Ibll 
 
 i KEYSTONE 
 
 Education is the 
 Keystone of Progress 
 mix the materials badlj^ omil 
 the most important, and the 
 arch will collapse ; omit 
 charactei -trctining from 
 education and progress will 
 stop. 
 
 BRIGADIER.GENERAL SIR GORDON GUGGISBERG, 
 
 K.aM.G., D.S.O^ late R.E. 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
THE KEYSTONE 
 
 Education is the 
 Keystone of Progress : 
 mix the materials badly, omit 
 the most important, and the 
 arch will collapse ; omit 
 character-training from 
 education and progress will 
 stop. 
 
 By 
 
 BRIGADIER-GENERAL SIR GORDON GUGGISBERG, 
 
 K.C.M.G., D.S.O., late R.E. 
 
 WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED, LONDON WALL, LONDON. 
 
 1924. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/keystoneeducatioOOgugg 
 
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 
 
 FAQK 
 
 Foreword. 
 
 Why this booklet is written and to whom it applies — The moment 
 ripe for reviewing education — Laying the foundation stone 
 of Achimota .......... 1 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Necessity for Better Education of the African. 
 Field of employment for educated Africans — Reasons for desire of 
 Africans for better education — Co-operation between people and 
 Government— Difficulties of providing better education — 
 Higher education alone insufficient — Criticisms of the ability 
 of Africans to benefit by higher education — Other adverse 
 criticisms — Education not to be forced on the people — No 
 short cut to success ......... 5 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Character Training. 
 Importance of character-training in education — African leaders 
 required to cope with modern civilization — Character essential 
 to leadeiship — African races defective in leadership^ — Type of 
 African required — No character-training possible in Europe — 
 All education to be local — Conclusion : character-training 
 essential — Defiuition of character-training — Difficulties of 
 training character at day schools — Boy Scout principles the 
 basis of character-training ....... 13 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 The kind of Education we want, its Place in Policy 
 and its cost. 
 
 Main policy is progress — Education is the keystone of progress — 
 The kind of education needed— Language of education- 
 Cost — Steadily growing cost — Where to find the money — 
 Restricting temporarily the extension of primary schools . ly 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 Education To-Day : Its Defect. 
 Present situation —Its evils are dangerous ..... 24 
 
 825112 
 
11 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter Y. 
 The Eemedt. 
 
 Present impossibility of starting secondary sch('ols — Time not ripe 
 for a University — Provision of teachers the chief task of the 
 moment — Immediate steps required to prevent Africans going 
 to Europe — The gap between the two educated classes — Lord 
 Cromer on lessons from India — Creating the charlatan's prey — 
 Achimota the remedy : will fill the gap — Aim of Achimota — 
 Its future as a University — Control of Achimota — Description 
 of Achimota — Date of completion ...... 26 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 Proposed Educational System. 
 A period of transition — Training for all trades and professions — 
 Description of the proposed chain of schools . , . .36 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 The Education of Women. 
 Objections being overcome — Women at Achimota — Lessons from 
 Egypt — Necessity for educated wives — Lord Cromer on 
 essential need for female education ...... 38 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 Technical and Trade Training. 
 Character important to the artisan — Defects of technical training: 
 contempt for manual labour : steps taken — Trade schools : 
 description — Accra technical school — Survey school — Agricul- 
 tural and forestry school — Veterinary school — Training in 
 medicine and sanitation — Various training classes . . .42 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Professional Training. 
 
 Special courses at Achimota — Attempt to cut out Europe — 
 Description of Gold Coast Hospital and future schools of 
 medicine, midwifery, and health 48 
 
 Chapter X. 
 Permanent Policy in Education. 
 Difficulties of the past in avoiding changes — A safeguard in 
 the Advisory Committee 57 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 The Book of Education of the Gold Coast has yet to 
 be written ; this is a mere booklet describing the present 
 situation with regard to education and attempting to 
 paint the picture of the future. My only excuse for 
 writing it is that some of my African friends have asked 
 me to do so ; they say — with justice — that I have spoken 
 much on the subject in public, but that the spoken word 
 does not reach the many literate Africans who are 
 scattered through the " far, far bush " of a country that 
 is greater in area than England, Scotland and Wales. 
 My friends assure me that, if Government's plans for 
 education were better known, there would be better co- 
 operation with the people. As this is essential to the 
 future well-being of the country, I accept their assurance. 
 
 Hence this booklet. It is disjointed and scrappy. It 
 cannot be complete because, as I shall presently show, 
 we are at the parting of the ways, at a point in our y 
 narrow old main road where a wide new thoroughfare 
 is being surveyed and staked out across the flat " Plains 
 of Elementary Education " towards the " Hill of Higher 
 Education " — Achiniota. But anyway, it may show what 
 Government is doing while that thoroughfare is build- 
 ing and may indicate the direction of all the little roads 
 that are being planned to connect up our educational 
 system. 
 
2 
 
 When the whole system is planned and made known, 
 I think that a number of keen young Africans in the 
 Government service who have had no chance of obtaining 
 a higher education will find that they have not been 
 forgotten. There will be opportunities of entering 
 Achimota for those who have given real promise. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 It goes without saying that anything I write in this 
 booklet applies to the Gold Coast and nowhere else; my 
 remarks on the " African " apply to the " Gold Coast 
 African." The races of Africa are in such varying stages 
 of development that some of them have by no means 
 reached the point on the Road of Progress at which a 
 higher education is either within their intellectual grasp 
 or would be good for their future. In the Gold Coast 
 itself — the Colony, Ashanti and the Northern Territories 
 ' — conditions vary so greatly as to necessitate caution in 
 the application of the principles advocated in this booklet. 
 
 * * * * «• 
 
 The moment for reviewing the educational situation 
 is a proper one. We have just laid the foundation stone 
 of Achimota College, an institution that is destined to 
 be the mainspring of all educational works in fthis 
 country. While the walls of the College are slowly 
 rising from the ground a staff of picked men will gradu- 
 ally be gathered together ; a definite scheme will be 
 drawn up for progressive education from the infant 
 school to the university or the workshop ; the needs of 
 
3 
 
 the country will be carefully considered; and on all 
 these things will be based the future curriculum of 
 Achimota. 
 
 I confess that, as I stood on the platform on the 
 barren hill-top of Achimota on the 24th March, 1924, 
 and looked round the great horse-shoe of spectators, I 
 was deeply impressed by the importance of the occasion 
 that had brought us together. I had just passed through 
 two long lines of Boy Scouts, their faces and their bear- 
 ing showing that " B.P.'s " great system of character- 
 training was already taking effect ; just inspected the 
 Guard of Honour of the Gold Coast Regiment, hardy 
 fighting men from the far North whose breasts carried 
 evidence of their readiness to defend their country 
 against aggression, whose education for the moment is 
 limited to that of discipline and self-sacrifice, but for 
 whom greater benefits lie hidden in the distant future. 
 To my right in the horse-shoe were those who had 
 inherited for many generations the qualities conferred 
 on them by the education of their forbears, the number 
 of these Europeans, the distance from which they had 
 come, and the nature of the occasion, testifying that they 
 at all events were not of those who disbelieved in the 
 education of the African. Scattered thickly among them 
 were the European-clad Africans — ^barristers, doctors, 
 teachers, traders — the pioneers of the progress of their 
 race, their faces ample proof of their satisfaction that, 
 at long last, the dream they had dreamed was approaching 
 realisation. To the left were many Chiefs in their robes 
 and insignia of State, surrounded by their Councillors 
 
4 
 
 and sword bearers, their attitude leaving no doubt in 
 one's mind but tbat they shared witb their countrymen 
 the appreciation of what was coming. 
 
 I was assisted in laying the foundation-stone by 
 African professional men : we shared in the manual 
 labour. All had received their higher education in 
 Europe : only two professions could supply properly 
 qualified members — engineering, for example, was sym- 
 bolised by a boy mechanic. Scathing comment on the 
 inadequacy of our existing system of education. 
 
 The stone that we laid marks the end of the old 
 system; the new will begin with the opening of thev 
 college on the 1st January, 1927. May the blessing 
 given by the Bishop of Accra on that block of concrete 
 spread, like a creeper from its roots, over the whole of 
 Achimota and help it in turn to lay the foundation of 
 the New Era in the Gold Coast. 
 
 E. G. GUGGISBERG. 
 
 S.S." Aba," 
 
 At Sea, 
 
 ?>rd April, 1924. 
 
"THE KEYSTONE." 
 
 f 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 NECESSITY FOR BETTER EDUCATION OF THE 
 
 AFRICAN. 
 
 Wherever one turns in the Gold Coast one meets the 
 same demand — a better education for Africans than our 
 present schools are capable of providing. Apart from 
 the fact that the people themselves are clamouring for a 
 better education, the future of the country demands it. 
 In the Government Service alone the need is urgent ; the 
 development of the country is progressing so rapidly that 
 we can no longer afford the proportionately larger 
 number of Europeans required to deal with the work, 
 for their long leave, their steamer-passages, and the 
 higher rates of salary due to their employment in what 
 can never be a " White Man's Country " are prohibitive. 
 Government has definitely adopted the policy of employ- 
 ing Africans in appointments hitherto held by Europeans 
 provided that the former are equally qualified in educa- 
 tion, ability, and character, but progress in carrying 
 out this policy is slow owing to the scarcity of suitably 
 qualified Africans. When, besides the need of Govern- 
 ment, that of the European firms — mercantile, banking, 
 and professional — is considered, is it apparent that there 
 is a great field for the employment of well-educated 
 Africans throughout the country. 
 
 More important still is the demand of the educated 
 African of the existing literate classes for an education 
 
6 
 
 and training that will fit him to take a greater share in 
 the development of his own land. We have not to look 
 far for the reason. To begin with, the southern portions 
 of the Gold Coast have been in closer contact with 
 European civilization for a far longer period than any 
 other of Britain's West African colonies. In the second 
 ' place, our great agricultural wealth and trade are far 
 greater in proportion to our size and population than 
 those of almost any other tropical unit of the British 
 Empire. Our financial resources have, in comparison 
 with our area, enabled us to cover the country with 
 ^ communications far more completely than has yet been 
 found possible in countries possessing an equally pro- 
 ductive soil and greater population. The annual increase 
 of trade has naturally been accompanied by a steady 
 increase of wealth until to-day we are far richer per 
 head of the population than any of our neighbours. 
 Now, prosperity brings a desire for the better things 
 of life, and when this desire is heightened by the know- 
 ledge brought by the steady development of elementary 
 education it is not surprising that there is to-day a 
 rapidly increasing demand for better conditions of living, 
 better sanitation, good water supplies, hospitals 'jfind 
 dispensaries, and all the other benefits of modern 
 civilization. 
 
 To comply with all these demands, to cope with 
 rapidly changing conditions, Government acting by 
 itself will make insufficient progress ; its efforts must be 
 supplemented by African enterprise. Government's duty 
 at present is to lay the foundations of development in 
 every direction, to organise the departmental machinery 
 necessary for dealing with each system, and to provide 
 such European staff as the revenue permits ; while at the 
 same time it must prepare, organise, and bring into being 
 
7 
 
 a system of schools where Africans can obtain the better 
 and higher education that will fit them to enter the 
 various trades and professions, both in the public service 
 and in private enterprise. 
 
 ***** 
 
 This question of providing facilities for better educa- 
 tion and training bristles with difficulties. There is, 
 as I have said, a universal demand by the people. To 
 comply hastily with this demand at the present moment 
 would be fatal, for the simple reason that we have not 
 got an educational staif sufficiently trained to carry out 
 the work efficiently. To do it inefficiently would be to 
 start on the wrong road, a road along which we should 
 have ultimately to retrace our steps ; to trust the future 
 of the race to insufficiently trained leadersh ip in education 
 would be far worse than having no education at all. 
 This, then, is our immediate task — the provision of well- 
 trained teachers, instructors, and professors from among 
 the Africans. Until we have done that we shall not 
 be able to improve our present system of elementary 
 education sufficiently to enable full use to be made of the 
 secondary schools that we propose to start. Nor will 
 the Africans themselves, who from time to time have 
 initiated schemes for the provision of higher education 
 by private enterprise, be able — no matter what funds 
 they may raise — to carry out their intentions in a manner 
 conducive to the ultimate success of their country with- 
 out more and better trained teachers of their own 
 nationality. 
 
 Higher education by itself will not solve the problem 
 of the country. It must be accompanied by a better 
 system of training in handicrafts, agriculture, and all 
 those trades that go to provide for the necessities of a 
 
8 
 
 community ; for althougli liiglier education may be the 
 brain of a country, its productive capacity is its heart. 
 Of what use is the brain if the heart ceases to beat? The 
 education of the brain and the training of the hand, 
 each accompanied hy the moulding of the mind, must 
 proceed together if success is to be sure. 
 
 The moulding of the mind ! That is too important a 
 subject to deal with here; it deserves — and receives in 
 this booklet — a chapter to itself. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I am well aware of the belief held by some critics — 
 and who has not heard it enunciated? — that the African 
 is not capable of exercising those qualities that will be 
 conferred on him by higher education. 
 
 Now, whatever may be my own belief — and I believe 
 my African friends know what that is — there are two 
 sides to every question, so I am going to examine the 
 contention of these critics dispassionately and ask them 
 four questions. 
 
 Firstly, have the critics ever considered that character- 
 training — the essential factor in every branch of educa- 
 tion but the all-essential factor in higher education — has 
 hitherto been omitted from the African's curriculum, 
 at any rate in Africa? If they have not thought of this, 
 may I ask them to reconsider their belief in the light 
 of what is written in the next chapter? If they persist 
 in their belief, then they deny that a human being can 
 rise from a lower to a higher plane of development and 
 it does not appear to me that they receive the support 
 of history. 
 
 Secondly, are they aware that the African races, in 
 spite of the lack of educational facilities, of character- 
 
9 
 
 training, have produced men who have distinguished 
 themselves in various walks of life, many intellectually, 
 a number morally? America, where they have long 
 studied the question of African education, has furnished 
 many examples, even under the heavy handicap of 
 white " opposition to after-employment. Our own 
 African and West Indian colonies furnish others, suffi- 
 ciently numerous to warrant the belief that, had charac- 
 ter-training been in their school curriculum, success 
 would have been wider and more complete. 
 
 Thirdly, are the critics aware of the immense field 
 in Africa for the employment of Africans, and if so are 
 they deliberately going to turn men who have an earnest 
 desire for intellectual advancement — and some of whom 
 have shown that they can benefit by it — into a race of 
 malcontents by confining them to the subordinate work 
 of trades and professions? 
 
 And lastly, do the critics honestly believe that we 
 have the right to deny the African the chance of prov- 
 ing that his race is capable of doing what other races 
 have done in the past? If so, they have forgotten that 
 Britain stands where she does to-day by giving her peoples 
 and her opponents alike a " sporting chance." 
 
 When all is said and done, however, it is to future 
 generations of Africans that we must leave the task of 
 proving that the belief of the critics of their race is 
 wrong, of justifying the confidence placed in them byj 
 British Governments of to-day ; the present generations, 
 except in isolated instances, cannot do so — they have not 
 had the opportunity of receiving an education and a 
 character-training that fits them for the task. 
 
 « » « « * 
 
10 
 
 Other critics liave it that, in advocating the provision 
 of a higher education locally for Africans, we are 
 deliberately inviting political troubles in the Gold Coast. 
 Surely the absolute contrary is the case. If politics are 
 to come — and come they must if history is of any value 
 as a guide — surely the safeguard against trouble is the 
 local education of the many, accompanied by character- 
 training, rather than the education in Europe of a few, 
 an education that invariably lacks character-training and 
 that more often than not results in bad European habits 
 replacing good African characteristics? If secondary 
 education is not introduced to fill the gap between the 
 English University-trained African and the semi-literate 
 product of our primary schools, we shall be continuing 
 our present system of providing the easy prey of the 
 demagogue that the late Lord Cromer warns us 
 against.* 
 
 ***** 
 
 Another criticism is, that in educating Africans to 
 fill higher appointments in the Government service we 
 shall be deliberately interfering with European employ- 
 ment in the Gold Coast. This is a short-sighted view. I 
 have already pointed out that the development of the 
 country necessitates an annual increase in staif. No 
 Government in the world could afford proportionately, 
 the immense financial burden of European salaries, 
 passages and long furloughs that would fall on the Gold 
 Coast if this increase was to consist of Europeans only. 
 Apart from that, the married European with children 
 has not and never will have a real home life in West 
 Africa, whereas there is a great field of employment 
 for him in the good climates of the Dominions. It will 
 be many long years before Africans are fit to fill the 
 
 *yee page 29, Chap. V. 
 
11 
 
 higher appointments in the Government service ; in the 
 meantime there is ample room for both. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Let there be no mistake, however, about the time of 
 transition of the African peoples from primitive to 
 modern civilization, no false hopes about the rapidity 
 with which they will fit themselves to stand alone. There 
 is no short cut to success ; that can only be reached by 
 hard and steady work, by a sustained eifort that will try 
 the race as it has not been tried before. A good educa- 
 tion and character-training are all that the Government 
 can provide; application, work, and an honest determina- 
 tion to prove himself worthy are the African's share in 
 the general task. 
 
 ***** 
 
 It has been said that we must go slow, that we must 
 not force education on the people. With regard to the 
 last point there is no question of forcing ; one has only 
 to see the crowd of applicants for admission surrounding 
 the primary schools of this country at the beginning of 
 every term. As for going slow, we are going too slow. 
 Although it is perfectly true that the races of the Gold 
 Coast are now in a phase through which every other 
 race has had to pass since time immemorial, yet every, 
 century sees a quicker rate of advance made by the 
 primitive peoples of the world. Therefore, although we 
 may draw lessons from the past experience of other 
 nations, it is essential that we should move faster, quicker 
 even than the educational authorities did in the days of 
 our youth. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Taking advantage of such lessons as can be dug out of 
 the buried history of the Gold Coast, watching carefully 
 
12 
 
 for pitfalls on the road along whicli we are travelling 
 to-day, striving to see through the mists of the future, 
 we must prepare carefully the better and the higher 
 education of the local races — and their character-training. 
 In no other way shall we fit them to absorb European 
 civilization unhurt — and it is my belief that in no other 
 way shall we keep them permanently the loyal and 
 worthy members of our Empire that they now are. 
 
13 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 CHARACTER-TRAINING. 
 
 No success will come— no matter how high our educa- 
 tion or how perfect our trade training, no success will 
 be real or will be permanent — if character is neglected. 
 We may talk eloquently of the progress of the people 
 being Government's first policy in this country; we may 
 dilate on the fact that the keystone of Progress! is edu- 
 cation; but all that will be idle rhetoric if we mix the 
 materials of the keystone badly. Leave out the most 
 important part in the material of the keystone and the 
 arch will collapse ; leave character-training out of our 
 educational system and the progress of the African races 
 will inevitably become a series of stumbles and falls 
 that will leave a permanent mark on them, if it does not 
 stop their advance altogether. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I believe that history records no single instance of 
 a nation finally achieving greatness — attaining a per- 
 manent independent position in the worild — under leaders 
 in thought, industries, and the professions of an entirely 
 different race. Tor a time it may advance along the 
 paths that lead from a primitive to a higher state of 
 civilization under the leadership and guidance of men 
 of an alien race; but should it lose those leaders before 
 it is able to stand by itself, time — -it may be centuries — 
 is lost in reaching power and independence. The races 
 of British tropical Africa stand in that position to-day : 
 under leaders from a Western democracy that has gradu- 
 ally realised its task of tutelage, they are all in varying 
 degree emerging from primitive conditions and are 
 
14 
 
 pressing forward, their faces set to the goal of modern 
 civilization. There cannot be a moment's doubt as to 
 their incapacity to-day to stand by themselves : apart 
 from the fact that there may be Africans capable of 
 leading in the primitive methods of native administra- 
 tion, there is no single race among the tropical African 
 peoples that possesses the many leaders necessary to cope 
 with the changing conditions that are daily being 
 wrought by the advance of European civilization — the 
 many leaders from among whom, in due course, the few 
 may emerge who are capable of the supreme leadership. 
 
 To create these leaders is an implied part of Britain's 
 recently self-imposed task of tutelage and development. 
 To create them without the highest and best forms of 
 education would be an impossibility; to think for one 
 moment that it is possible to create them without 
 ^haracter-training would be vain. Brain — to a leader — 
 is of no use. is a positive danger, unless backed by force 
 of character. Britain herself, mother of the greatest 
 Empire the world has ever seen, owes her position far 
 more to the force of character of her sons than to their 
 brain. 
 
 Lack of the qualities of Leadership, which in all 
 cases involves the bearing of responsibility and in many 
 also the power of command, is a pronounced defect 
 among the races of the West Coast of Africa. Those 
 citizens of the Gold Coast who have developed the quali- 
 ties I have mentioned have done so by th^ir own indi- 
 vidual efforts and in spite of our system of education, 
 and the majority of them only after residence in Europe. 
 Apart from these, practically the whole of those Africans 
 who may be said to be the leaders of thought in this 
 country have received their higher education in Europe, 
 where they have imbibed ideas so far in advance of the 
 
15 
 
 progress of the bulk of their countrymen as often to be 
 dangerous. In many cases — again there are exceptions — 
 it is noticeable that the young African recently returned 
 from Europe is seriously out of touch with his country- 
 men. This is, I am afraid, inevitable, and will continue 
 so long as we cannot provide in the Gold Coast a system 
 of education in which he will receive his character- 
 training before, and not after, he goes to Europe. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Of what I have just written I am certain. We shall 
 fail in our self-imposed task unless we can train the 
 character of the African ; we shall not only fail in creat- 
 ing leaders, but we shall succeed in doing something 
 that is far worse — making a European of him, and a bad 
 European at that. 
 
 Our task bristles with difficulties. Using to the 
 utmost our knowledge of his characteristics we have to- 
 produce a type of African who will be sufficientlv imbued 
 with European ideas to enable him to cope with the 
 European civilization which must eventually sweep the 
 world clear of all primitive methods of life; one who, at 
 the same time, will remain an African, with all the best 
 of the many fine attributes of hi& race. The task is, 
 indeed, one that will have to be carried out with care 
 and wisdom and patience; the difficulties such that 
 Britain should be proud of having the opportunity of 
 
 solving them. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Of one thing I am convinced after twenty-two years 
 of tropical Africa : we shall never succeed if the sole 
 place in which the African can get his higher education 
 and his professional training is Europe. Much learn- 
 ing, and of the best, he can get there ; character-training, 
 
16 
 
 none. I do not intend to enter here into the old contro- 
 versy of the effect on Africans of long" residence in 
 Europe at the most impressionable period of their lives. 
 As far as British Africa is concerned, Britain has enoug'h 
 to do at home in educating- and training her own sons ; 
 it is in Africa, and with the aid of Africans, that the 
 education and character-training of the African must be 
 carried out. All those whose experience makes their 
 opinion worth listening to, all those who have devoted 
 any thought to the subject, are in agreement on this 
 point, Africans and Europeans alike. 
 
 And so we arrive at one definite point anyway in our 
 educational system, whatever the details of that may be, 
 • We must aim at giving the whole of our education 
 locally, and, where it is essential that an African should 
 go to Europe for the final steps to enter a profession, 
 we must arrange our svstem in such a manner that his 
 absence will be reduced to the shortest possible time and 
 the foundations of his character firmly laid before he 
 goes. 
 
 ***** 
 
 If what I have written is right, it is evident that 
 character-training must take a predominant place in our 
 system of education, for the simple reason that no nation 
 whatever can afford to omit it from the curriculum of 
 its schools. Especially is this the case when a nation is 
 passing through a phase when the influence of home life 
 is generally retrogressive so far as modern civilization 
 is concerned. That this is so is inevitable; the difference 
 will become less marked as the years pass by. 
 
 ***** 
 
 What is character-training? I confess that I have 
 often been baffled in the attempt to define the nebulous 
 curriculum of such a subject. We all know what we 
 
17 
 
 mean, but how many of us can define the word, can draw 
 
 up an exact course of instruction in character-training? 
 I think we g'et a good deal of help from Dr. Jesse Jones, 
 who recently visited this country on the African Educa- 
 tion Commission under the auspices of the Phelps-Stokes 
 Fund. i\Iauy of us remember the deep impression made 
 on us by the earuestness and wide views of Dr. Jesse 
 Jones, Professor Ag-grey, and their companions. The 
 result of their travels and investigations was a book 
 entitled " Education in Africa," a book containing a 
 combination of idealism and practical common sense, 
 and from which we can receive, if we read with discre- 
 tion, much valuable advice. 
 
 With regard to character-training I believe that Dr. 
 Jesse Jones hits the nail on the head. What he prac- 
 tically says is that there is no definite syllabus, but that 
 whatever system we adopt, whether in infant schools, 
 primary schools, trade schools, or secondary schools, we 
 must endeavour to graft the simple virtues on our chil- 
 dren. These simple virtues are perseverance, thorough- 
 ness, order, cleanliness, punctuality, thrift, temperance, 
 self-control, obedience, reliability, honesty, and respect 
 for parents. To these I would add, if they do not include 
 it, a correct appreciation of responsibility. As Dr. Jesse 
 Jones says, these virtues cannot be taught out of books; 
 they must be developed by sound habits resulting from 
 days, weeks, and months of actual practice and repetition. 
 
 It is comparatively easy to develop the above virtues 
 in the students of a residential school under the guidance 
 of house-masters and, instructors who have themselves 
 had their characters developed. It is far more difficult 
 in a day school, especially when we consider the general 
 backwardness in civilization of the student's home. We 
 can certainly do something in the day schools, but we 
 can do nothing completely and satisfactorily until we 
 
18 
 
 liave those boarding schools the formation of which is 
 at present waiting for a trained staff. 
 
 ***** 
 In the present phase of civilization in the Gold Coast 
 we should have been hard put to it to find a satisfactory 
 means of cLaracter-trainiug if it had not been for those 
 great movements, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, 
 Such boarding schools as we have are run on Scout and 
 Guide lines, which contain a practical application of the 
 principles of Christianity and citizenship that is invalu- 
 able. We have gradually introduced all these principles 
 in our day schools, where they are accepted as the 
 foundation of the character-training and the discipline 
 of the school. The essence of the Boy Scout movement, 
 however, is that it is voluntary, and so difficulties have 
 been encountered. After making experiments I believe 
 that we have evolved a satisfactory solution. Students 
 who enter the schools do so as " probationer Scouts 
 the conduct required from them is contained in the Scout 
 Law; they play the Scout games and pass the Scout tests; 
 they wear a dress consisting of the Scout shirt and shorts, 
 but no Scout emblems or badges. In due course they 
 become eligible to enter the troops which those teachers 
 who are trained Scoutmasters form in every school from, 
 volunteers among the boys. By means of Scout parades, 
 orderliness, punctuality and a sense of subordination to 
 one's seniors are impressed on the boys; by placing boys 
 in charge of the " Standards " or " Sections," which 
 correspond to the " Troops " and " Patrols " of the 
 Scouts, the sense of initiative and leadership is incul- 
 cated in them. By entrusting these boy leaders with the 
 correction of faults of unpunctuality and bad conduct a 
 sense of responsibility is gradiially formed. The system 
 is working successfully, and has proved the great value 
 of the application of Scout principles to a school. 
 
19 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 THE KIND OF EDUCATION WE WANT : ITS 
 PLACE IN POLICY AND ITS COST. 
 
 The main policy of the Gold Coast Government is the 
 general progress of the people towards a higher state of 
 civilization. Without this definite policy no Govern- 
 ment could fulfil the sacred trust imposed on it — " the 
 well-being and development of peoples not yet able to 
 stand by themselves." 
 
 The part in this policy played by education is that 
 of the keysone in the arch. Looming large as it does 
 to-day in the policy of all Governments, education in 
 the Gold Coast is the first factor in the main policy; 
 other factors there are, but they are all contributory to 
 education. Sometimes I fear that this fact may be 
 obscured in the mind of the European, Government 
 official or otherwise, by the arduous daily life of the 
 tropics. Once, however, that a nation has emerged from 
 the primitive phases of its existence, education and all 
 that it comprises becomes not only the first but the only 
 step towards progress. 
 
 To stand the pressure brought to bear on the Arch 
 of Progress by the hurricane of material development, 
 the storm of criticism, and the windy tornadoes of poli- 
 tical agitation, the keystone must be well and truly laid 
 and composed of strong materials. It therefore behoves 
 us to enquire carefully what we mean by education. 
 
 ***** 
 
 What is the kind of education that a Government 
 composed of men of European civilisation should adopt 
 for a primitive people of tropical Africa? 
 
20 
 
 As far as the Gold Coast is concerned the answer ia 
 simple. Apart from the fact that character-training 
 must take first place, there is no particular mystery 
 about the kind of education suitable for its peoples. 
 All that is wanted is the usual general education in 
 literature that is required to develop the intellect and 
 make a good citizen, the usual special education and train- 
 ing to enable him to enter any trade or profession. In 
 applying general education, however, it is necessary to 
 bear in mind two most important facts : the country has 
 no general written literature of its own ; its languages 
 are diverse and numerous. For both reasons a common 
 language must be adopted, and that language must 
 obviously be English. A sound and thorough knowledge 
 of the English language — its speaking, understanding, 
 writing and composition — must be the first factor in 
 education. And as knowledge of the language gradu- 
 ally increases until the African can think in English, 
 so can the highest form of education be given to him. 
 But, let me repeat, predominant in all our education 
 must be the training that will develop his character in 
 the right direction. Our education, in fact, must be 
 that of the mind as well as the brain and the hand. 
 
 Accepting the importance of education, there remains 
 to be considered the cost. To secure an adequate and 
 efficient system we must increase the number of our 
 schools whatever they may be, elementary, secondary and 
 technical; this means a large capital outlay. To secure 
 efficiency we must have a far greater and a far better 
 educated and trained staff of teachers than we have at 
 present ; this means the addition of an annually increas- 
 ing amount to our recurrent expenditure. Between 1910 
 and 1920 our annual expenditure on education increased 
 
21 
 
 from £17,000 to £56,000; in 1921 it reached £98,000; 
 to-day it is over £120,000; next year it will be close on 
 £140,000, and so the snowball will continue to grow as 
 it rolls through the years ahead of us. In due course 
 our annual expenditure must rise to a quarter of a 
 million, perhaps to half a million. 
 
 Where are these funds to come from? If this ques- 
 tion had been asked five years ago I doubt if anyone 
 could have answered it. True, we receive certain small 
 fees for elementary education, and we propose to charge 
 full fees for secondary education, but all these fees will 
 amount to a trifle compared with the total cost. The 
 greater part of the bill must be paid out of Government's 
 revenue. Five years ago this revenue averaged 1^ 
 million pounds per annmn; the outlook for education 
 was gloomy. To-day our revenue is 3^ million pounds ; 
 the outlook it better, but still it is not good enough. We 
 must increase our revenue and the only way we can do 
 this is to increase our trade, for it is from our trade 
 and the customs duties derived therefrom that our revenue 
 comes. That is why trade and those things on which 
 our trade depends — agriculture, forestry, roads, railways 
 and harbours — assume for the moment such great import- 
 ance from the point of view of education. 
 
 This is a truism, but, truism though it may be, it 
 is not understood by Africans generally. Among the 
 men-in-the-street — a growing class in the Gold Coast — 
 there appears to be a general impression that we are 
 spending too much on roads, railways and harbours, and 
 too little on education. Now the man-in-the-street is 
 usually a creature of the moment — he seldom looks far 
 enough ahead to grasp the fact that if we are to bear 
 the burden of an increased system of education we must, 
 
22 
 
 first of all, increase our revenue by improying our trans- 
 port and our agriculture so as to increase our trade. 
 
 Do tlie people and the needs of the Gold Coast demand 
 more education? The answer is " yes " from every dis- 
 trict. Well, then, the people must face the fact that 
 we must all pay attention first to the subjects I have 
 mentioned. 
 
 * * * » * 
 
 There is another point in Government's policy that 
 the people will also have to face, and that is a restric- 
 tion of the extension of primary schools for the next few 
 years. The reasons for this are three. 
 
 To begin with, we have not the trained teachers with 
 which to staff them, as I show in the next chapter. 
 
 In the second place, the work on roads, railways, 
 and harbours has not yet arrived at the moment when a 
 full return in revenue from the increase of trade for 
 which they are being built will be received. This 
 moment is not far off — it is getting nearer every year. 
 
 Thirdly, we are spending what are for us very large 
 sums on Achimota, on sanitation, water supplies and 
 electric lighting. From the two last-named a revenue will 
 in a short time cover all annual expenditure on them. 
 We have cut a big slice out of our surplus funds in. 
 building the Gold Coast Hospital and we have to spend 
 more. So that at present we are compelled to go slow 
 in building primary schools. 
 
 All this delay is, however, only for the moment. 
 Teachers are being trained, revenue will come in, surplus 
 funds will be released from bigger enterprises, and we 
 shall be able to build, staff and maintain more primary 
 schools. 
 
23 
 
 It is not only tlie people that must recognise the 
 above facts ; the mission societies, as active now in spread- 
 ing education as religion, must help in the general policy 
 by stopping temporarily any extension of their primary 
 schools. There is no one who recognises the invaluable 
 work they have done and are doing more than I do, 
 but the missions are just as aware as I am that their 
 supply of fully trained teachers is even less than that 
 of the Government. 
 
24 
 
 Chapter IY. 
 
 P^DUCATION TO-DAY: ITS DEFECTS. 
 
 In the Gold Coast we have, at the present moment, a 
 very large number of primary schools conducted by the 
 Oovernment and the missions. Our last returns show- 
 that some 28,000 African boys and girls are receiving a 
 literary education. In addition there are a number of 
 small schools scattered over the country which are at 
 present under little or no control and are conducted 
 more often than not by schoolboys who have not received 
 a higher education than our Standard IY or Y. 
 
 The literary education imparted is, generally speak- 
 ing, only suitable for qualifying a boy who is leaving 
 school to become a clerk or storekeeper. In spite of the 
 greatest efforts of both the Education Department and the 
 Missionary Societies, the system is one of the blind 
 leading the blind, for the great majority of the teachers 
 are Africans who have themselves received an inadequate 
 education. But what is far more serious is that, except 
 in a few isolated instances, there is a total absence of 
 character-training. 
 
 It is not fair to make too sweeping a denunciation 
 of our present system of education, for it has undoubtedly 
 done a certain amount of good, but I am certain that, if 
 continued, it will lead to disaster in the not distant 
 future. 
 
 Putting the case briefly, we are at present turning out 
 annually some 4,000 to 5,000 boys who are only fitted to 
 he clerks, and, what is worse, the majority of whom 
 
25 
 
 could not, from their education, be anything but inferior 
 clerks. We are flooding the market with semi-educated 
 youths for whom, owing to their disdain of manual 
 labour, there is annually less employment. The very 
 fact that they are educated tends to separate them in 
 thought and sympathy from their less advanced rela- 
 tions ; I do not say that this is always the case, but 
 undoubtedly the tendency is there. Failing employment 
 in an office, and strongly imbued with an unhealthy 
 dislike to manual labour, they fall a natural victim to 
 discontent and consequently to unhappiness. "VYe are, in 
 fact, repeating here the history of educated India, which 
 has long suffered from the adoption years ago of an 
 incomplete European system. There is no more 
 unhappy class of being in the world to-day than the 
 great mass of semi-educated Indians whose only ambition 
 is the office-stool and who disdain manual labour. It 
 is a class that we are now manufacturing in the Gold 
 Coast, and it is our bounden duty to unite 
 together — Government, Missionary Societies, and the 
 people — to divert the waters of education into such well 
 laid-out channels as will irrigate fruitfully the whole 
 land. 
 
 Summarising the situation, we are annually turning 
 out a mass of semi-educated youths and have made no 
 provision for the training of leaders. This is a most 
 serious state of affairs, for, without the willing and 
 efficient co-operation of African leaders, in thought, 
 industries and the professions, we shall not be able to 
 fulfil the sacred trust imposed on us — " the well-being 
 and development of peoples not yet able to stand by 
 themselves." 
 
26 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 THE EEMEDY. 
 
 It is evident that steps must be taken to remedy the 
 existing state of affairs. The solution undoubtedly lies 
 in the institution of secondary schools. Convinced aa 
 I am, however, that secondary schools are necessary, I 
 am equally confident that to start them at the present 
 moment would do more harm than good. In the first 
 place, we have not got enough Africans sufiiciently 
 highly educated to staff efficiently the primary schools 
 alone. Secondly, if these secondary schools are to 
 produce leaders they must be residential schools where 
 character-training takes the first place in the curricu- 
 lum; and here there is at present a total deficiency of 
 Africans qualified to undertake the work. We have, as 
 a matter of fact, one or two schools of a secondary nature 
 run by the missions. They are under-staffed at present ; 
 to increase the number with inadequately trained African 
 staffs would be mischievous ; to staff them with suitable 
 Europeans appears to be financially impossible. 
 
 There are others who hold that the solution of the 
 educational problem of the Gold Coast lies in the formation 
 of a university. My remarks on secondary schools apply 
 here with even greater force. Like the secondary school 
 the university must come in due course, but the time is 
 not yet ripe for it. Even if we combined with other 
 West African Colonies, I believe that we should not 
 find enough sufficiently educated students to fill it at 
 this particular period. There can be no doubt whatever 
 but that a university is the eventual solution ; no 
 
27 
 
 educational system i^ould be complete without it any 
 more than it would be complete without secondary 
 schools. 
 
 Accepting the fact that we must eventually provide 
 both secondary schools and a university, I will sketch 
 the steps to be taken, always remembering that our 
 chief task to-day lies in increasing the efficiency of 
 education in our primary schools sufficiently to ensure 
 a flow of suitably educated scholars to the higher insti- 
 tutions of to-morrow. It is obvious, therefore, that the 
 first step to be taken is to raise the educational standard 
 of African teachers for the primary schools. Our 
 present supply comes from the Government Training 
 College and similar seminaries conducted by the Scottish 
 and Wesleyan Missions. All of these have one serious 
 defect ; the students are chiefly drawn from the primary 
 schools ; they are taught to be teachers without having 
 the necessary foundation of education, or they are given 
 higher education of a sort at the same time as being 
 taught to be teachers ; in neither case is the result satis- 
 factory. The system is rotten at the core; the only 
 point that can be urged in its favour is that it is better 
 than the old system by which boys from the primary 
 schools were trained there as pupil teachers. 
 
 ***** 
 
 What is really required is an institution at which 
 our future teachers can obtain a higher education before 
 actually learning how to teach. A good secondary school 
 would suffice, but we could not afford at present to staff 
 both it and the Training College with Europeans. Some 
 time must necessarily elapse before an institution of the 
 above nature, whatever actual shape it may take, can 
 turn out a sufficient number of teachers to supply our 
 
28 
 
 demands. Until teachers are forthcoming it might con- 
 ceivably be argued that no further efforts to provide* 
 a higher education for other Africans should be made. 
 It is highly important, however, that we should, as soon 
 as possible, provide some facilities for higher education 
 locally, so as to obviate the necessity for Africans pro- 
 ceeding to England. The latter must necessarily be 
 possessed of ample means, but besides them there are 
 a large number of exceptionally capable boys who have 
 passed the higher standard in primary education and 
 are unable to meet the expense of obtaining their further- 
 education in Europe. To neglect the higher education 
 of these is unfair to them; in addition, it is uneconomical 
 at a period when Government urgently requires suitably 
 educated Africans to fill appointments in the Govern- 
 ment Service ; for wherever one turns one is faced by 
 the necessity to fill appointments with Africans possess- 
 ing a better education than it is at present possible for 
 them to obtain. Practically every one of our Depart- 
 ments has vacancies which an African suitably qualified 
 in education and character could fill with advantage to 
 the service. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I have heard it urged that Government should direct 
 its energies in the field of education to the wider exten- 
 sion of practical training in the various crafts, and that 
 it is not necessary at present to provide higher education 
 for the natives of this country. While agreeing with 
 the advisability of extending practical training, I most 
 emphatically disagree that the time is not ripe for the 
 provision of facilities for higher education. Leaving 
 out of consideration the large number of youths who 
 leave school before reaching Standard III or Standard 
 IV — and who may be said to have only the merest 
 
29 
 
 smattering of education — ^we have in this country two 
 general classes of educated persons, namely, the great 
 and steadily growing class who have completed their 
 primary education at the Government or mission schools ; 
 and a numerically small class of Africans who have been 
 sufficiently wealthy to obtain their higher education in 
 England. There are undoubtedly individuals who come 
 half-way between these two definitions, but practically 
 there is a very wide gap between the two classes men- 
 tioned. The disadvantages attending the existence of a 
 gap of this nature are so important as to merit full 
 consideration. 
 
 Writing some fifteen years ago on Egyptian educa- 
 tion, the late Lord Cromer makes some remarks on the 
 subject of secondary education that may well serve as 
 a solemn warning to us. He points out that the intel- 
 lectual phase through which India is now (1907) passing 
 stands before the world as a warning that it is unwise 
 to create too wide a gap between the state of education 
 of the higher and of the lower classes in an Oriental 
 country governed under the inspiration of a western 
 democracy. He points out that high education cannot 
 and ought not to be checked or discouraged, and that 
 the policy advocated by Macaulay is the only policy 
 woithy of a civilised nation. If, however, it is to be 
 carried out without danger to the state, the ignorance 
 of the masses should be tempered with the intellectual 
 advance of those who are destined to be their leaders. 
 
 Dealing with another aspect of the question, Lord 
 Cromer points out that it is neither wise nor just that 
 the people should be left intellectually defenceless in 
 the presence of the hair-brained and empirical projects 
 which the political charlatan, himself but half-educated, 
 c 
 
30 
 
 will not fail to pour into their credulous ears. In this 
 early part of the twentieth century there is no possible 
 general remedy against the demagogue except that which 
 consists in educating those who are his natural prey to 
 such an extent that they may, at all events, have some 
 chance of discerning the imposture which but too often 
 lurks beneath his perfervid eloquence and political 
 quackery." 
 
 Lord Cromer's words apply with great aptness to this 
 country. In spite of the existence of one or two educa- 
 tional institutions of a secondary nature, the intellectual 
 gap between the African who has completed his educa- 
 tion at an English University and the semi-educated 
 African of our primary schools is dangerously wide. No 
 one is more ready than I to sympathise with the legiti- 
 mate aspirations of the African for advancement and for 
 a greater share in the government of his country, but 
 if we are to help him to do this, if we are to protect the 
 masses from the hasty and ill-conceived schemes of 
 possible local demagogues, we must hasten as rapidly 
 as our means will allow to fill up the gap between the 
 two classes. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Our first step in filling this gap will be taken this 
 year in the building of Achimota College. This will be 
 an instifiition at which the African youth will receive, 
 first and foremost, character-training of such a nature 
 as will fit him to be a good citizen ; and secondly, the 
 higher education necessary to enable him to become a 
 leader in thought, in the professions, or in industry 
 among his fellow-countrymen, the vast majority of whom 
 must remain for many years in a primitive state as 
 regards education. The nature of the higher education 
 
31 
 
 given will be such as to fit the student to take up those 
 further special courses which ane necessary for any 
 profession, and will include provision for this purpose 
 during the last year or two of the student's residence. 
 The aim of the college will be, in fact, to develop a 
 boy's character sufficiently, and to give him enough 
 education to take his share in the work of dealing with 
 the problems attending the evolution of a primitive 
 race. 
 
 Achimota, as I see it, will be more of the nature of 
 a university college than of a secondary school. It has 
 been suggested that this is putting the cart in front of 
 the horse — that we should have our secondary schools 
 first and our university college afterwards. Theoretically 
 the suggestion contains some truth, but in view of the 
 chief factor in the educational situation at the moment 
 — namely, the entire absence of suitable African teachers 
 for secondary schools — the arrangement may be regarded 
 as a practical and satisfactory compromise pending the 
 introduction of an extended secondary school system of 
 education. It is therefore obvious that one of the first 
 tasks of Achimota will be to give general education and 
 technical training to the teachers on whom we must rely 
 for staffing our secondary schools and for improving our 
 primary schools sufficiently to render the former a suc- 
 cess. This task can be carried out without detriment to 
 the higher education of those African students destined 
 for other walks in life. 
 
 Achimota College is the stepping-stone towards the 
 university which it is the ardent desire of the Africans 
 to have, and which it is the undoubted duty of the 
 Government to take a share in giving as soon as, but not 
 before, the time is ripe. Further, there is no reason 
 whatever why Achimota should not itself expand into a 
 c* 
 
32 
 
 university when it has done enough to enable sufficient 
 secondary schools to be started. The buildings are well 
 laid out in grounds with ample room for expansion, and 
 the design and architecture are modern and dignified in 
 appearance. In planning the administration it has 
 therefore been thought advisable to consider the prospect 
 of the College eventually becoming a University. Such 
 a reservation as to its future does not affect the organisa- 
 tion and administration for the intervening period; but, 
 in view of the great cost of providing the highly quali- 
 fied staff required by a university, it is more than likely 
 that when the time comes the people of the Gold Coast 
 will not be the only ones who will welcome the idea of 
 a university in West Africa. 
 
 ***** 
 
 If Achimota College does become a university it 
 should be endowed and managed by a Board independent 
 of Government. For this reason it would be inadvisable 
 to place it under the control of the local Education 
 Department. From the very beginning Achimota should 
 be entirely independent and should be organised and 
 administered in such a manner that it can, when the 
 time comes, be transferred to the control of whatever 
 board or authority that, by then, may be considered the 
 most suitable to take charge of the university into which 
 it will blossom. 
 
 For the present, therefore, it is proposed that the 
 College should form a separate and special department 
 of Government. Its finances should be dealt with by 
 the Treasury and audited in the usual manner, but its 
 internal economy and administration should be entirely 
 in the hands of a carefully selected headmaster, who 
 should be directly responsible to the Governor. 
 
33 
 
 The system of administration above outlined should 
 not interfere with any co-operation or co-ordination of 
 efl:ort that may be required between the College authori- 
 ties and the Education Department. The latter will 
 remain in charge of the present system of education, with 
 which its hands are already over-full, and will in due 
 course take over any secondary schools that may be 
 started. On the other hand the Education Department 
 will lose its present Training College for Teachers, 
 which must naturally be absorbed in Achimota for 
 economy and efficiency in education and training. 
 
 I do not think that any useful purpose would be 
 served by my going into further details of the organisa- 
 tion of Achimota College at the present moment. It 
 may, however, be interesting to give here a general 
 description of the College. The site is in open country, 
 on hills about 200 feet above sea-level, overlooking 
 Accra at a distance of some eight miles. A branch 
 motor road, three miles long, has been constructed from 
 the Accra-Nsawam road to the site, passing the quarry 
 and siding at Achimota on the Accra-Coomassie Rail- 
 way. An extension of the Accra Water Supply has been 
 completed to the site, so that both water and stone are 
 available for building. The lay-out has been made in 
 the centre of a block of land of four square miles. The 
 outer half-mile is being planted as a firewood reserve 
 and will act as the " Outer Bounds " of the College; 
 the " Inner Bounds " consist of an iron fence which has 
 already been constructed two miles in length, including 
 the site of the buildings. 
 
 The College will be built so as to permit of indefinite 
 expansion. The first instalment of buildings consists of 
 an administration and classroom block; an arts, crafts, 
 and laboratory block; eight houses for sixty students 
 
34 
 
 each, with headmasters' quarters attached to each; a 
 dining'-hall block; and about twenty other quarters for 
 masters and general stalf. Excellent sites are being- 
 cleared for extensive playing fields, as games will form 
 an important item in the school life; and future plans 
 include the provision of more house-blocks and quarters, 
 an assembly hall, a gymnasium, and a swimming bath. 
 Arrangements have been made for the construction of 
 a sanitary market at Achimota. All sewage will be 
 water-borne, and a sewage farm possibly started. The 
 buildings will be lighted from the Accra power station. 
 
 The building of the College should be completed by 
 the end of 1926. We have, therefore, over two years 
 ahead of us before we need engage all the staff; but this 
 is by no means too long a period if we are to secure the 
 right men. The appointment of a headmaster at as 
 early a date as is possible, consistent with careful selec- 
 tion, is, however, a matter of importance. He must have 
 plenty of time to become acquainted with local condi- 
 tions and to draw up the curriculum and general organi- 
 sation of the College. In doing this he will naturally 
 have at his disposal tlie recommendations of the Educa- 
 iionists' Committee and the experience of the local 
 Education Department and Missionary Societies, but it 
 is essential that he should have some preliminary and 
 personal experience of the African, whose higher educa- 
 tion he will have to control. I would be the last to fail 
 to acknowledge the devoted and painstaking manner in 
 which the Educationists' Committee has applied itself to 
 the task of investigating the requirements of the new 
 College, but I believe that my readers will concur in 
 my opinion that fresh blood and new ideas will render 
 doubly valuable the recommendations that the Committee 
 has made. 
 
35 
 
 Especially will this be the case if the new headmaster 
 is oue who has liad previous experience and success in 
 dealing with native races. I believe that the Gold 
 Coast is fortunate in having- secured as headmaster for 
 Achimota a man who gained, in long experience in 
 'Eastern countries, the full confidence of the native races 
 »vith whom he dealt. Further, it is not impossible that 
 the Africans of the Gold Coast will have a representative 
 on the staff in the person of a distinguished member of 
 their own race. 
 
36 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 PROPOSED EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 
 
 As far as education is concerned, the Gold Coast has 
 arrived at a critical point in its history ; it is entering 
 the period of transition from the old to the new system 
 of education. 
 
 The period will last for about seven years ; it is the 
 period during which Achimota College will be built 
 and at the end of which it will first take effect, a period 
 during which the organisation of the new educational 
 system must be planned and perfected. It is impossible 
 at this moment to say exactly what that new system will 
 be beyond stating that it will contain the provision of 
 ample training facilities for all the trades and profes- 
 sions. In the general scheme, we shall provide for the 
 agriculturist ; the brick-maker, metal-worker, carpenter, 
 and electrician; the sanitary inspector, nurse, midwife, 
 and dispenser; the surveyor and engineer; the barrister, 
 doctor and merchant ; but first of all for the good citizen. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The following is a brief description of the general 
 scheme of education that is at this moment steadily 
 maturing in the Gold Coast: — 
 
 Firstly, a Primary Education system, consisting of 
 the improvement and extension of the present primary 
 schools for literary education ; and the addition to their 
 curriculum of practical instruction in local industries, 
 such as basket-making, etc. ; the extension of our present 
 system* of junior trade schools for practical training in 
 craftsmanship in addition to literary instruction ; the 
 
37 
 
 extension and better organisation of our existing classes 
 for midwives, nurses, dispensers, and sanitary inspectors; 
 the development of our present training centre for the 
 subordinates of the Agricultural and Forestry Depart-* 
 ments ; the better organisation of the Railway and Public 
 "Works Department classes for the training of engine- 
 drivers, artisans and road foremen. 
 
 Secondly, the Secondary Education system, consist- 
 ing of the construction of secondary schools as soon as 
 the staff therefor becomes available ; the encouragement 
 and assistance of such mission secondary schools as may 
 now be in existence ; the improvement of the Accra 
 Technical School to give a higher form of education and 
 of training in crafts to students from primary schools 
 of that nature ; the improvement of the educational 
 methods of the existing survey school ; and the addition 
 of higher education and training to the present primary, 
 institutions of the nature of the Agricultural and Forestry 
 Training Centre. 
 
 Thirdly, the system of Higher Education, consisting 
 of Achimota, first tof all as a University College — 
 and then as a University at which students will be fitted 
 in a gradually increasing degree for responsible duties 
 in trades, industries, and professions — in conjunction 
 with the formation of local institutions for medical and 
 engineering training. The whole aim will be to obviate 
 the necessity for Africans proceeding to Europe to 
 secure their higher education. 
 
38 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 
 
 I will now turn to a subject of the utmost importance 
 to the progress of the local races, namely, the education 
 of women. As my readers are aware, in the early stages 
 of the evolution of any race from primitive to more 
 advanced conditions there is a rooted objection to the 
 education of women. This idea exists even to-day in 
 the Gold Coast, but I am glad to say that, judging from 
 the school returns it is gradually being overcome. 
 Although during the present period of dearth of teachera 
 the policy is to deal with the utmost caution with the 
 expansion of our primary schools, the question of female 
 colonisation is of such importance that additions are 
 being made this year. 
 
 The 1920 Educationists' Committee recommend the 
 formation of a Training College for Women Teachers 
 to provide the staS for our Girls' Schools and to replace 
 the men at present in charge of infant classes. In 
 forming the 1922 Committee their attention was epecially 
 drawn to this recommendation, and they were asked to 
 consider the question of co-education generally, and 
 especially the provisions at Achimota of a block of 
 buildings in which women students could live under the 
 care of their mistress and take part in the general classes 
 of the College. 
 
 From conclusions arrived at by the Committee, it 
 appears that they are not wholly opposed to the intro- 
 duction of co-education provided that it begins in the 
 primary schools and is not started in the first place in 
 
39 
 
 schools where the age is higher. They express the hope 
 that, if this is done gradually, the time will come when 
 Achimota can open its doors to girls and boys who have 
 already been brought up side by side to show chivalry 
 and respect to one another. In coming to their conclu- 
 sions, the Committee gathered the views of nineteen 
 witnesses representing different races, denomination, sexes 
 and professions. These witnesses were chiefly concerned 
 with the concrete case of co-education at Achimota. 
 Four chiefs and the representatives of three religious 
 denominations were totally opposed to it. Two African 
 lawyers were opposed to it, except under stringent con- 
 ditions. Three female teachers and the headmaster of 
 a mission secondary school were opposed to it. Three 
 male and two female witnesses, including all the African 
 women witnesses, expressed their approval of co-education 
 on principle, and think the experiment worth trying 
 under stringent conditions. 
 
 « * « « « * 
 
 The opinions of the witnesses and the conclusions of 
 the members of the Committee cannot be lightly disre- 
 garded, for they were all either Africans themselves or 
 Europeans who live in daily contact with Africans. On 
 the other hand the objections stated are those which have 
 been faced and overcome by every European country. 
 It is possible that the time is not ripe, and that the 
 Committee is right that we should begin at the bottom 
 and not at the top. On the other hand, so great is the 
 importance of educating the women of the Gold Coast, 
 I cannot but feel that we should take the slight risk 
 that will be run by combining the higher education of 
 the sexes at Achimota, a risk that in my opinion is no 
 greater than that in the daily life of the present phase 
 of evolution of a primitive people. In view, however, 
 
40 
 
 of the consensus of native and European opinion against 
 it, it is arguable whether we should be justified in adopt- 
 ing this course at the moment, although I personally 
 believe that public opinion will become more enlightened 
 in the course of the next few years, and that before 
 Achimota is opened we shall be building a women's block. 
 In the meantime the Government schools will continue, 
 as they do now in the smaller towns, to hold mixed 
 classes, and I hope that the mission societies will 
 encourage a similar course in their schools. 
 
 * * * * • 
 
 As in the case of the education of boys, the Gold 
 Coast can get useful lessons on female education from 
 Egypt. In his book, " Modern Egypt," the late Lord 
 Cromer narrates how the " upper class Egyptians were 
 not merely indifferent to female education ; they were 
 absolutely opposed to it. They did not want the woman 
 to be educated. Even when Girls' Schools were with 
 much difficulty established, parents in the first instance 
 sent their daughters to school reluctantly and took them 
 away early," just as was the case until yesterday in the 
 Gold Coast. He goes on to say that the younger genera- 
 tion of men are beginning to demand that their wives 
 should possess other qualifications than those hitherto 
 considered necessary. This is a remark which applies 
 with great force to the Gold Coast, for nothing more 
 detrimental to the progress of this race can be imagined 
 than the present system of educated husbands and 
 illiterate wives. Africans are realising this more every 
 day, indeed to such an extent that I believe we are enter- 
 ing on a new era. As Lord Cromer says about Egypt, 
 " there is good reason for supposing that, where educa- 
 tion has made progress, the age of marriage has risen 
 
41 
 
 and that, in consequence, tlie girls are allowed to remain 
 longer than heretofore at school." 
 
 Speaking of the problematical results of the system 
 adopted in Egypt, Lord Cromer winds up with what is 
 the last word on the subject of female education when 
 he writes that " whatever the results may be, this much 
 is now well-nigh certain — that the European reformer 
 may instruct, he may explain, he may argue, he may 
 devise the most ingenious methods for the moral and 
 material development of the people .... but unless 
 he proves himself able not only to educate and elevate 
 the Egyptian woman he will never succeed in conferring 
 on the Egyptian man in any thorough degree the 
 only European education which is worthy of Europe.'* 
 I commend these remarks to all who have the interests 
 of the people of this country at heart, for there can 
 be no real civilisation if the women of the race are left 
 uneducated. 
 
42 
 
 Chapter YIII. 
 
 TECHNICAL AND TRADE TRAINING. 
 
 Character training is as important a factor in ihe 
 happiness and success of the artisan's life as in that of 
 the highly educated barrister, in spite of the fact that 
 the greater the learning the greater the opportunity and 
 the capacity for doing harm unless knowledge is backed 
 up by character. Character counts for so much that the 
 artisan-student should be given the chance of acquiring 
 it as much as his wealthier brother who is entering the 
 professional classes. 
 
 When the Accra Technical School, with which I deal 
 later in this chapter, was started, our haphazard system 
 of technical instruction was rectified ; but, as the majority 
 of the students were " day-boys " and there was no 
 European housemaster, there was practically no 
 character-training. In addition, the school, valuable 
 though it had proved, was soon found to be too small to 
 exert more than a limited influence on the general mass 
 of artisans. 
 
 In considering the remedies for these defects another 
 and more important aspect of technical training called 
 for drastic action ; this was the contempt with which the 
 literate African, educated — usually semi-educated in a 
 primary school, clad in European clothes, regarded all 
 forms of manual labour. There were exceptions, but so 
 few as not to count. So great and widespread was this 
 contempt that it infected the whole of our primary 
 schools. To go into any school in the Gold Coast less 
 than five years ago and ask the boys the question : 
 " What are you going to be when you leave school?" 
 
43 
 
 was to receive the answer from ninety out of a hundred, 
 "A clerk, sir " — or "A teacher," for the vast majority 
 of teachers had as little notion of the dignity of labour 
 as the clerks. 
 
 To-day this answer comes from less than forty out 
 of a hundred scholars. A steady campaign has been 
 conducted against the desire to be clerks, but I do not 
 suppose that the efforts made would have met with success 
 had two steps not been taken, namely, practical proi 
 paganda in the schools to show and warn the students 
 that the clerk market was overstocked, and raising the 
 standard of " English " in the Civil Service examina- 
 tion. The result of the second step was lamentable as 
 far as the number of successful candidates was con- 
 cerned, invaluable as revealing the defects in our teachers 
 and the whole existing system of education. 
 
 The next three steps in fighting the evil were (1) to 
 make artisans out of educated Africans — thus invading 
 the sacred precincts of the clerk ! — (2) to extend the 
 facilities for technical instruction throughout the 
 country, and (3) to introduce character-training. We 
 therefore planned four junior trade schools (1) for partly 
 educated boys, (2) in different parts of the country, and 
 (3) of a residential nature. At the time, although money 
 was plentiful, the financial outlook was gloomy and 
 caution necessary ; it was the period of trade depression 
 following the post-war boom. Four head-chiefs came 
 to the rescue, cleared the forest from the sites, built the 
 schools of mud-bricks and wooden tiles, and levelled the 
 playing fields. The names of these chiefs, Ofori Atta 
 of Akim Abuakwa, Otu Ababio II of Abura, Osai 
 Bonsu of Mampon, Ashanti, and Alaffan of Yendi, 
 should go down to posterity, for, opened early in 1922^ 
 
44 
 
 all tlie schools have proved successful. They^ are the 
 forerunners of others ; successive classes will gradually 
 erect the permanent buildings in the course of their 
 training; and a continual stream of artisans who can 
 earn their living, know how to grow their own food, and 
 appreciate the pleasures of book reading will begin to 
 flow from these centres over the country in 1927. 
 
 * * * » 
 
 The importance of these junior trade schools merits 
 a short description of them. Each school is a boarding 
 school, organised entirely on Boy Scout principles, with 
 a European house-master, where boys who have passed at 
 least Standard IV in the primary schools are trained as 
 carpenters, metal workers, concrete workers, bridge and 
 culvert builders, and roadmakers. Every boy is also 
 taught to grow his own food. As each class enters the 
 school it becomes a troop of Boy Scouts and is divided 
 into patrols. Each jjatrol lives in its own dormitory 
 and has its own mess table. The troops and patrols are 
 commanded by their leaders with the object of develop- 
 ing initiative, responsibility, and the sense of leadership. 
 The spirit and conduct of Boy Scouts is taken as the 
 standard of character at the school; if a boy fails to 
 maintain the conduct and spirit of a Scout his character 
 is not considered sufficiently good to justify his reten- 
 tion in the school. Each boy in due course becomes 
 capable of earning money for the good of his troop by 
 his own work in the workshops. He is also able to earn 
 pocket money varying from Id. to 3d. per diem. The 
 staff of masters consists of African teachers and trade 
 instructors specially selected from the Training College 
 for Teachers and Technical School respectively. These 
 African masters take part in the games, which are made 
 a conspicuous feature of school life. 
 
45 
 
 The boys parade for all meals and work under their 
 own leaders with a view to developing leadership and a 
 sense of responsibilitj^ in the latter, and discipline and 
 punctuality in the former. As the schools were only 
 started in 1922 it has, up to now, been necessary to pro- 
 vide funds for feeding- the boys. Each year, however, 
 the sum has grown less, and in 1926, when the gardens 
 have been brought into full bearing, each school will 
 be practically self-supporting as regards food. The good 
 spirit of these schools is most apparent, and the regular 
 hours for feeding, work, and games have resulted in a 
 marked improvement in the physique and health of the 
 boys. More than one-half of the time is devoted to 
 trades, the remainder to food-larming and such literary 
 instruction as will carry the boy on from where he left 
 his primary school and until he can appreciate reading 
 and understand the necessary drawings, calculations, and 
 bills connected with his trade. 
 
 The object of these schools is to turn out a good, if 
 not a highly skilled, craftsman who will be able to earn 
 a living in the country, and who will take away with 
 him ideas of sanitation — an important subject in the 
 curriculum — and the general conduct of life that will in 
 due course spread among the people around him. The 
 most promising craftsmen will be selected to undergo 
 further courses for skilled craftsmen and instructors at 
 the central Technical School, where the discipline of a 
 residential school under a good house-master will still 
 be enforced, and also in the workshops of the Railway 
 and Public Works Departments. Particularly promising 
 boys with a good standard of education will be given 
 opportunities for further advancement by means of 
 scholarships to Achimota College with a view to quali- 
 fying for the higher branches of mechanics and 
 engineering. 
 
46 
 
 The Accra Teclinical School, to which I reierred at 
 the beginning of this chapter, was started several years 
 ago for the training of carpenters and metal workers. 
 At first it consisted of a mixture of day students and 
 boarders, and the instruction was practical and neces- 
 sarily of an elementary nature. It has gradually 
 developed into a residential school run on Boy Scout 
 principles, with a house-master in residence. Concrete 
 work and electrical fitting have been added to the sub- 
 jects taught. The standard of education on admission 
 is higher, and it has been found possible to introduce a 
 certain amount of theoretical training. The future role 
 of the school has been definitely fixed : as the trade 
 schools take effect the Technical School will develop into 
 a central finishing school in handicrafts. It will turn 
 out skilled carpenters and mechanics, will furnish 
 instructors for the trade schools and prisons and for the 
 praciieal work that will gradually form part of the 
 curriculum of primary schools, and will be the training 
 groimd for the workshop education of Achimota students 
 entering the engineering profession. 
 
 ***** 
 
 With regard to teclinical training of a higher nature, 
 most remarkable success lias been achieved by the Survey 
 School for Africans, which was started in 1920 and which 
 is already turning out good surveyors and draughtsmen. 
 The value of this school in providing the Survey Depart- 
 ment with a large African staff is an example of the 
 method by which it is hoped to obviate the necessity of 
 large and expensive European staff's in all the Govern- 
 ment Departments. The present Survey School will in 
 due course be moved to Achimota to enable the students 
 to acquire the better general education that should be 
 necessary for Government and licensed surveyors. 
 
47 
 
 The Agricultural Training Centre for AJricans, which 
 was for long conducted under adverse conditions at 
 Aburi, has now been fully established at Coomassie as 
 a boarding school under a house-master. Training in 
 character as well as in education and agriculture cart 
 therefore now be carried out at this school, which at pre- 
 sent also includes the foresters of the Forestry Depart- 
 ment. In due course arrangements will be made by 
 means of scholarships for intending African agricultural 
 and forestry officers to enter Achimota. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The A eterinary Department has a small school for 
 training African veterinary dispensers in the Northern 
 Territories. The good effect of this school has already 
 been felt during the periodic outbreaks of cattle disease. 
 
 ***** 
 
 A valuable, if limited, amount of training of sanitary 
 inspectors, dispensers, and nurses has been carried out 
 in the Medical and Sanitary Departments during the 
 past four years. This training has been greatly improved 
 by the opening of the Gold Coast Hospital at Accra, to 
 which it is proposed in due course to add an organised 
 school of health ond a medical school, an institution 
 which is described in the next chapter. , 
 
 In addition to the training facilities above described, 
 railway classes for locomotive drivers and mechanics, 
 motor classes for drivers, and road foreman classes have 
 all been conducted on an organised system by the depart- 
 ments concerned, and a large amount of useful training 
 of mechanics has been effected by the mining companies. 
 
48 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 PEOFESSIONAL TRAINING. 
 
 In my remarks on Achimota College I pointed out 
 that the nature of the higher education given would 
 be such as to fit the student to take up those further 
 special courses which are necessary for entering a pro- 
 fession, and would also include provision for the latter 
 during the last year or two of the student's residence. 
 It is too early for me to state here the exact nature of 
 the curriculum at our new college ; that will be drawn 
 up by the Headmaster, as narrated in Chapter V, after 
 he has acquainted himself with our present standard of 
 education, for, although the nature of the education at 
 Achimota will be the highest obtainable, it may he 
 necessary, to begin with, to make some allowance for 
 the quality of our elementary schools. The education 
 will be of a secondary nature, rising steadily as second- 
 ary schools in the Gold Coast begin to supply entrants 
 possessing a better education. 
 
 Whatever system is adopted, provision will be made 
 during the last year or two of the student's residence 
 for the special studies necessary for entering the pro- 
 fession for which he is destined. It is too early to state 
 definitely that all the studies necessary for every pro- 
 fession will be included in the immediate future, some 
 further training in Europe after leaving college may 
 be required for a few years. But gradually we should 
 arrive at the moment when everything that is taught at 
 an English college can be adopted at Achimota. 
 
 I do not propose to go fully into this quescion now. 
 It is sufficient to say that our aim at Achimota will be, 
 
49 
 
 if a student's furtlier training in Europe is necessary, 
 to cut down the time during wliicli lie is away from his 
 country to the lowest possible period ; but when further 
 training can be got in the Gold Coast, to co-operate, as 
 regards the engineer, with the Public Works and Rail- 
 way Departments and such large private firms as exist ; 
 as regards the barrister and solicitor, with the local 
 Bar; and so on and so forth. 
 
 Perhaps I can best illustrate this by quoting from my 
 last Annual Message to the Legislative Council the 
 following description of the Gold Coast Hospital and its 
 function as the centre of a complete training system for 
 African physicians, surgeons, officers of health, nurses 
 and midwives, dispensers and sanitary inspectors. 
 
 Owing to the position which it occupies in the Public 
 Health programme, undoubtedly the most important 
 event in the Gold Coast in 192^3 was the opening of the 
 Gold Coast Hospital for Africans at Korle Bu on the 
 9th October, 1923. The first block of wards, with 
 accommodation for 96 patients, on the 26th October, 
 and the second block, for 112 patients, on the 28th of 
 December. The entire hospital, with its complete staS 
 of doctors and European and African nurses, was in full 
 working order on the 1st January, 1924. Its success was 
 instantaneous, and since the first day it has been full 
 to overflowing. 
 
 As the hospital is destined to exercise a powerful 
 influence in the medical and sanitary development of the 
 Gold Coast, a few words as to its inception and construc- 
 tion will not be out of place. The necessity for a new 
 Native Hospital was apparent before the war, but it 
 was not until the end of 1919 that Government was in 
 a sufficiently favourable financial condition to under- 
 
50 
 
 take the work. Since then it has consistently main- 
 tained its position at the head of the building 
 programme ; every possible step was taken during 1920 
 to ascertain and include in the design the latest develop- 
 ments of medical and surgical architecture. The 
 hospital practically took three years to build, as, 
 although I laid the foundation stone in January, 1921, 
 work had begun some months earlier. 
 
 The following is a brief description of the various 
 buildings. 
 
 The Out-Patients' Block is a handsome double- 
 storied building with a large dispensary at the back. 
 On the ground floor are commodious waiting-rooms, 
 separate consulting-rooms for male and female patients, 
 and a minor operating theatre. An electric lift is 
 provided for patients attending the dental surgery, the 
 opthalmic rooms, and the X-Ray rooms on the first 
 floor. A colonnade over 400 feet in length runs from 
 the Out-Patients' Block to the Administration Block, 
 half-way along which is the Ablution Block with cloth- 
 ing store, bathrooms and changing-rooms for male and 
 female patients who are admitted to the hospital. 
 
 The Administration Block is a handsome two-storied 
 building with record offices and staff-rooms on the ground 
 floor, and a telephone exchange connected to every room 
 in the hospital. On the first floor are lecture rooms and 
 laboratories for the instruction of dispensers, sanitary 
 inspectors, etc. 
 
 The tAvo large Ward Blocks lie one behind the other 
 in the rear of the Administration Block, all being joined 
 together by a handsome double-storied colonnade. Each 
 block has four large wards, two in each floor; and at 
 
51 
 
 the end of each ward is a wide shady verandah for 
 convalescent patients and open-air treatment. In 
 addition to the large wards, each block contains four 
 small wards with accommodation for one or two patients. 
 
 Between the two large Ward Blocks lie two Operating 
 Theatres and all the necesary rooms for sterilising, 
 anaesthetics, etc. 
 
 Up-to-date kitchens, laundries, disinfector-house, 
 medical store-rooms and mortuaries, together with lodges, 
 engine-rooms and workshops, complete the working part 
 of the hospital, which is lighted by electricity and 
 supplied throughout with hot water. Both hand and 
 electric lifts and the layout of the buildings reduces to 
 a minimum the actual amount of labour required. 
 
 Outside the railings of the hospital lie a thoroughly 
 up-to-date Pathological I^aboratory and quarters for 
 fifteen or sixteen officials, besides about sixty members 
 of the subordinate staff. The whole hospital lies on 
 Government land of some 250 acres in area, so that 
 ample provision is made for any extensions that are 
 ever likely to be required. 
 
 Apart from its initial cost of over £220,000, the 
 maintenance of the new hospital will add considerably 
 to Government's recurrent expenditure. The actual 
 annual cost is not yet known, but the administration 
 and accounts have been separated from those of the 
 Medical Department and careful records will be kept of 
 all expenses during the first twelve months of its 
 existence as a guide for the future. If our plans for the 
 future extension and development of this hospital — as 
 the centre of medical healing and instruction in the 
 manner in which I shall presently describe — mature, 
 
52 
 
 tlie problem of meeting expenses will require very care- 
 ful consideration, and it is highly probable that we shall 
 need an endowment fund. For that reason, and also 
 owing to the fact that the Director of Medical and Sani- 
 tary Services is already overburdened with an immense 
 amount of what I may describe as routine work, I have 
 considered it advisable to place the control of the 
 hospital under a separate board, of which the chief 
 members are : the Governor as President, the Colonial 
 Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Director of Medical 
 and Sanitary Services. To this board the Resident 
 Medical Officer will be directly responsible for the 
 economical and efficient running of the hospital. In 
 addition to the Board of Control, a Board of Visitors 
 under the chairmanship of the Director of Medical and 
 Sanitary Services has been appointed, the members of 
 which are the Honourable F. E. Tallant (Banks), Mr. 
 Pitcher (Merchants), the Reverend A. W. Wilkie 
 (Missions), and Dr. Nanka-Bruce and Mr. Van Hien, 
 representing the Africans. 
 
 A complete scheme for the progressive expansion of 
 the Gold Coast Hospital is at present being carefully 
 drawn up. The next new buildings to be erected will 
 be a Maternity Block, with a residential school attached 
 for the instruction of mid wives, an isolation ward, and 
 a venereal clinic ; to be followed in due course by the 
 necessary residential quarters, lecture-rooms and labora- 
 tories for the instruction of medical students. 
 
 The whole scheme of extension and development is 
 based on the necessity for forming a large staff of 
 African Medical Officers, educated and trained locally 
 to the utmost extent possible, to carry out the very 
 heavy and pressing campaign against disease and 
 
53 
 
 insanitary conditions in this country. I "will premise 
 my brief account of Government's proposals by stating 
 that they will be dependent on satisfactory arrangements 
 being made with regard to the recognition of classes, 
 examinations, and degrees with the General Medical 
 Council and the Universities of the United Kingdom. 
 
 To begin with, we recognise that the training of the 
 young African for the medical profession must, to meet 
 with complete success, be undertaken locally. Although 
 it has been very truly said that all judgments about 
 the attributes of a nation or of a class are bound to be 
 imperfect and must necessarily do injustice to exceptional 
 individuals, nevertheless I must point out that experi- 
 ence has shown that the present system of training 
 Africans as medical men in Europe has not met with 
 general success, at any rate not with that success that 
 is necessary if Government is to create the large African 
 medical staff that it requires. Failure has undoubtedly 
 been due to the lack of facilities that have hitherto 
 existed for adequate secondary education and character- 
 training in the Gold Coast. To remedy this, we pro- 
 pose to include special instruction in connection with 
 medicine at Achimota College, and to follow this up 
 by providing a proper medical school at the Gold Coast 
 Hospital. 
 
 With regard to Achimota, students at the college 
 who are destined for the medical profession will receive 
 special instruction during the last years of their resi- 
 dence in chemistry, physics, and biology under duly 
 qualified professors. The necessary lecture-rooms and 
 laboratories with modern equipment for these subjects 
 will be provided, and the future medical students will 
 live with the others in the college " Houses " under the 
 care of the house-masters. 
 
54 
 
 After successfully passing the necessary examinations 
 the student will proceed to the medical school at the 
 Gold Coast Hospital. There he will be a boarder under 
 the discipline of a house-master, who will himself be a 
 qualified medical man and teacher, and will help the 
 students in their studies and act as tutor. Here for two 
 years the student will devote himself to anatomy, physi- 
 ology, pharmacology, and therapeutics under properly 
 qualified professors. Lecture-rooms and laboratories will 
 be provided and equipped on the most modern methods. 
 
 On completion of the two years' course at the Medical 
 School the students will, for the first few years, probably 
 have to go to England to pass their second professional 
 examination. I am, however, hopeful that this dis- 
 advantage may be done away with, as I show below. 
 This second examination is the hardest in the medical 
 curriculum, and unless a student is judged by the local 
 professional staff to be capable of passing this examina- 
 tion, he will not be sent to England with their recom- 
 mendation. 
 
 After passing his second examination in England, 
 the student will proceed to any university with which 
 satisfactory arrangements have been made by the Gold 
 Coast Government for co-operating in our scheme of 
 medical training. Efforts will be made to arrange with 
 the university to which they go that they should live 
 in a hostel under supervision. 
 
 One of the chief difficulties encountered in the medical 
 training of African students in English hospitals is the 
 facility for doing clinical work. To remedy this will be 
 the first aim of our local medical school. With the 
 great extension of the Gold Coast Hospital that will have 
 taken place by then with the infant welfare centres, 
 
§5 
 
 contagious diseases hospital and the asylum there will 
 be ample opportunity for clinical work. Pathology can 
 be taught at the Medical Research Institute, and duly 
 qualified professors will be required for medical train- 
 ing, pathology, medicine, surgery and midwifery, with 
 all their various branches. 
 
 Provided that the necessary arrangements with and 
 approval of the General Medical Council and home 
 universities can be satisfactorily settled, I foresee no 
 insuperable difficulties to the ultimate formation in the 
 Gold Coast of a complete school of medicine. The date 
 for this is still several years off. For some time we 
 must still continue to rely on the institutions in the 
 United Kingdom for the completion of medical training. 
 We shall, however, have achieved two most important 
 objects, namely, that the period of residence in Europe 
 will be greatly shortened owing to the preliminary train- 
 ing which the medical student will have received in the 
 Gold Coast ; and when he does go to Europe he will 
 have received the great benefit of that character-training 
 which will be a conspicuous feature in the life at our 
 future secondary schools and at Achimota. 
 
 I am greatly indebted to Drs. A. J. E,. O'Brien, 
 M.C., and J. M. O'Brien, for the very careful thought 
 which they have given to the future of Africans in the 
 medical and surgical professions, and not least for the 
 consideration which they have shown to a layman in his 
 crude views on the necessity of a programme for the 
 systematic extension of healing and sanitation through- 
 out this country. The great infant mortality, the 
 existence of endemic disease, and the periodical outbreaks 
 of epidemics, all demands a careful programme for the 
 future, a programme that requires the first attention 
 
56 
 
 of any Government from the financial and political points 
 of view; and, from the medical staff, the deepest con- 
 sideration accompanied by that self-sacrificing devotion 
 to the welfare of the native races which has been the 
 characteristic of so many Medical Officers and should be 
 that of all in the West African Medical Service. 
 
57 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 A PERMANENT POLICY OF EDUCATION. 
 
 " Governors come and Governors go, and with each, 
 there is a change of Policy. How do we know that the 
 next Governor will not change Government's policy?" 
 That is a remark that has been made more than once 
 to me by Africans with some bewildering experience of 
 the past. 
 
 In the long-ago changes of policy were no doubt so 
 real and numerous as to justify the above remark, but 
 since the closing years of the 19th century they have 
 been more apparent than real. A definite policy is 
 difficult to carry out with visible results when money 
 is lacking ; a system of makeshift must prevail to a 
 certain extent, and it is the makeshifts that are seen and 
 not the policy behind them. But nowadays these make- 
 shifts are steadily growing fewer; the West African 
 colonies are growing wealthy; there is money to spend, 
 thanks to the infinite patience and courage of the 
 administrators of yesterday who guided their charges 
 through the difficult days of poverty and fighting, and 
 so laid the foundations of their present prosperity. 
 
 ***** 
 
 With regard to the permanence of policy in education, 
 I believe that the future is assured by the recent creation 
 of an advisory committee, and I can wind up my booklet 
 in no better way than to repeat what I said about this 
 body when addressing the Legislative Council on the 
 6th March, 1924. 
 
58 
 
 " I am happy to announce that, after conferring with 
 the Governors from East and West Africa and representa- 
 tives of the British Mission Societies in June last, the 
 Duke of Devonshire approved of the formation of an 
 Advisory Committee on native education in the British 
 Tropical African Dependencies. The object of this 
 Committee is to advise the Secretary of State on any 
 matters of native education which he may from time to 
 time refer to them, and to assist in advancing the pro- 
 gress of education in those Colonies and Protectorates. 
 
 " I cannot attempt to convey to Honourable Members 
 the intense feeling of satisfaction which the formation of 
 this Committee gave to those who are deeply interested 
 in the welfare of the African races when they realised 
 that education is in future to be conducted on a perma- 
 nent policy. I shall always remember with deep 
 gratitude, a gratitude in which the people of this country 
 will in due course share, the keen, weighty, and sym- 
 pathetic support lent to the formation of this Committee 
 by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right 
 Honourable Sir Frederick Lugard, the Honourable 
 William Ormsby-Gore, Mr. J. H. Oldham, and Dr. Jessei 
 Jones. In the Advisory Committee we have a safeguard 
 against the educational crank, and a body of men whose 
 names guarantee that the welfare and progress of the 
 native races will take precedence of all other considera- 
 tions. Amongst them are the most prominent repre- 
 sentatives of the highest and soundest thought on British 
 education generally, while at least three have had an 
 unrivalled experience of the requirements of native 
 races. 
 
 *' The Committee, which will sit under tEe Chairman- 
 ship of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for 
 the Colonies, consist of: — 
 
59 
 
 The Right Reverend A. A. David, D.D., Bishop 
 of Liverpool. 
 
 The Right Reverend Bishop Manual Bidwell. 
 
 The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Lugard, 
 G.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O., the chief mover, in the 
 foundation of Hong Kong University. 
 
 Sir Michael Sadler, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., the 
 Master of University College, Oxford. 
 
 Sir James Currie, K.B.E., C.M.G., LL.D., the 
 late Principal of the Gordon College, Khartoum, 
 and Director of Education in Sudan. 
 
 Mr. J. H. Oldham, the Secretary of the Inter- 
 national Missionary Council. 
 
 Sir Herbert Read, K.C.M.G., the Assistant 
 Under-Secretary of State, Colonial Office, 
 
 The Hon. William Ormsby-Gore, M.P., late 
 Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies. 
 
 " In addition the Committee has a paid Secretary 
 in Major H. Yischer, C.B.E., M.A., formerly Director 
 of Education in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria, an 
 officer to whose knowledge and systematic handling of 
 native educational questions I can bear testimony from 
 personal experience. His duties will include paying 
 visits to the Tropical African Dependencies as occasion, 
 arises in order to be in a position to furnish the Com- 
 mittee with first-hand information regarding local 
 conditions, and to keep it in touch with the educational 
 authorities in the Dependencies." 
 
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