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The medium of instruction in

British Colonial education: a

case of cultural imperialism orenlightened paternalism?Clive Whitehead

a

aUniversity of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth 6009,

Western Australia

Published online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Clive Whitehead (1995): The medium of instruction in British Colonialeducation: a case of cultural imperialism or enlightened paternalism? , History of Education:

Journal of the History of Education Society, 24:1, 1-15

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HISTORY OF EDUCATION, 1 9 9 5 , VOL. 2 4 , NO. 1 , 1 -1 5

The medium of instruction in British Colonial education:a case of cultural imperialism or enlightened paternalism?

1

CLIVE WHITEHEADUniversity of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth 6009, Western Australia

The colonial experience will long remain the subject of ongoing controversy becauseof its paradoxical or contradictory n ature. Critics like M artin Carn oy 2 have long arguedthat education was used as a means to perpetuate subservience through the promotionof a colonial mentality, but other scholars claim with equal conviction that westernschooling promoted enlightenm ent and the growth of modern so cieties, even though theprocess was fraught with much uncertainty and confusion of purpose? As ProfessorD . K. Fieldhouse has stressed, having acquired an em pire in India and elsew here. Britainhad little idea of what to do w ith it or any enlightened appreciation of the proble m s itwould generate.4 In similar vein, it was the late Sir Christopher Cox , the long-servingEducational Adviser to the British Colonial Office, who remarked in 1956 that is wasa formidable burden being responsible for the education of other peoples of verydifferent stock scattered acro ss the world. The responsibility had fallen to few peo ples,and to none, he suggested, on quite such a scale as to the British.5

Many contemporary analyses of British colonial education policy are seeminglyboth prejudiced and often inaccurate in relation to the known facts. Moreover, manycontemporary critics of British imperialism appear to approach the subject from apredetermined and polemical standpoint. Neo -M arxists, in particular, interpret imperialrule quite simply as the domin ance of the w eak by the strong. It follows therefore, thateducation w as used to 'co loni ze' the indigenous intellect and thereby perpetuate B ritishrule. The widespread use of the English language as the medium of instruction inschools, especially at the secondary level and beyond, is cited as a clear example of'cultural dom ina nce '. No w here is this argum ent advanc ed mo re forcibly than in the caseof British rule in India. M acau lay' s celebrated M inute of 2 February 1835, which endedthe controversy between Anglicists and Orientalists in favour of government fundsbeing used in future exclusively to promote English-medium education, is widelyquoted as the epitome of cultural imperialism. 6 'We must at present ' said Macaulay,

1 A version of this paper was first presented in December 1993 at the annual conference of the AustraliaNew Zealand Comparative and International Education Society held at the University of Wollongong,NSW, Australia. For more detail on this theme see my essay ; 'British colonial education policy: asynonym for cultural imperialism?', in J. A. Mangan, ed., Benefits Bestowed? Edu cation and BritishImperialism (Manchester University Press, 1988), 211-30.2 M. Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: Longman, 1974).3 Author's emphasis.4 D. K. Fieldhouse, Colonialism 1870-1945. An Introduction (London: Macmillan, 1983).5 Sir Christopher Cox, "The impact of British education on the indigenous peoples of overseas territories '.The Advancement of Science, 50 (1956), 125-36.6 See, for example, A . Basu, 'Policy and conflict in India: the reality and perception of education', inP, G. Altback and G. P. Kelly, Education and Colonialism (Longman, 53-68; and S. Nurullah andJ. P. Naik, 1951), A History of Educationin India (During the British Period), (Macmillan, 1980),131-52 .

0046-760X/95 $1000 1995 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

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2 C. Whitehead'do ou r best to form a class who may be interpreters betw een us and the m illions w homwe govern: a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, inopinion s, in m orals, and in intellect. ' Q uoted out of context Ma cau lay 's comm ent lendsstrong support to the belief that the British sought to impose their culture on India inorder to perpetuate their presence in the subcon tinent, but a deeper appreciation of thefull circumstances which led to Macaulay's statement suggests a far more complexscenario that is commonly portrayed.7 This is not the place to discuss the role of theEnglish language in British education policy in India-the subject merits scholarlyanalysis in its ow n right-but it should be noted that the widespread us e of English asthe medium of instruction in Indian schools in the nineteenth century led to theemergence of a much maligned babu class, which became increasingly critical of theraj in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, it was the apparentshortcom ings of education policy in India, including the indiscriminate use of Eng lishas the m ediu m of instruction and its far-reaching political imp lications, that the Britishsought to redress in Africa after the First World War. 8

This pap er focuses specifically on the way in which the language issue w as han dledin British Africa in the years between the two world wars. The Indian experience wasclearly upp erm ost in the minds of most colonial officials in W hitehall and in the outpostsof empire but the fear of creating a class of unemployed, disaffected pseudo-intellectuals with nothing better to do than attack the government was not the onlyconsideration which influenced policy. There were sound practical reasons for usingEnglish as the principal med ium of instruction in many colonial territories, not the leastof which was the ever growing demand from indigenous peoples themselves, but bythe 1920s there w as also a strong body of professional o pinion that argued forcibly forthe early years of schooling to be c onducted in the vernacular as part of a wider beliefthat education should be adapted to the me ntality, aptitudes, occupations a nd traditionsof the various [indigeneous] people.9 The multiplicity of indigenous languages anddialects in many parts of Africa also raised what often seemed like insurmountablepractical difficulties. British langu age po licy in the colonial educational setting is oftencontrasted w ith that of the French w ho, in theory but not always in practice, vehem entlyupheld the importance of conducting all schooling in French from day one. 10 Britishpolicy, by contrast, was characterized by Lo rd Hailey m ore as a series of im provizationswhich depended for success not on a logical outlook, but on the exercise of a traditionalskill in accommodating principles to circumstances.11

7 For a m ost illuminating, but seemingly neglected account of Macaulay's celebrated M inute, see G. Sirkinand N. Robinson/The battle of Indian education: Macaulay's opening salvo newly discovered',Victorian Studies XIV, 4 (1971), 407 -28.8 At the first meeting in January 1924 of the Advisory Com mittee on Native Education in British TropicalAfrica, the Chairman, W. A. G. Ormsby-Gore, referred to past mistakes in Indian education policy andthe need to avoid repeating them in the shaping of African education policy. For more detail see myarticle, "The Advisory Committee on Education in the [British] Colonies 1924-1961', PaedagogicaHistorica XXVII, 3 (1991), pp. 3 8 5 ^ 2 1 .9 Author's emphasis. The phrase is taken from the White Paper, Education Policy in British TropicalAfrica, Cmd. 2374 (HMSO 1925), 4.10 French education policy in the interwar years is examined in W.B. Mumford and Major G.StJOrde-Browne; Africans Learn to be French (London: Evans Bros, 1936); see also Lord Hailey, AnAfrican Survey, 1st edn (OUP, 1938), 1260-69 (revised edn 1957), 1193-1206; and M. Debeauvois,'Education in former French Africa', in J. S. Coleman, ed., Education and Po litical Developm ent(Princeton University Press, 1965), 75 91.11 An African Survey (1938), 143.

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 3It was only after the First World War that the Colonial Office began to take asystematic interest in the development of education in the colonies. Until then thevarious Christian missions had been primarily responsible for providing the rudimentsof schoo ling. La te in 1923 , the Co lonial Office established the Adv isory Co m mittee on

Native Ed ucation in British Tropical Africa, which ex tended its brief in 1929 to includeall the colonial em pire.12 I t had no executive p o w e rs -i t s primary purpose was to offeradvice to the Secretary of State for the Colonies - but over the years it beca me a powerfulinfluence in shaping the nature and content of colonial education. At no stage, how ever,did British colonial education policy ever consist of a series of directives emanatingfrom Whitehall. Rather, as W. E. F. Ward, the former Deputy Educational Adviser inWhitehall once stated, British policy amounted to a broad agreement in thoughtbetween the Advisory Com mittee in London and educationalists working in thecolonies.13The Advisory Committee began its deliberations in January 1924 and soonaddressed the language question. It became the common practice of the Committee inthe interwar years to draw up an initial m em orand um on a subject such as the m ediumof instruction and then to circulate it to the respective colonial governments forcomment. Their responses were then incorporated, where appropriate, in a revisedmemorandum which might be printed for general or restricted distribution. In mostinstances memoranda emanating from the Advisory Committee outlined generalprinciples, which were thought useful as a guide to policy but they were never meantto be binding on local go vernm ents. It wa s a cardinal feature of British colon ial policybefore the Second W orld W ar that each territory was an independ ent entity responsiblefor its ow n good g ove rnm ent subject only to the patern al oversig ht of the Colon ial Officein Whitehall. The deliberations of the Advisory Committee on the language questionin the 1920s provide bo th an illuminating insight into contem porary thought on the topicand a useful ex amp le of how the Com mittee operated. Th e evidence collected by theCommittee also sheds light on whether British colonial education policy was indeeda synonym for cultural dominance or whether it is more accurately described as amixture of enlightened paternalism and traditional pragmatism.It wa s in April 1 925, at the Com m ittee's fourteenth me eting, that the Secretary andone-time Director of Education in Northern Nigeria, Hanns [later Sir Hanns] Vischer

tabled a draft memorandum on The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education}*Swiss born, Vischer had studied modern languages at Cambridge before becoming aBritish citizen in 190 3. A gifted linguist, he w as reputed to be fluent in no less than sevenlanguages.15The memorandum, which was subsequently circulated to all of Britain's Africacolonies some three months later, highlighted the value of the mother tongue as theme dium of instruction, especially in the early years of schooling. Vische r quoted from

12 For more detail on the work of the Advisory Comm ittee, see "The Advisory Committee on Educationin [British] Colonies 192 4-19 61', op. cit..13 W. E. F. Ward, 'Education in the Colonies' in A. Creech Jones, ed., New Fabian Colonial Essays(London: Hogarth, 1959), 191.14 A copy of Vischer's memorandum is included in the file marked 'Vernacular' in Box 225 of the JointInternational Missionary Council/Conference of British M issionary Societies Archives. The archiveshave been microfiched. See The Joint IMCICBMS Missionary Archives Africa and India 1910-1945(Inter Documentation Co. Ag, Switzerland, 1979).15 S. F. Graham, Government an d Mission Education in Northern Nigeria 1900-1919 (Ibadan UniversityPress, 1966), 61-2 .

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4 C. Whiteheadvarious sources to em pha size the point. The Imp erial Edu cation Co nference, wh ich metin Londo n in 1923, had ackno wledged that the language best known and understoodby the child on his entry into schoo l life is, from the educational p oint of view, the m osteffective me dium for his instruction in the prelimina ry stages of educ ation '. Th e reportof the Calcutta University comm ission (1919 ) likewise stressed the primary imp ortanceof the mother tongue: 'A man's native speech is almost like his shadow, inseparablefrom his personality.... Hence in all education, the primary place should be given totraining in the exact and free use of the mother tongue.' Vischer also cited ProfessorWestermann, a foremost authority on African languages:

By taking away a people* s language we cripple or destroy its soul and kill its mental indiv iduality....If the African is to keep and to develop his own soul and is to become a separate personality, hiseducation must not begin by inoculating him w ith a foreign c ivilization... the v ernacular... is thevessel in which the whole national life is contained and through which it finds expression.Finally, reference was made to the first of the Phelps-Stokes reports on education inAfrica that likewise endorsed the impo rtance of vernacular langua ges in schooling butwhich also argued ag ainst the indiscriminate ado ption of all African dialects: 'In m anycolonies there is mu ltiplicity of dialects spoke n by sm all group s w ho are thus estrangedfrom one another to the point of hostility'.

On the basis of the best available evidence , the Adv isory C om mittee drew up a listof provisional co nclusions on wh ich they invited co mm ent. The first wa s that the mo thertongue sho uld be the basis and m ediu m of all elemen tary edu cation. It wa s recogn ized,however, that some small comm unit ies might need to adopt a regional lan gu ag e-s uc has Sw ahili in East Africa. S uch langua ges w ere thought preferable to Eng lish beca usethey were nearer ' to the mentality of the children'. It followed that skilful use of thevernacular should be emphasized in the training of teachers and also pride in its use.Th e place for the teaching of English wa s in the secondary school wh ere, as a generalrule, it should be taught only to pupils intending to continue their studies to a higherlevel. Finally, it wa s suggested that in the seconda ry school, as in the eleme ntary, thevernacular should be the medium of instruction except in the highest classes.16 The onlyexceptions were the subjects English, which should be taught wholly in English, andscience and mathem atics, which might reach a point whe re it wo uld be advisable to useEng lish as the me dium of instruction; Th e stance adopted by the Com m ittee was in starkcontrast with British policy in nineteenth-century India. There schooling, through themedium of English, had been allowed to proliferate unchecked on the grounds that iswas the necessary vehicle of 'useful knowledge', which was needed for themodernization of a morally and economically bankrupt society.17

Th e first of the colonies to respond to the me m orand um wa s Somaliland (Nov emb er)some four months after the memorandum was circulated. The rapid response was dueto the fact that the Acting Governor did not consider the document relevant given thecurrent stage of educa tional dev elopm ent in the territory. Th is wa s a polite way of sayingthat there was no formal go vernm ent provision for schoo ling in Somaliland in the late1920s. The m ajority of the African colonies responde d by June 1926, although N orthernRhodesia and Nyasaland dragged their feet and did not communicate until November1926 and April 1927 respectively. Such was the speed of communication in the dayswhen it seemed that the British Empire would last forever! Brief comment on each of

16 Author's emphasis. For Vischer's revised memorandum see Box 225, IMCICBMS Archives, op. cit.17 Sirkin, 409-10.

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 5the replies conveys the varied nature of the responses and the unique circumstancesof each of the territories.18J. C. Maxwell advised the Colonial Secretary, on the Governor's behalf, that theGold C oast approved of the mem orand um in principle but agreed that it was not possibleto implement it in the light of existing practice which placed a high premium on theteaching of English at the elementary leve l. Th e Hon . M r Casely-Hayford, an Africanlawyer and member of the Legislative Council, expressed strong support for Englishas the means of access to higher education and training: 'We have heard much aboutthe Advisory Committee in England. Sometimes people seem to think that a peculiarkind of education w ill suit the Africans. W e think that schem e of education w hich hashelped other nations to rise to the height of their opportunity should not be barred tothe African' . Maxwell agreed:

To attempt to d isplace English from its present position in elementary schools would be a very seriouspolitical mistake to make as well as an educational blunder. In fact it is one which would not betolerated by the people of the Gold Co ast... they are too much alive to the value of the knowledgeof English to allow it to be superseded in the elementary schools as a medium of instruction.

Ma xwell a lso pointed to the fact that English was the only languag e used in the W estAfrican colonies that had a literature19 and that it would doubtless long remain theofficial language of adm inistration. H e also drew the Adv isory Co mm ittee's attentionto language policy in the Un ited King dom by citing the fact that it was E nglish that wastaught in the elementary schoo ls in the Scottish High lands, Wa les and Cornw all, ratherthan the Celtic vernaculars. He emphasized the fact that English was the pathway toa wide r intellectual life, not jus t in India, but also in We st Africa. He claim ed that therewas too mu ch em phasis in the mem orandu m on small village schoo ls. M ore im portanceshould have be en given to eleme ntary schools in large centres. There it was essentialto teach English from the beginning of schooling and for it to be the medium ofinstruction in most subjects at both elementary and secondary schools. It would beimpossible, he claimed, to confine English to the secondary schools. As his Directorof Education remarked, there were only two such schools in the colony with a totalenrolment of 242 pupils. To follow the advice outlined in the memorandum wouldvirtually eliminate English from the education system! Maxwell did not deny theimportance of vernacular languages but to emphasize them at the expense of Englishwould, he believed, 'handicap very seriously the future of the people of this country'by restricting their means of livelihood. He added that the new Education Ordinance,which emb odied a greater emphasis on vernaculars, had already engend ered discontentin the colony amongst Africans.

D . J. Oman, the Director of Education, drew attention to the numerous practicalproblem s raised by the policy outlined in the memo randum . There was an acute shortageof vernacular teachers and v ernacular texts, and the ever grow ing physical m obility ofthe population, especially the move to the towns, made the choice of a vernacular asthe suitable medium of instruction almost impossible. Moreover, trying to forcelanguages on people against their will could lead to serious political trouble. Other18 Subsequent quotations and comments are derived from documents contained in the 'Vernacu lar' file inBox 225, IMC/CBMS Archives.19 In commenting on a draft of this paper, W. E. F. Ward, a once fluent speaker of the Twi language whotaught at Achimota College during the interwar years, stated that as a result of the work of Germanmissionaries, the complete Bible was in print in some Gold Coast languages, including Twi, Ga andprobably Ewe. To that extent, there was an African literature. Personal correspondence with the author,November 1993.

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6 C. Whiteheadpractical problems included teacher training and secondary schooling. The teachers'colleges drew their students from a variety of language areas and most staff wereEnglish-speaking expatriates. Secondary schools likewise drew their pupils from asma ny as six different langua ge area s. To establish district vernac ular second ary schoolswo uld be prohibitively e xpen sive and lead to the creation of an elite E nglish-speak ingclass cut off from the rest of the people. While Oman sympathized in theory with theAd visory C om m ittee's w ish to use vernaculars as the me dia of instruction in second aryschools, he considered that the practical application of the principle in the Gold Coastpresented so many difficulties that to insist on it in the present g eneration w ould onlyresult in delaying the p rogress of the African for the sake of a theory . He also h ighlightedthe overwhelming commercial demand for competency in English.

Alek Fraser, the recently appointed Principal of Achimota College, stronglysupported the m em oran dum in principle but drew attention to the practical difficultiesoutline by Om an. There w as a long tradition of Eng lish teaching in the Gold Co ast andit wa s not possible to cut it off: "The Africans ha ve to pay the pip er in edu catio n, an dthey will call the tune'.Graeme Thomson, the Governor of Nigeria, Britain's largest African colony,thought the memorandum suitable for existing conditions in the northern provinces,although maybe not for long because of the rapid growth in the demand for English,but in the south the situation was 'entirely different '. He though t the analogy w ith Indiahardly applied as the major Indian languages all had their own literature. He referredthe memorandum to his Board of Education for detai led comment.Th e Board highlighted various political and practical prob lem s but avoided any finalstatement. Instead, the various mission heads expressed separate opinions. In general,they all supported the principle of using vernacular languages in the early stages ofschooling but all insisted on the need for English beyond Standard IV. The ReverendB. Lasbrey, Bishop of the Niger, emphasized the strong African demand for Englishschooling as a means of personal advancement although he feared its consequences.

If the purpose of education is to train clerks and shop assistants, the neglect of the vernacular isjustified; if the purpose is to train trustworthy men to raise the tone of village communities, the neglectof the vernacular does not contribute to that end. The neglect of the vernacular tends to make a boydespise his own language, undermines his self-respect and leads to a feeling of pride and superiorityover the elders of the town.The Reverend W. A. J. Gardiner thought the proposals were 20 years too late.The African dem and for Eng lish was irreversible. Th e Reverend H. W . Stacey w as evenmore to the point:

We cannot go dead against the desires of the people whether they are wise or not. The Africans fearthat the object of the proposals is to make them 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' and that theproposals would slam the door of opportunity afforded by English in their faces.Further practical prob lem s raised by Stacey and others included the inadequ acy of m ostvernacular languages. Stacey, for example, commented that Yoruba was poor forgeography and impossible for mathematics teaching. 20 There was also wide ag reementthat an emph asis on vernacular schooling w ould enha nce African tribal disunity, result20 Ward disputes this statement, claiming that the British often mistook a language for a dialect. To thebest of his knowledge no one has ever drawn up a comprehensive list, based on scholarly research, ofall the distinct languages spoken in Africa. He writes: 'In the later years of the colonial period[post-1945], we in the Colonial Office were working on the assumption that there were 600-900languages in British Colonial Africa, of which 100 were already in use as the medium of instruction'.Personal correspondence, op. cit.

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 7in poor teaching of English, create a privileged minority who could speak English,and encourage the growth of pidgin English as a lingua franca. The ReverendJ. K. Macgregor, Principal of the Hope-Waddell Training Institution, was especiallyforthright in his criticism:

The memorandum proposes a policy that is not desired by the people, that will upset the work ofevery Go vernm ent De partm ent and of every com me rcial firm and will cut the life of Nig eria off fromthe main current of the life of the world. The adoption of these proposals would establish BrokenEnglish as the lingua franca of West Africa.In the case of Sierra Leo ne, the Acting G overno r, H. C. Lu ke, drew attention to the greatvariety of tribes and languages found in the comparatively small area of the territory.Th is wa s a legacy from the days when Sierra Leone had be en a haven for freed slaves.The 1921 Census listed no less than 12 different tribes each with its own language.In the circumstanc es, Luke sug gested that Eng lish was the only practical lingua francafor which there was overwhelming African support: 'Although local educationalopinion displays on the subject of vernacular education a considerable measure ofdivergence, even those most keenly in favour of it would admit that what the nativesare clamouring for is English'. Moreover, he informed the Advisory Committee thatAfricans had ad vised the Director of Edu cation that if the vernacu lar was forced o n themthey would refuse to send their children to school. Luke sympathized with the theorybehind the memorandum but saw insurmountable difficulties in implementing it inSierra Le one . Evidently he had talked abo ut the prob lem w ith Han ns Vischer pe rsonally,and they had agreed that Sierra Leone was a particularly difficult case.

In the Gam bia, the fourth of the W est African colonies, there w as general ag reeme ntthat the vernacular should be the basis of elementary education but equally strongsupport for the teaching of English at the earliest opportunity. The ReverendC. B. Cotton w as adam ant abou t the need to start En glish at an early stage of schoo ling:'If a modern or imperial language is omitted from the curriculum the mass of nativesmust be deprived of modern thought and enlightment, and even of self-improvementto any appreciable extent ' . There was much mingling of the native races, especially inBathu rst, wh ich mad e the choice of a vernacu lar med ium of instruction very difficult.As Sam J. Foster, an African, Oxford-educated barrister and member of the GambiaLegislative Council remarked, it was an impossible task to select one vernacularlanguage in a heterogenous town like Bathurst. J. Meehan, the Roman CatholicSup erintendent of Edu cation, remarked, 'This [m em orandu m] look s all right in theory,but I doubt if it will ever work in practice'. The paucity of vernacular textbooks andthe tim e and cost that wou ld be invo lved in translating book s into vernacular languag eswere also stressed.

British East Africa included Zanzibar, Kenya, Nyasaland, Somaliland, Uganda,Northern Rhodesia and the newly acquired League of Nations ' Mandate, the formerGerm an territory of Tan gany ika. The respon ses were similar to those from W est Africaalthough the widespread use of Swahili as a regional language cut across manyterritorial boundaries.The p opular use of Swahil i was highlighted by Donald Cam eron, the Go vernor ofTan gany ika, and S. Rivers-Smith, his Director of Edu cation. The latter claimed that toinsist on the use of the mother tongue would set back the clock of progress for manytribes:The vast majority of African dia lects .. .mu st be looked upon as educa tional cul de sacs [sic].... Froma purely educational standpoint the decent interment of the vast majority of African dialects is to bedesired, as they can never give the tribal unit access to any but a very limited literature...

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8 C. WhiteheadRivers-Smith also stressed the important link between language policy and economicgrowth. Use of the vernacular could isolate a tribe from commercial intercourse:

To limit a native to a knowledge of his tribal dialects is to burden him with an economic handicapunder which he will always be at a disadvantage when compared with others who, on account ofgeographical distribution or by means of education, are able to hold intercourse with Europeans orAsiatics...At the same time, he believed that the forcing of English on Africans would doirreparable harm to Africa: 'Ou r work is to evolve a better type of African, to deve loppari passu the development of Africa, but still an African'. In that process Africanlanguage was essential to being an African. In the future, Rivers-Smith believed thatSwahili would undoubtedly become the parent language of Central Africa. It wouldgradually de-tribalize the natives but not de-nationalize them as would the spread ofEng lish. He rejected the proposal to restrict the teaching of En glish on the groun ds thatthere was no secon dary schooling in Tan gan yika no r any possibility of it for some time,but that it was still necessary to train some Africans for future leadership roles.Accordingly, he advocated the teaching of English at the Central School which tookthe brightest pupils from surrounding elementary schools. As elsewhere, Rivers-Smithalso outlined in detail the many practical difficulties involving teachers, their trainingand the availability of textbooks in any widespread adoption of vernaculars as mediaof instruction.

G. B . John son, the Acting Director of Edu cation in Zanzibar, expressed the dilem mafacing most European educators throughout Africa in the 1920s:To impose Western ideals and modes of thought on the African is foreign to the true aim of educationwhich m ust ever be the development of all that is best within, and not the imposition of exotic formsof thought from without. Yet the education of the African must follow the path of progress in modernthought and enlightment and this necessitates to a considerable extent the adoption of W estern idealsin many of the practical features of life.

He likewise expressed a concern shared by most officials about the socio-politicalimplications of minimal access to, and poor teaching of English:It is clear that the teaching of English for periods of one or two years is, generally speaking, a wasteof money, time and energy: at the end of such a period the boy has not gained a practical workingknowledge of the language. On the o ther hand, he has acquired, in most cases, a very much inflatedopinion of his comm ercial value, together with a d istaste for manual occupations, and a feeling thathe would suffer a social degradation by being engaged in them.

Johnson also strongly opposed the use of English as the medium of instruction at thesecondary level because it resulted in very slow progress. It was, he said, a practicewhich seemed to him to be indefensible.The use of Swahili as a lingua franca was generally acknowledged but FatherGrollem und was at pains to point out that languag e wa s the expression of the very soulof a people: 'To ask a people to sacrifice its language is to ask it to sacrifice its soul'.He also claime d that attem pts to replace African language s with a foreign languag e hadfailed in the past. The result was invariably a mongrel language or a mongrel native.Theodore Burtt, another missionary likewise warned against the tendency to convertthe African into a 'Black European' .

In Uganda there was agreement between the Governor, his Director of Educationand the three main missions that elementary schooling should be initiated in the localvernacular before the introduction of a regional language. They were equally united,

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 9however, in rejecting the Advisory Committee's suggestion that the vernacular shouldbe used at the secon dary level. A s E. R. J. Hu ssey, the Director of Ed ucation , rem arked,'when the secondary stage of education is reached the vernacular should be thrownoverboa rd as the med ium of instruction [in favour of Eng lish ]' . Un less this policy wasfollowed he believed that it would be difficult to achieve a high enough standard ofEnglish to make higher education possible for any but the few brilliant exceptions.He was not opposed to vernacular languages at the secondary level but they should betreated as subjects rather than the medium of instruction.

In neighbouring Kenya, where it was claimed that some 30 dialects were spoken,21there was strong support for the widespread use of Swahili as the main medium ofinstruction. I. R. Orr, the Director of Education, emphasized the use of Swahili as anadministrative device amongst the varied tribes. For example, the governmentnewspaper was published in Swahili. Within the school system, the first governmentexamination was conducted in the vernacular with English and Swahili as optionalsubjects. Thereafter all examinations were in English with Swahili as an optionalsubject. Like Hu ssey, O rr stressed the need for an early start to the teaching of E nglishif it was to be learned thoroughly enough to use as the medium of instruction beyondStandard IV. The Reverend G. A. Grieve commented that to confine the teaching ofEng lish to the secondary sch ools wou ld be quite ' im practica l, unpo pular, and difficultto enfo rce'. A fricans wo uld und oubted ly find mean s outside the schools to satisfy theirthirst for English. Moreover, the core of the secondary school curriculum consisted ofEnglish, science, and mathematics which were all best taught through the mediumof English. To postpone the teaching of English until the secondary stage seemed anobvious backward step.

Am ong st the missionaries there were som e conflicting view s. W . Scott Dick son andM iss M. S. Stevenson bo th adv ocated restricting the use of English ' for most Kikuyuat the present stage of progress teaching English is a waste of time'. They likewisebelieved that English should be introduced as early as possible for a select few - ' to teachin English after a bare three years study [was also] a waste of time'. By contrast,The Reverend W. Blaikie strongly supported the use of English as a medium ofinstruction from the earliest opportunity because it was not merely an instrumentof livelihood bu t the pathw ay to a wider intellectual life. Th e Reve rend J. Brittan w asan equally forthright adv ocate of Eng lish. He claimed that all vernac ulars suffered bycomparison with English:African mother tongues m ust ultimately decline. Efforts to foster them may retard the process butI do not think they can prevent it ... The more progressive in all the tribes are already beginning tofeel themselves handicapped by the lack of English...industrial development will more and moreforce the native to recognise the handicap and lead him to conclude that where government andbusiness processes are carried on in English, he must be able to use English.

21 Ward challenges the belief that most African languages were deficient in abstract terms. He writes:'It is certainly true that as tribal boundaries became less important, Africans used English m ore and moreas a lingua franca. But when I was set to translate Plato into Twi, I found that Twi had an abstractvocabulary which was being squeezed out by English. I think we had eight Twi words for 'justice ' ofvarious kin ds ... .'. Ward also recalls marking Twi Cambridge Overseas School Certificate examinationpapers together with an African colleague. At one point his African colleague jumped from his chairand exclaimed, 'Who can this candidate be? He or she is writing the real old Twi which you hardly everhear nowadays. He or she must come from a very cultured home where they are proud of their language.'Ward also claims that in his time in the Gold Coast, people were beginning to write in Twi inspired bythe will to build a literature. Personal correspondence, op. cit

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10 C. WhiteheadHe too , supported an early start to the use of En glish in schoo ls: 'a chief cause of failureto master English is the late stage at which it has been in trodu ced '. If ma them atics an dscience were best taught in English why delay its use until the secondary school?

In Northern Rhodesia there was general agreement on the need for a widespreadknowledge of English because of the multiplicity of dialects, As the Governor,H. J. Stanley, remarked, 'We cannot wholly ignore the wishes and aspirations of thenatives themselves, and I am not at all sure that fundamentally those wishes are notbased on a sound inst inct ' . English had an obvious economic and survival value.E . S. B . Tag art, the Secretary for Native Affairs, supported the teaching of English asearly as possible on the grounds that to withhold it might provoke trouble. P. E. Hall,the Acting S ecretary for Native Affairs, stated, 'Th ere is such a determination to learnEng lish, that to attempt to withho ld it after the e arliest stages involves a constant, eve nif unex pressed, conflict of will betw een teache r and tau gh t.... ' G. A. Lath am , the A ctingDirector of Native Education, likewise expressed great enthusiasm for the spread ofEnglish. To restrict it to the secondary stage was too late. Not only did NorthernRhodesia not have any secondary schools but 'To leave English out of the curriculumwould take much of the interest out of education for most natives and.. .undoubtedlycreate discontent and a feeling that the Government was withholding something fromthem for s inister purposes of i ts ow n' . B . H. Barnes thought the mem orandum was fartoo timid. It highlighted the im portance of Eng lish as the key to literature, science andthought but then restricted its use in practice. 'Are we afraid of education?' he asked.The Rev erend C. H. Leek e was even more forthright. H e thought the mem orandum was'to idealistic' and 'too late'. The Africans were already acquiring a knowledge ofEnglish and adopting European ways. Moreover, the need for a common language inCen tral Africa, for exam ple, Sw ahili, cut at the roots of most of wh at the me m orand umsaid about the necessity to retain the mother tongue. He concluded his remarks bysaying, 'I consider the Memorandum so skilfully worded as to be at first sightconvincing [but practical problems] make the policy set forth too idealistic andabsolutely impracticable'. The best solution, in his opinion, was to teach Englishand teach it thoroughly as soon as a child could read and write in its own language.

In Nyasaland, the Director of Education agreed with the use of the vernacular inprinciple but he thought it would be a 'a grave mistake to debar the greater number[of natives] from instruction in English'. He emphasized that the demand for Englishseemed to be gen eral and increasing in all the tropical African colonies and sho uld b eme t by instruction in Eng lish in the upp er standards of the elemen tary sch ools. He alsomentioned the lack of literatures in vernacular languages: 'For the educated Africanquite as much as for the educated Indian, "the master key to culture is English"' .His view was strongly challenged by the Reverend and Dr W. H. Murray of the DutchReformed Church.

If the African native is to remain African, and develop as an African, and not become a parody ofthe European, his education must, to as large an extent as possible, be given in his mother to ngue ....If he is to be himself and develop as an African he must be helped to respect what is good in histradition.

They also claimed that the practical difficulties of manifold dialects were notinsuperable. By instructing the Africans in their own language they would be kept inmental touch with their own land, people and village environment. The missionaryarchives also contain a letter from H. S. [later Sir Herbert] Scott to J. H. Oldham,the Secretary to the International Missionary Council and a leading member on the

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 11Advisory Com mittee, dated 30 June 1926. Scott was then the Director of Education inthe Transva al. Later he would bec ome D irector of Education in Kenya [192 8-35 ] beforeretiring to Britain and becoming a leading figure on the Advisory Committee onEducation in the Colonies. Scott explained to Oldham how the econo mic and social lifeof the native and the European were interwoven in South Africa and of the nativedetermination to learn English. If English was not taught in the schools, he said, theywo uld close for lack of children. To postpo ne the teaching of English until the seconda rystage would mean cutting it out altogether because the average length of schooling wasso short. In a somew hat resigned mo od he concluded by saying, 'I suppose this cravingfor the white man's wisdom is natural and irresistible... ' .

The responses to the memorandum confirmed the varied approaches and attitudesheld towards the use of English and vernacular languages in colonial schools in Africain the late 1920s. On the basis of the responses, Oldham and Lord Lugard drafted arevised mem orandum which drew extensively on much of the evidence reviewed in thispaper but the Advisory C om mittee subsequently pruned the draft to a more acceptablelength. On one point the Advisory Committee made a significant amendment tothe initial draft. Lugard and Oldham had suggested that the primary object of thememorandum was to suggest 'a general policy for adoption in the present phase ofeducation in Africa'22 which they believed to represent a wide consensus of com petentopinion. This was amended to read that the primary object was to suggest, 'in the lightof the opinions received from Africa, some of the lines of policy for adoption in thepresent phase of education in Africa' P The rew ording w as clearly less prescriptive andmore in keeping with that aspect of British colonial policy which sought broadagreement in thought between officials in Whitehall and those at the periphery ofempire. Colonies were still free to decide on education policy in the light of localconditions. The m ain purpose of the mem orandu m was not to dictate any specific policybut to offer guidance, where it was needed, in grappling with the often complexproblems of native education.

The revised draft of the memorandum was finally approved by the Colonial Officefor distribution to colonial governm ents in May 1927.24 It contained a fair summary ofthe arguments contained in the responses to the original memorandum but it alsoretained the essentially pragmatic approach so characteristic of British colonial rule.The concluding paragraph said it all:

In the present transitional stage we must be content with practical expedients. Ideas as to the moreskilful class-teaching in a vernacular, and the enshrining of local tradition in a vernacular of whichthe African can be proud, m ay, in some cases, have to be postponed, though never abandoned. Thedemand for Africans who can speak and write English really well, for every kind of technician, skilledartisan, clerk, or accountant, is, and will for some time remain, greatly in excess of the supply.If our educational policy, even though it be a transitional policy, does not meet this demand as wellas the higher aim of opening up access to English literature and development, it will not gain thenecessary African support. If, on the other hand, those who are being thus taught are to remain intouch with their comm unities and become in any true sense the leaders of their people, it is an essentialpart of their education that they should be able to reproduce and express in the vernacular the newknowledge of which they are the privileged recipients.Nowhere in the evidence placed before the Advisory Committee is there any overtsuggestion that the Colonial Office had any predetermined wish to dominate, subvert,

22 Author's emphasis.23 Ibid.24 The Place of the Verna cular in Native Education (1927). African No. 1110, Colonial Office.

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12 C. Whiteheador control the m inds of Africans or any other indigenou s peop les for that matter. Indeed,the evidence sugg ests quite the reverse. Most colonial educa tors were forever mindfulin the 1920s of the potentially disruptive impact ofEuropean civilization on Africantribal life and equ ally anxious to m itigate the worst excesses of econ om ic exploitation.But Africans w ere not passive recipients of change . They were equa lly attracted to thematerial benefits of western civilization and soon realized both the economic andpolitical importance of knowing how to speak and write in English. Westerncommercialism and learning both contributed to the breakdown of traditional Africantribal society but they also opened up new vistas and ways of life for African people.In the final analysis it is probab ly true to say that the Eng lish langua ge, wh ich em bodiedthe rule of law, respect for personal freedom, and the know ledge of modern science andphilosophy, contributed as much as any other single factor to the eventual demise ofcolonialism.

The British were certainly not cultural imperialists in the French tradition, insistingon the use of English from day one of a child's schooling and exalting the worth ofBritish culture ab ove all othe rs. It is true, how eve r, that British colon ial education policywas often characterized by a strong sense of enlightened paternalism. It is significant,for example, that in the responses to the memorandum on the place of the vernacularin native education no specific request w as made for African opinion. In almost ev eryinstance the governor or his representative consulted Europeans about 'native policy'and it wa s their thoug hts, not those of Africans, that were conv eyed back to W hitehall.In retrospect, how ever, wh at seems to emerge m ost clearly in British colonial educa tionis the absence of any common policy save for the loose adherence to several generalprinciples such as the importance of voluntary effort in the provision of schooling andan abhorrence of rigid conformity, whether it be towards the school curriculum or thestructure of schooling. In theory, French colonial education policy was renowned forits uniform structure and conformity to basic principles. British policy, by contrast,seemed mo re often to be a genu ine mix of enlightened paternalism laced with a liberaldose of pragmatism . Now here w as this m ore clearly illustrated than ov er the lang uageissue in African education in the 1920s.Th e language issue resurfaced in July 1929, soon after the Advisory C om m ittee hadbeen reconstituted to include all British colonies in its purview. Arthur Mayhew, thenew joint secretary, produced a memorandum on bilingual education, ostensibly inresponse to the growing popular demand, evident in all colonies, for a knowledge ofEnglish.25 M ayh ew ma de no attempt to outline a specific po licy. Instead, he high lightedthe main issues needing to be considered by colonial administrators as they grappledwith the issue. He emphasized the grow ing need everyw here for kno wled ge of a secondlanguage for purely practical reasons while equally endorsing the supreme importanceof the mother-tongue. He also stressed how language policy was highly dependent onpolitical, religious and economic considerations. Bilingualism was a subject keenlydiscussed, he w rote, but there were few general conclusions as to how it might best be

achieved.The Advisory Committee set up a small subcommittee, chaired by Sir MichaelSadler, to examine Mayhew's document in greater detail. Eventually, after variousredrafts, it was circulated in 1930, to colonial governments and 'bodies with expert

25 A copy of the memorandum is included in the file marked 'Language T eaching' in Box 223, IMC/CBMSArchives.

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 13know ledge of the subject '. By then it had been renamed A Preliminary Mem orandumon the Aims and Methods of Langu age Teaching in the Colonies26 and included aquestionnaire which sought greater information on language policies in each of thecolonies. It wa s clearly stated that no general linguistic policy wa s thought possible oreven desirable but the Advisory C om m ittee did think that much cou ld be learned fromthe experience of others 'even if the conditions are so different as to give no basis foruniversally applicable conclusions'.

Two reports were subsequently compiled based on the replies to the questionnairefrom both the African and non-African territories. 27 As might have been ex pected, theAfrican report indicated that practice was mostly in line with the 1927 memorandumdiscussed earlier in this paper. It was also noted that the replies said little regardingultimate aims 'indicating a natural reluctance to define too precisely a linguistic policywhich mu st depe nd to some extent on the further develop me nt of the colony, eco nom icor otherwise'. Of more interest was the report on the non-African colonies because ithighlighted the immense variety of circumstances and policies adopted and the sheerfutility of ever trying to devise a common policy for the colonial empire as a whole.The report divided the non-African colonies into four groups: The Far East (Ceylon,Malaya, Hong Kong) where English had to be considered in relation to orientallanguag es with their own extensive literatures and long-standing cultural traditions; TheWestern P acific (Fiji , etc.) whe re English had to be co nsidered in relation to v ernacularswith no literature or ' im portan t cultural traditio ns'; 28 The Med iterranean Colonies andPalestine wh ere Eng lish existed alongside other Europ ean lan gua ges; and The TropicalColonies (Mauritius, Seychelles, British Honduras and West Indies) where Englishexisted alongside local patois or other European languages.

Both reports were factual rather than prescriptive. The Advisory Committeeapproved them both in 1931 and submitted them to the Colonial Secretary for generalcirculation but there is no record thereafter that they ever left the Colonial Office.Practical problems and the circumstances of the local environment clearly dictated apolicy of expediency. Moreover, there would have been no means to enforce anyalternative. In the late 1930 s, Lord H ailey remarke d that amon g the many p roblem s ofAfrica, non e had attracted mo re discussion and, indeed , more controversy than the typeof education which should be given to the African.29 The French system of education,he observed, was characterized by precise objectives and unity of method unlike theBritish w ith its wide latitude in local practice and heavy reliance on voluntary schoolsover which the government assumed, in practice, little or no direction.30 Languagepolicy in British colonies clearly provide d a classic exam ple of wha t Hailey describedas the 'exercise of a traditional skill in accommodating principles to circumstances'.As such, it hardly constituted a blueprint for cultural imp erialism although it certainlyprovided scope for the exercise of a degree of enlightened paternalism. In the finalanalysis, how ever, it seem s most likely that H aile y's de scription w as a eup hem ism forBritish expediency or for what cynics might colloquially refer to as 'm udd ling thro ug h'.

26 Miscellaneous Series No. 411.27 'Language Teaching' file, op. cit.28 The lack of importance then attached to the cultural traditions of the Western Pacific was in contrastwith the culture of India and the Far East.29 An A frican Survey (1938), 1208.30 Ibid. 1209.

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14 C. WhiteheadIt is notew orthy, how ever, that pragm atic as British langu age policy may h ave be en,there was no dramatic shift in emphasis after the colonies gained their independence.English remained , and in some instances, as in N kr um ah 's Gh ana, reinforced its pivotalrole through out the schools and institutions of higher education. In C hinese-do mina ted

Singapore, English was not only retained as the language of governme nt and c om me rce,but Cambridge-educated Lee Kuan Yew also chose to retain close l inks betweenSingaporean schools and the British 'A' level examinations to ensure that his countryremained on the educational gold standard. Elsewhere, notably in neighbouringM alaysia, the vernacular w as given pride of place throug hou t the education system butonly at considerable cost to educational standards and international comparability.PostscriptH. S. Scott re-examined the language issue in the context of African schooling in the

early 1940s but after an extensive survey he endo rsed the general position ado pted in1927.31 By then, how ever, the African d em and for Eng lish was fast becom ing universaland threatening to get out of hand. Early in 1943 , Christoph er Co x, the newly appointedEducational Adviser to the Colonial Office, visited Nyasaland where it had long beenpolicy to restrict the teaching of English to a small minority of Africans. As aconsequence there was growing discontent amongst Africans led by the rising youngnationalist politician Charles Matinga. Cox sought an informed opinion on the matterfrom Dr Ma rgart Read , a leading social anthropologist and acting head of the C olonialDepartment at the University of London's Institute of Education. 'It seems to me', shewrote:...tha t where you have widespread literacy in the vernacular and do not teach English widely, yo uare cooking up a pow erful explosive.32 This seems so obvious that I can't see how everyone doesn'tsee it! It is not only a question of teaching English in the schools. Those who can read English needaccess to books and papers in libraries, and they want to hear English spoken round the m... I knowthat English is regarded partly as an economic asseta means to a better job, but that is by no meansall the truth. It is only the superficial aspect of the demand for English, but the one most stressedby Europeans.One has to bear in mind the Nyasaland men, because of their extensive emigration and travel,do not have a narrow provincial outlook. This is perhaps especially true of those who, like M atinga,have most influence on their fellows. They need a universal medium of communication with Africansspeaking other venaculars, and still more on their travels, they want the chance of reading and hearingother English points of view . The lack of opportunity to learn English appears to them as a deliberateattempt to 'keep them down', and it ust feeds the general suspicion about the government's intentionsin the economic and political spheres?3 I think that English ought to be introduced as a subject inStandard 1 everywhere and that teachers should be trained to teach it on [sic] modern methods-Iam quite convinced that only when Africans speak and read English with ease and appreciation ofits literature, do you get any real flow ering of vernacular literature.... In other words, this exaltingof their language must be of theirvolition, and as long as we try to confine them to their own languagewe appear in theireyes to be denying them the truepath to learning - the one we ollowed ourselves.

M argaret Re ad 's com m ents reflected th e change in attitude that was occurring in officialcircles by the 1940s. When colonial governments first took a systematic interest inedu cation after the First Wo rld W ar officials w ere still strongly influenced by the Ind ianexperience of the previous half-century. At the first meeting of the Colonial Office

31 Memorandum on Language Teaching in African Education, 27 November 1942, CO 1045/898(Public Record Office, Kew). The memorandum was subsequently printed for 'the use of the ColonialOffice' as African No. 1170, November 1943.32 Author's emphasis.33 Ibid.34 Margaret Read to Cox, 24 May 1943. CO 1045/898. Author's emphasis.

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The medium of instruction in colonial education 15Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa, held in January1924, it was no accident that the Chairman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary,W . A. G. Orm sby-G ore, warned of the need to avoid making the sam e mistakes in A fricaas has been committed in India.

Throu ghou t the interwar years colonial educators s truggled with varying success,especially in Africa, to establish educational opportunities for indigenous peoples.The acute shortage of skilled personnel and the adverse effects of the prolongedecon om ic depression of the 1930s, coup led with the fact that scarce financial resourceswe re channe lled into the building of roads , railway s, harbou rs etc. rather than into theprovision of social services contributed to the slow rate of educ ational prog ress. At thesame time, it is important to note the relatively rapid pace of socio-economic changein African colonies, especially in the 1930s, which resulted in a growing demand forEnglish as highlighted by Margaret Read. It was against this backdrop that educatorsstruggled with the need to square wha t often seem ed like conflicting educa tional theorywith practical expediency.

Official sources certainly do not support the view that colonial schooling in Britishcolonies in the interwar years w as dictated by a deliberate policy of cu ltural imperialismbut colonial administration was most certainly motivated by the concept of 'goodgovernment '35 or wh at might more accurately be described as enlightened paternalism.Unfortunately the meaning of enlightment remains open to various interpretations.It is increa singly difficult n ow for the prese nt gen eration to appre ciate fully the m ind-se tof both the rulers and the ruled of some 60 years or more ago. In hindsight it is easyto condem n p ast policies but it is surely incum bent o n those of us wh o seek to und erstandthe past to ask what viable options were open to officials at the time.In an important recent study with the provocative title Linguistic Imperialism?6Rob ert Phillipson traces the rise of En glish as the wo rld's do mina nt langu age. In doingso, he examines British colonial schooling and concludes that both the dominantlangu age of educa tion, English, and the content of schooling w ere of alien origins andof dubious relevance. Many colonial educators would readily have endorsed hisconclusion b ut the prob lem still rem ains for Phillipson and other critics w ho m ight w ishto portray the English language and the curriculum that accompanied it as the tools ofcultural imperialism to suggest how colonial education policy might have beenotherw ise, given African dem and s for schooling com parable to the me tropolitan mo deland the need then, as no w, for people to com mu nicate across state bou nda ries. Perhapswe need once more to heed the advice of the late Sir Keith Hancock,37 who warnedhistorians to steer clear of the term 'Imperialism' because the emotional echoes itaroused were too violent and too contradictory and it had no precise meaning.

35 J. M. Lee, Colonial Development an d Good Government (Oxford, 1967).36 Robert Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism (OUP, 1992).37 W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, Vol. 2 (OUP, 1940), 1.

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Documents

10 Whitehead