197, 213, 223 detribalization, 15, 142, 144, 172, 219, 250 Development and education, 3, 25, 44, 80 and welfare, 126, 141 development policies, 2, 4, 22 Doke, C.M., 148, 250, 309 Dube, John, 199, 223, 226, 253, 326, 330 Dubow,Saul, 33, 36, 106, 114, 116, 162, 202, 207, 245, 246, 247, 250, 253 Ecole Coloniale, Paris, 121 Edinburgh, 8, viii, 8, 19, 26, 28, 33, 35, 37, 42, 45, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 65, 66, 72, 74, 82, 83, 84, 86, 101, 108, 114, 121, 130, 136, 161, 171, 175, 242, 322, 324, 325, 327, 331, 340 Education Act of 1902, 7, 8, 60

Education Act of 1902 (UK), 7, 8, 60 educational science, 56 Eiselen, W.W.M., 106, 148, 163, 174, 277, 278 Emanuelson, Oscar, 211, 247 Empire League, 19 empires, 6, 37 English Board of Education, 7, 14, 122 English see also languages, ii, iv, vi, 7, 13, 14, 34, 59, 81, 82, 91, 100, 113, 122, 153, 165, 179, 181, 195, 199, 200, 202, 203, 234, 236, 237, 244, 255, 263, 269, 272, 273, 275, 279, 281, 286, 287, 289, 293, 294, 297, 302, 303, 305, 306, 307, 308, 313, 328, 335, 337, 341 Enlightenment, 93, 313 Equality, 82, 246, 253, 299, 323, 326 ethnicity, 67, 186, 194 evangelicalism, 74 Evans, Maurice, 202, 246 experts, 9, 11, 16, 19, 20, 22, 55, 62, 92, 93, 94, 97, 108, 121, 123, 144, 152, 154, 182, 210, 233, 236 Fabians, the see also Wolff, Leonard, 19, 20, 43 Faith and Order Movement, 57 fascism, 229 food security, 126 Fort Hare (or South African Native College), 8, i, v, xi, 27, 103, 174, 194, 199, 200, 202, 205, 206, 211, 222, 223, 228, 237, 238, 245, 246, 251, 255, 272, 278, 298, 321, 329, 333, 334, 343 Fortes, Meyer, 163, 185 Fraser, Alek, 13, 34 French Revolution, 120, 176

347

Index Garvey, Marcus, 85 Gender, 136, 244, 321, 334 German Church, 177 German colonialism, 182 German missions, 18, 171 Germany, 43, 87, 89, 107, 133, 152, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 177, 181, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 221, 277, 278, 304, 327, 329, 337, 340, 341 Gibson, Betty, 70, 183, 191, 221, 249 girls see also women, 50, 71, 100, 103, 115, 125, 127, 149, 215, 226, 267 Glasgow Missionary Society (GMS), 261, 265, 268, 299 Gluckman Report (SA), 125, 134 Goody, Jack, 159 Growth, Equity and Reconstruction (GEAR), xi, 23 Gutmann, Bruno, 78, 87, 177, 178, 254, 343 Hadow Report (on Adolescents), 8, 60, 82 Hamburg Colonial Institute, 32, 122, 169 Hartog, Philip, 100 Hastings, Adrian, 43, 81, 82, 176, 189 Hawaii, 21, 208, 210, 218, 220, 248, 250, 251, 329 Healdtown, 103, 149, 203, 228, 246, 264, 308, 326, 342 Health, 125, 126, 131, 134, 135, 242, 248, 328, 330, 332 Hellman, Ellen, 128, 134, 254, 322 Henderson, James, 268 heroes, 194, 281 higher education, 14, 15, 25, 75, 78, 94, 100, 125, 128, 203, 207, 212, 213, 216, 220, 225

348

Hintsa (Xhosa chief), 265, 271, 273, 274, 285, 286, 292, 302 history of education, iii, vi, 1, 2, 6, 12, 24, 42, 45, 90, 94, 110, 111, 315 Hocking, William, 51, 70 Hodge, Joseph, 2, 4, 9, 29, 91, 112, 144 Hoernle, Alfred, 104 Hofmeyr, J.H., 94, 112 Hogg, William, 43 humanism, 120, 168 humanitarianism, 120, 313 Hunt Davis, Richard, 249 Huxley, Julian, 17, 36, 124, 134 Imperialism, 29, 30, 81, 85, 132, 161, 319, 321, 325 Imvo Zabantsundu (newspaper), 269 Independent Order of True Templers (IOTT), 269, 298 India, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 26, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 42, 48, 49, 54, 55, 56, 57, 69, 71, 72, 83, 86, 87, 96, 97, 98, 100, 109, 110, 113, 121, 142, 156, 161, 210, 319, 320, 321, 322, 327, 335, 339, 340 Indian National Movement, 109 Indians (Native Americans), 35, 93, 109, 220, 221 indigenous education, 99 Indirect Rule, 10, 15, 22, 82, 106, 122, 133, 142, 143, 156, 159, 171, 173, 175, 178, 186, 288 industrial education, 25, 49, 56, 67, 79, 215, 216 Industrial Revolution, 120 industrialization, 42, 46, 71, 75, 153 initiation school, 267 Institut J.J. Rousseau, 50, 90, 97, 104, 107, 121

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA Institute of Education, London University, xi, 70, 104, 116, 133, 148, 160, 163, 301 International Africa Institute (IAI), xi, 3, 20, 22, 133, 135, 143, 145, 147, 170, 183, 184, 190, 192, 221, 338 International Conference on the African Child, 126, 134 International Conference on the African Child (1931), 126, 134 International Congress on Child Welfare, 126 International Congress on Child Welfare (1925), 126 International Institute of African Languages and Culture (IIALC), xi, 3, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 62, 115, 123, 124, 130, 145, 147, 167, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 271, 272, 276, 277, 287, 289, 294, 300, 301, 304, 338 International Missionary Council (IMC), 7, 8, xi, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 34, 36, 38, 41, 42, 44, 48, 49, 50, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 97, 101, 110, 114, 116, 121, 123, 130, 135, 136, 145, 146, 147, 148, 158, 167, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 182, 183, 189, 205, 220, 221, 249, 251, 255, 256, 271, 276, 318, 322, 326, 328 International Review of Missions (IRM), xi, 19, 36, 57, 59, 66, 84, 86, 87, 115, 133, 148, 151, 164, 165, 188, 192, 256, 304, 328, 332, 335, 336 Inter-University Committee on African Studies (SA), 271

isiXhosa see also Xhosa, 7, 204, 259, 261, 263, 269, 271, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 282, 286, 289, 297, 298, 299, 306 Izwi Labantu (newspaper), 273 Jabavu, Donald, 103, 149, 204, 223, 228, 280, 302 Jerusalem, 19, 26, 42, 49, 50, 54, 64, 65, 66, 69, 72, 74, 75, 78, 82, 85, 86, 121, 177 Joint Council of Europeans and Bantu (JCEB), 197, 202 Jones, Thomas Jesse, 17, 20, 33, 56, 83, 209, 213, 247, 337 journals, 19, 147, 168, 183 Junod, Henri-Phillipe, 151 juvenile delinquency, 124, 125, 128 Kabete Reformatory (Kenya), 128 Keesing, Felix, 208, 218 Kerr, Alexander, 200, 211, 222, 255 Koloniale Rundschau (journal), 168, 170, 181, 187, 191 Krige, Susan, 163, 246 Kullman, Gustav, 103 Labour Party, 43, 60, 61, 107, 126 languages, 13, 14, 25, 45, 62, 123, 130, 167, 169, 172, 173, 178, 179, 183, 184, 185, 186, 203, 207, 237, 260, 271, 272, 276, 277, 299, 301 League of Nations, xi, 2, 8, 18, 26, 32, 41, 42, 46, 51, 58, 80, 86, 89, 95, 96, 97, 103, 107, 111, 112, 115, 124, 126, 130, 134, 135, 144, 182, 321, 324, 330 Leys, Norman, 20, 140, 146, 153, 160, 163, 342 Liebbrandt, Georg, 182 London School of Economics (LSE), 8, viii, xi, 3, 19, 43, 60, 82, 115, 116, 123, 133, 140,

349

Index 143, 145, 147, 148, 160, 163, 166, 190, 191, 318 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 3, 133 Loram, C.T., 18, 20, 27, 80, 122, 198, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 326, 328, 333 Lovedale Institution (SA), 199, 261, 274, 279, 302 Lovedale Press, 245, 248, 250, 255, 270, 271, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 284, 287, 289, 294, 295, 297, 298, 299, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308, 321, 327, 337, 340, 341, 343 Lutheran Church, 175, 176, 177, 178 Luthuli, Albert, 76, 87, 235, 255 M’timkulu, Clytie, 239 M’timkulu, Donald, i, 17, 27, 94, 149, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 205, 220, 227, 229, 231, 233, 234, 237, 241, 242, 243, 244, 249, 253, 256 MacDonald, Malcolm, 159, 161 Macmillan, W.H., 20, 37, 250 Mair, Lucy, 146, 148, 155, 158, 159, 160, 163, 166 Makiwane, Elijah, 266, 268, 296, 326 Malan, D.F., 102 Malherbe, Ernst G., 94 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 17, 19, 43, 104, 133, 143, 149, 162, 164, 322 Mandates, 32, 321 Mandela, Nelson, 193, 264, 295, 325, 330, 339 Maree, W.A., 226 Marks, Shula, 5, v, 31, 37, 134, 161, 165, 217, 250, 324, 331 mass education, 13, 25, 41, 44, 51, 89, 96, 111, 120, 121, 294

350

Matthews, Z.K., 205, 211, 222, 223, 231, 233, 234, 235, 239, 242, 246, 247, 249, 254, 338 Maurice, Frederick D., 43 Mayhew, Arthur, 13, 17, 20, 21, 34, 38, 314 Mbeki, Thabo 18, 23, 38 Mcllwraith,Thomas, 208 Meinhoff,Carl, 151 Mendi, 285, 287, 291, 307, 309 Methodist Church of South Africa (MCSA), 199 Milner, Lord, 31, 332 missionary education, 25, 45, 73, 94, 97, 101, 108, 109, 110, 111, 147, 152, 153, 195, 282 missionary organizations, 6, 11, 18, 276 modernization, 7, iii, 6, 7, 47, 56, 63, 65, 71, 75, 101, 121, 143, 150, 153, 176, 207, 259, 276, 289 Mott, John, 66, 175 Mqhayi, Samuel Edward Krune, 7, 259, 263, 295, 339 Mumford, Bryant, 20, 160, 165, 166, 272 Murray, Victor, i, 13, 17, 20, 33, 34, 37, 63, 82, 100, 140, 146, 153, 163, 173, 188, 228, 236, 314 Muslim, 12, 13, 14, 46, 56, 74, 310 Natal, i, xi, 7, 18, 31, 112, 164, 199, 202, 205, 206, 207, 211, 220, 221, 223, 225, 226, 228, 229, 231, 232, 236, 237, 241, 243, 247, 252, 254, 255, 256, 299, 317, 321, 331, 332, 334, 337 nationalism, 42, 47, 71, 75, 77, 79, 104, 168, 194 Native Economic Commission (1933)(SA), 102, 114, 130, 151, 152, 253, 318

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA Native Representative Council (SA), 223 Native Teachers’ Journal, 249, 252, 253, 255, 256, 318, 324, 331, 334 Nazis, 178, 181, 184, 186 Ndlambe, 266, 269, 270, 286, 298, 299, 308 Negro universities, 216 networks, viii, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 18, 21, 26, 89, 94, 97, 107, 109, 110, 121, 144, 167, 168, 177, 180, 205, 314, 315 New Education Fellowship (NEF), 7, xi, 19, 26, 38, 49, 50, 84, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 116, 117, 121, 130, 148, 152, 158, 160, 185, 203, 220, 235, 246, 249, 277, 315, 320, 322, 328, 332, 338 Ngqika, 265, 266, 270, 286, 292, 293, 308, 309 Nigeria, 18, 20, 128, 136, 172, 190, 194, 229, 256, 325, 330 normal colleges, 214 Nunn, Percy, 90, 96, 97, 99, 107, 112, 272 nutrition, 2, 3, 26, 124, 125, 126, 144, 145, 182, 338 Nyerere, Julius, 240, 256 Ohlange Institute, i, 27, 223, 226, 227, 228, 253, 255, 334 Oldham, J.H., 17, 18, 26, 33, 44, 49, 52, 56, 57, 69, 70, 73, 80, 82, 84, 101, 114, 116, 134, 147, 167, 171, 175, 176, 184, 188, 192, 221, 314, 329 Opland,Jeff, 259, 261, 263, 269, 293, 294, 297, 305, 342 Ormsby-Gore, W.G.A., 58

orthography, 170, 190, 261, 276, 277, 278, 279, 282, 284, 287, 302, 305 Oversea Education (journal), 20, 38, 133, 135, 148, 155, 160, 162, 163, 166, 189, 248, 301, 304, 318, 331, 339, 342 Oxford, ii, iv, viii, 1, 12, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 50, 73, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 98, 107, 112, 113, 114, 117, 131, 133, 135, 136, 145, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 172, 179, 187, 188, 189, 190, 242, 245, 247, 250, 254, 293, 299, 304, 307, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 327, 328, 330, 332, 335, 336, 338, 339, 341, 343 Padmore, George, 222, 251, 326 Paton, William, 66 Peires, Jeff, vi, 259, 261, 263, 265, 294, 296, 303 Penn School, 214, 215, 217, 249, 327 Phelps-Stokes Commission, 10, 15, 19, 56, 59, 61, 63, 84, 100, 122, 130, 139, 143, 203, 205 Philip, John, 44, 303 Pietism, 176 Pim, Howard, 199, 202 Plaatje, Sol, 36, 203, 249, 343 poetry, 259, 261, 273, 279, 280, 282, 298 poverty, 4, 23, 42, 47, 75, 79, 153, 157, 183, 205, 314 practical anthropology, 149 Progressive Education, 10, 19, 25, 26, 41, 44, 48, 50, 51, 60, 63, 64, 95, 108, 111, 120, 124, 215, 251, 342 Protestant Christianity, 43, 75 psychology, 90, 92 Purified National Party, 102

351

Index race, vi, 47, 58, 59, 62, 65, 76, 96, 105, 116, 140, 152, 153, 173, 175, 176, 184, 186, 200, 208, 210, 211, 213, 219, 225, 229, 230, 248, 251, 264, 271, 314, 326 radical education, 120, 129 readers, 4, 213 Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP), xi, 23 reintegration, 143 religious education, 14, 49, 67 Renison College, 198, 242, 245, 251, 338 Renison College (Canada), 198, 242, 245, 251, 338 Rhodesia, 29, 36, 72, 76, 85, 135, 146, 162, 210, 239, 248, 304, 321, 322, 327, 338 Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, 146 Richards,Audrey, 127, 135, 163 Richter, Julius, 171, 175, 177, 189 Robeson, Paul, 251, 320 Rockefeller Foundation, 19, 30, 62, 123, 143, 147, 180, 189, 191, 192, 248, 304, 320, 339 Rubusana, Walter, 268, 269, 298 rural education, 15, 49, 57, 71, 99, 100, 151, 158, 249 Russell, Bertrand, 90, 112 Russian Revolution, 46 Sadler, Michael, 7, 13, 14, 31, 34, 107, 340 Samkange, Thompson, 76, 87 Schapera, Isaac, 104, 148, 152, 158, 165, 185, 246, 251, 286, 293 Schlunk Report, 122 science, 2, 11, 14, 21, 22, 25, 26, 50, 60, 66, 120, 122, 123, 124, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 149, 152, 156, 174, 175, 179, 242, 248, 262, 299 scientific management, 120 352

secular education, 45, 55, 56, 57, 63, 66, 80 secularism, 25, 47, 60, 68, 71, 77, 176 United States, v, 1, 6, 12, 16, 41, 60, 85, 93, 96, 99, 107, 110, 114, 122, 137, 141, 185, 203, 204, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 215, 218, 220, 239, 242, 247, 248, 249, 321, 324, 327 segregationism, 106 Seleka, Clytie, 203 Selope Thema, R.V., 202, 300 Shepherd, R.H.W., 271, 278, 286, 300, 302, 305, 306 Shoots, Leo, 259, 264 Smith, Edwin, 15, 20, 62, 85, 143 Smuts, J.C., 94, 112 social gospel, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 75, 80, 168, 176, 178, 202, 222 social welfare, 4, 23, 121, 127, 129, 157 socialism, iii, 42, 43, 47, 168, 240, 314 sociology, vi, 2, 90, 111, 225, 248 South African Education Conference (1934), 90, 246, 332 South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), xi, 103, 114, 127, 128, 134, 135, 136, 197, 199, 202, 205, 207, 223, 228, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 254, 255, 271, 325, 326, 340, 342 South African Native College, xi, 103, 174, 194, 228, 245, 251, 278 South African Native Teachers’ Federation (SANTF), 228 South African Outlook (journal), 225, 245, 252, 253, 254, 255, 264, 271, 295, 296, 302, 305, 318, 328, 330, 334, 335

THE CHANGING FACE OF COLONIAL EDUCATION IN AFRICA spiritual death, 232, 254 Statute of Westminster, 93, 98, 99 Stellenbosch University, ix, 115, 174, 188 Stewart Xhosa Readers, ii, 275, 279, 280, 282, 284, 287, 289, 292 Swaziland, 151, 164, 322 Tambaram conference (India), 54, 65, 72 Tanganyika, 78, 148, 160, 170, 171, 187, 188, 191, 272, 327, 343 Tawney, R.H., 43, 60, 73, 80, 81, 107 Taylor, James Dexter, 202 Teachers, xi, 20, 28, 73, 90, 94, 97, 102, 103, 104, 111, 112, 121, 204, 206, 210, 213, 220, 226, 228, 231, 241, 249, 250, 252, 253, 255, 256, 307, 318, 319, 328, 334, 337, 339, 341 Teachers College, New York, 28, 90, 94, 97, 102, 103, 104, 111, 121, 206, 213, 220, 249, 341 Teachers Vision (journal), 213 technical education, 49, 67, 120 Third Reich, 168, 177, 181, 189, 190, 339 Tilley, Helen, 4, 8, 29, 91, 132, 161, 187, 188, 190 Tomlinson Report (SA), 233, 235, 254, 334, 340 Toronto, 115, 210, 220, 248, 256, 319, 333, 335 totalitarianism, 42, 69, 71, 73, 89, 93, 98 Transkei, iii, 261, 269, 284, 308, 337 trusteeship, 2, 9, 44, 58, 59, 140, 144, 229 Tuskegee Institute, 16, 216, 220 Tyamzashe, G.W., 268

Umhalla,Nathaniel (or Mhala), 266, 269, 286, 299 United Nations Organization, 23, 42, 120, 129 Univerisity of South Africa (UNISA), 114, 163, 188, 199, 247, 306, 318, 330 University of Cape Town, iii, vi, 2, 115, 148, 164, 199, 244, 245, 251, 252, 253, 281, 294, 296, 298, 320, 322, 326, 331, 333, 337, 340 Urbanization, 234, 254, 334 vernacular see also languages, ii, 13, 62, 71, 124, 172, 173, 179, 180, 207, 236, 260, 277 Verwoerd, Hendrick, 106 Vischer, Hanns, 17, 18, 21, 36, 179, 184, 185, 314, 336 vocational education, 13, 14, 24, 66, 79, 100, 120, 125, 128 Warnhuis, Arnold, 62 Washington Consensus, 4 Washington, Booker T., 16, 35, 56, 63, 210, 226, 248, 250, 320, 342 Weiler,Hans, 23, 24, 120, 129 welfare, iii, v, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 21, 23, 24, 26, 44, 48, 54, 75, 79, 111, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 141, 144, 146, 156, 256, 313, 314 Welsh, G.H., 277, 278, 282, 287, 307 Westermann, Diedrich, 7, 17, 18, 21, 27, 80, 124, 133, 151, 167, 187, 188, 189, 204, 236, 254, 274, 277, 278, 289, 294, 303, 314, 329, 333 westernization, 56, 121 Whitehead, Alfred, 90 Wilberforce,William, 44 Wilkie, A.W., 63

353

Index Wilson,Monica, 29, 104, 115, 146, 148, 159, 162, 247, 333, 334 Wolff, Gunther, 181, 191 Wolff, Leonard, 20 World Bank, 4, 23, 120, 129 World Bank Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP), xi, 4 World Confederations of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (WCTOP), 253, 337 World Council of Churches (WCC), xi, 52, 72, 197, 239, 240, 256, 338 World Fairs, 94, 112 World Missionary Conferences, 28, 45, 52, 72, 83, 324, 327

Worthington, Edgar, 143 Wrong, Margaret, 38, 135, 271, 300, 320 Xhosa history, 260, 261, 273, 279, 280, 281, 282, 285, 287, 288, 302, 307, 309 orthography, 276, 289, 306 Xuma, A.B., 103, 202, 223, 294 Yale University, 27, 145, 164, 198, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 221, 248, 249, 250, 328 Yergan, Max, 202, 221, 245, 319 youth work, 67 Zachernuk, Philip, 194 Zechlin, Egmont, 182

171

Lovedale Press: 1934-1937 (many editions and impressions through to the 1950s) 172 I have been able to find examples of this series dating back to 1890 when it was titled Incwadi Yokuqala yaba fundi (Lovedale Kaffir Readers) (Lovedale Press, 1890); also see F. Rowling (1923). 173 The only competitor in the market for Xhosa Readers at this time seems to have been the Longmans Kafir Reader, published from around 1910. In the 1950s,

354

174 175

176

presumable in an attempt to cater to the demands of the new Bantu Education policy under apartheid, a new series of Readers was launched by Lovedale Press. These would probably merit further investigation. See D. Barnard & J.J. Jolobe, Isikhokelo kwii titshala ngakusyenziwa kwee (Henderson Xhosa Readers) (Lovedale Press 1954). Shepherd (1945): 105-6. Opland (2009): 20. Guybon Sinxo was Mqhayi’s son in-law. For details of sales see LPA: MS 16,339(j)(7)