A SCHEME OF NATIONAL EDUCATION
The predominant characteristic of our educational methods—official
and unofficial—in Western Africa hitherto may be summed up in one
word—denationalization. The result is so notoriously unsatisfactory
as to need no specific illustration. If readers of Mr. Valentine
Chirol’s book on India will turn to his chapters on the failure of our
educational methods there, and substitute West Africa for India, they
will be furnished with a replica of the situation on the West Coast of
Africa. It is not an exact replica—for the reason that while the ties
of caste in India are a deterrent to denationalization, such deterrent
is non-existent in West Africa. But there is not one charge which Mr.
Chirol brings against the Indian system that could not be equally brought
against the West African system, and identical consequences are ensuing.
We are barely beginning to realize that the policy, or rather impolicy,
of the last half-century has been a hideous example of misdirected
effort, and there is hardly an administrator who does not contemplate the
development of the “educated native problem” with the gravest foreboding.
The object of the Northern Nigeria Administration is to set on foot
an educational system throughout the country which shall save the
Protectorate from these follies, while at the same time affording the
rising generation the intellectual pabulum we are bound to provide, and
ultimately laying the basis for a native civil service. At the present
moment the scheme is only in its infancy, but the infant is robust and
full of promise. It is at Nassarawa, a beautifully situated and healthy
spot a few miles outside Kano, close by the Emir’s country residence,
that the first Government schools have been started. They consist at
present of the _Mallamai_ school, or school for teachers, a school for
the sons of Chiefs, an elementary vernacular school and a technical
school with carpenters’, blacksmiths’, leather-workers’, and agricultural
classes. The creation of a primary and secondary school will follow as
soon as the work is sufficiently advanced. Special importance attaches
to the elementary schools, as through them the mass of the population
will be influenced. As soon as the teachers now being trained are ready
they will be supplied to the Provinces, where the Residents are eagerly
awaiting them, and it is the intention in every case that they shall
be accompanied by a technical instructor. The training of Government
clerks and of artisans for the Public Works Department is recognized
as a necessity, but it takes quite a secondary place in the general
educational plan which has been so successfully initiated, and these men
will be trained so as to retain both their national instincts and their
national dress.
A ride out to Nassarawa and some hours spent in investigating the work
already accomplished (there are some 350 pupils) I shall always remember
as one of the most pleasurable experiences of my visit to Northern
Nigeria. Here at last, one saw, was a common-sense, well-thought-out,
scientific scheme to enlarge the mental outlook of the West African on
African lines, to preserve his racial constitution, to keep him in touch
with his parents, in sympathy with his national life. Here, one felt, was
the nucleus of a future Hausa university to be raised some day by the
people themselves on their own initiative, a university which should far
outshine the ancient glories of Timbuktu and Jenne, which should herald
the dawn of a real African renascence, which instead of divorcing the
people from their land should bind them to it in intensified bonds of
pride and love. For one thing, the preservation of the national tongue
is aimed at, the general teaching being given in the vernacular, for the
present in Hausa—the _lingua franca_ of the country—although in course
of time, as the system extends, classes in Fulfulde (_Fulani_), Kanuri
(the language of Bornu), and, perhaps, Nupe, will doubtless suggest
themselves; not, however, to the exclusion of Hausa, but in combination
with it. For another thing, the fatal mistake of taking in pupils free,
or even paying them to come, is not being repeated here; the principle of
every pupil paying a fee, paying for his books and paying for his medical
attendance having been laid down from the start.
The _Mallamai_ school was full of special interest, being composed
of grown men from eighteen to thirty; for these are the teachers of
to-morrow. I was told, and I can well believe it from their intellectual
faces, that the rapidity with which they acquire and the ease with which
they retain knowledge, is amazing. Land surveying and farm measuring
is included in their _curriculum_, and some of them, although their
course of instruction is not completed, have already rendered very
considerable assistance, their work (which I was able to examine at a
later date), calculated in acres and roods and covering many assessment
sheets, being neat and generally accurate. I attended the geography
lesson which was then going forward, and found these future teachers
studying, not the configuration of the Alps or the names of the English
counties, but the map of Africa, the rivers, mountain ranges and
political divisions of their own continent: not the distances between
Berlin and St. Petersburg, Rome and Paris, but between Kano and Lokoja,
Zaria and Yola, and the routes to follow to reach those places from a
given spot. The various classes, I observed, were not puzzling over,
to them, incomprehensible stories about St. Bernard dogs rescuing
snow-bound travellers, or busy bees improving shining hours, but becoming
acquainted with the proverbs and folk-lore of their own land; not being
edified with the properties of the mangel-wurzel or the potentialities
of the strawberry, but instructed in the culture requirements of yams,
sweet potatoes, and sugar-cane. I did not see rows of lads in European
costume, unsuited to the climate, hideous (out here) and vehicles for the
propagation of tuberculosis, but decently clothed in their own graceful,
healthy African garb.
The school for the sons of chiefs—which, I venture to hope, will not, as
rumoured, be abandoned without very careful consideration—struck me as
a triumphant proof of what a sympathetic Administration can accomplish
in a very short time out here by way of winning confidence and removing
suspicions. Here were perhaps threescore youngsters, the older and
more advanced boys forming a separate class, and a more intelligent,
keener crowd it would be difficult to select in any country. Their
presence—among them were sons of the Emirs of Sokoto, Kano, Bauchi,
Bornu, Katsina, Katagum, Bida, Gombe, Gando, Daura, and Muri—together,
was evidence of the revolution which a few years have brought, for their
respective fathers were until our advent more or less in a state of
chronic friction and sometimes of open warfare. These _Yan Sarikis_ (sons
of chiefs) are not only allowed, but encouraged, to correspond with their
parents, and constant are the mounted messengers passing to and fro.
In the technical school, the leather-workers were particularly
interesting. The encouragement of this branch of native art should prove
a great incentive to what is a national industry. There is no reason
why in time the Hausa leather-workers should not only cut out the trade
in Tripoli saddlery and boots, imported across the desert and sold at
fabulous profits in the local markets, but supply, as the Hausa cotton
manufacturer supplies, the needs of French and German territory. Indeed,
there is no limit to the vistas which this national system of education
opens up. A people of considerable intellect, of notable industrial
aptitudes, having the sense of history, possessed of singular national
vitality, guided on national lines of thought expansion, the old-time
barriers of internecine strife wiped out—what a magnificent experiment,
and how great the privilege of the initiators! I referred to the
opportunity for true Empire-building which lies before us in Yorubaland,
if we will but seize it. Here at Nassarawa is Empire-building of another
kind in actual progress. One other fact needs chronicling in connection
with these national schools. It is the intention of the Administration
to insist that all pupils receive careful religious instruction from
teachers of their own creed. When I visited the schools, lessons in
reading and writing the Koran were being given by a Kano Mallam specially
selected by the Emir of Kano, somewhat on the model of the Egyptian
schools. It is earnestly to be hoped that the Colonial Office will resist
any attempt at interference with this policy. Interference would be
disastrous. It has been a prodigious labour of tact and careful steering,
for which Mr. Hanns Vischer, the director of education and the founder of
these schools, deserve the greatest credit, to secure the support of the
Emirs for a truly national system of education. Many prejudices have had
to be overcome. The older school of Mallams do not look with a favourable
eye upon an innovation which must gradually displace their influence
in favour of a younger generation, broader-minded and more tolerant
because better educated than they. Attempts both internal and external
have not been, and are not, wanting to warn the chiefs of the danger
of permitting their sons to become contaminated by foreign doctrines
inimical to Islam. Justification for the confidence which the chiefs
repose in our good faith can alone enable us to defeat these influences.
Were that confidence to be shaken, the effort to train the future rulers
(under the British suzerainty) of the country with a view to making them
mentally and physically better fitted to assist the Administration,
and to bring them into closer contact with one another and with the
Government official, would receive a fatal blow, and the prestige of the
Government would be deeply shaken. Let us once more turn to the pages of
Mr. Chirol’s weighty volume and note the consequences which have followed
the elimination of religious instruction from the Government schools. To
allow a weakening of the spiritual forces at work among the peoples of
the Northern Hausa States would be to perpetuate a cruel wrong upon those
who have come under our protection and from thenceforth are our wards.
[Illustration: IRON-SMELTERS.]
[Illustration: FULANI CATTLE.]
A rapid multiplication of national schools in Northern Nigeria, so
eminently desirable, entirely depends upon the financial support which
the Administration, hampered in every direction for lack of funds, is
able to contribute. The Imperial Government would be displaying wisdom
in making a special grant for the purpose, the present sum available
being altogether inadequate for the importance and urgency of the object
in view, and in seriously broaching the problem of control over all
unofficial educationary agencies in the Protectorate.