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

University 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 Colonial education: a case of cultural imperialism or enlightened paternalism? , History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, 24:1, 1-15 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0046760950240101

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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 WHITEHEAD University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth 6009, Western Australia

The colonial experience will long remain the subject of ongoing controversy because of its paradoxical or contradictory nature. Critics like Martin Carnoy2 have long argued that education was used as a means to perpetuate subservience through the promotion of a colonial mentality, but other scholars claim with equal conviction that western schooling promoted enlightenment and the growth of modern societies, even though the process was fraught with much uncertainty and confusion of purpose? As Professor D. K. Fieldhouse has stressed, having acquired an empire in India and elsewhere. Britain had little idea of what to do with it or any enlightened appreciation of the problems it would generate.4 In similar vein, it was the late Sir Christopher Cox, the long-serving Educational Adviser to the British Colonial Office, who remarked in 1956 that is was a formidable burden being responsible for the education of other peoples of very different stock scattered across the world. The responsibility had fallen to few peoples, and to none, he suggested, on quite such a scale as to the British.5 Many contemporary analyses of British colonial education policy are seemingly both prejudiced and often inaccurate in relation to the known facts. Moreover, many contemporary critics of British imperialism appear to approach the subject from a predetermined and polemical standpoint. Neo-Marxists, in particular, interpret imperial rule quite simply as the dominance of the weak by the strong. It follows therefore, that education was used to 'colonize' the indigenous intellect and thereby perpetuate British rule. The widespread use of the English language as the medium of instruction in schools, especially at the secondary level and beyond, is cited as a clear example of 'cultural dominance'. Nowhere is this argument advanced more forcibly than in the case of British rule in India. Macaulay' s celebrated Minute of 2 February 1835, which ended the controversy between Anglicists and Orientalists in favour of government funds being used in future exclusively to promote English-medium education, is widely quoted as the epitome of cultural imperialism.6 'We must at present' said Macaulay,

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1 A version of this paper was first presented in December 1993 at the annual conference of the Australia New 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: a synonym for cultural imperialism?', in J. A. Mangan, ed., Benefits Bestowed? Education and British Imperialism (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', in P, G. Altback and G. P. Kelly, Education and Colonialism (Longman, 53-68; and S. Nurullah and J. P. Naik, 1951), A History of Education in India (During the British Period), (Macmillan, 1980),
131-52. 0046-760X/95 $1000 1995 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

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'do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern: a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.' Quoted out of context Macaulay's comment lends strong support to the belief that the British sought to impose their culture on India in order to perpetuate their presence in the subcontinent, but a deeper appreciation of the full circumstances which led to Macaulay's statement suggests a far more complex scenario that is commonly portrayed.7 This is not the place to discuss the role of the English language in British education policy in India-the subject merits scholarly analysis in its own right-but it should be noted that the widespread use of English as the medium of instruction in Indian schools in the nineteenth century led to the emergence of a much maligned babu class, which became increasingly critical of the raj in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, it was the apparent shortcomings of education policy in India, including the indiscriminate use of English as the medium of instruction and its far-reaching political implications, that the British sought to redress in Africa after the First World War.8 This paper focuses specifically on the way in which the language issue was handled in British Africa in the years between the two world wars. The Indian experience was clearly uppermost in the minds of most colonial officials in Whitehall and in the outposts of empire but the fear of creating a class of unemployed, disaffected pseudointellectuals with nothing better to do than attack the government was not the only consideration which influenced policy. There were sound practical reasons for using English as the principal medium of instruction in many colonial territories, not the least of which was the ever growing demand from indigenous peoples themselves, but by the 1920s there was also a strong body of professional opinion that argued forcibly for the early years of schooling to be conducted in the vernacular as part of a wider belief that education should be adapted to the mentality, aptitudes, occupations and traditions of the various [indigeneous] people.9 The multiplicity of indigenous languages and dialects in many parts of Africa also raised what often seemed like insurmountable practical difficulties. British language policy in the colonial educational setting is often contrasted with that of the French who, in theory but not always in practice, vehemently upheld the importance of conducting all schooling in French from day one.10 British policy, by contrast, was characterized by Lord Hailey more as a series of improvizations which depended for success not on a logical outlook, but on the exercise of a traditional skill in accommodating principles to circumstances.11

7 For a most illuminating, but seemingly neglected account of Macaulay's celebrated Minute, see G. Sirkin and 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 Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa, the Chairman, W. A. G. Ormsby-Gore, referred to past mistakes in Indian education policy and the need to avoid repeating them in the shaping of African education policy. For more detail see my article, "The Advisory Committee on Education in the [British] Colonies 1924-1961', Paedagogica Historica XXVII, 3 (1991), pp. 385^21. 9 Author's emphasis. The phrase is taken from the White Paper, Education Policy in British Tropical Africa, Cmd. 2374 (HMSO 1925), 4. 10 French education policy in the interwar years is examined in W.B. Mumford and Major G.StJ Orde-Browne; Africans Learn to be French (London: Evans Bros, 1936); see also Lord Hailey, An African 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 Political Development (Princeton University Press, 1965), 75 91. 11 An African Survey (1938), 143.

The medium of instruction in colonial education

It was only after the First World War that the Colonial Office began to take a systematic interest in the development of education in the colonies. Until then the various Christian missions had been primarily responsible for providing the rudiments of schooling. Late in 1923, the Colonial Office established the Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa, which extended its brief in 1929 to include all the colonial empire.12 It had no executive powers-its primary purpose was to offer advice to the Secretary of State for the Colonies - but over the years it became a powerful influence in shaping the nature and content of colonial education. At no stage, however, did British colonial education policy ever consist of a series of directives emanating from Whitehall. Rather, as W. E. F. Ward, the former Deputy Educational Adviser in Whitehall once stated, British policy amounted to a broad agreement in thought between the Advisory Committee in London and educationalists working in the colonies.13 The Advisory Committee began its deliberations in January 1924 and soon addressed the language question. It became the common practice of the Committee in the interwar years to draw up an initial memorandum on a subject such as the medium of instruction and then to circulate it to the respective colonial governments for comment. Their responses were then incorporated, where appropriate, in a revised memorandum which might be printed for general or restricted distribution. In most instances memoranda emanating from the Advisory Committee outlined general principles, which were thought useful as a guide to policy but they were never meant to be binding on local governments. It was a cardinal feature of British colonial policy before the Second World War that each territory was an independent entity responsible for its own good government subject only to the paternal oversight of the Colonial Office in Whitehall. The deliberations of the Advisory Committee on the language question in the 1920s provide both an illuminating insight into contemporary thought on the topic and a useful example of how the Committee operated. The evidence collected by the Committee also sheds light on whether British colonial education policy was indeed a synonym for cultural dominance or whether it is more accurately described as a mixture of enlightened paternalism and traditional pragmatism. It was in April 1925, at the Committee's fourteenth meeting, that the Secretary and one-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 a British citizen in 1903. A gifted linguist, he was reputed to be fluent in no less than seven languages.15 The memorandum, which was subsequently circulated to all of Britain's Africa colonies some three months later, highlighted the value of the mother tongue as the medium of instruction, especially in the early years of schooling. Vischer quoted from

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12 For more detail on the work of the Advisory Committee, see "The Advisory Committee on Education in [British] Colonies 1924-1961', 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 Joint International Missionary Council/Conference of British Missionary Societies Archives. The archives have been microfiched. See The Joint IMCICBMS Missionary Archives Africa and India 1910-1945 (Inter Documentation Co. Ag, Switzerland, 1979). 15 S. F. Graham, Government and Mission Education in Northern Nigeria 1900-1919 (Ibadan University Press, 1966), 61-2.

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various sources to emphasize the point. The Imperial Education Conference, which met in London in 1923, had acknowledged that the language best known and understood by the child on his entry into school life is, from the educational point of view, the most effective medium for his instruction in the preliminary stages of education'. The report of the Calcutta University commission (1919) likewise stressed the primary importance of the mother tongue: 'A man's native speech is almost like his shadow, inseparable from his personality.... Hence in all education, the primary place should be given to training in the exact and free use of the mother tongue.' Vischer also cited Professor Westermann, a foremost authority on African languages:
By taking away a people* s language we cripple or destroy its soul and kill its mental individuality.... If the African is to keep and to develop his own soul and is to become a separate personality, his education must not begin by inoculating him with a foreign civilization... the vernacular... is the vessel 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 in Africa that likewise endorsed the importance of vernacular languages in schooling but which also argued against the indiscriminate adoption of all African dialects: 'In many colonies there is multiplicity of dialects spoken by small groups who are thus estranged from one another to the point of hostility'. On the basis of the best available evidence, the Advisory Committee drew up a list of provisional conclusions on which they invited comment. The first was that the mother tongue should be the basis and medium of all elementary education. It was recognized, however, that some small communities might need to adopt a regional language-such as Swahili in East Africa. Such languages were thought preferable to English because they were nearer 'to the mentality of the children'. It followed that skilful use of the vernacular should be emphasized in the training of teachers and also pride in its use. The place for the teaching of English was in the secondary school where, as a general rule, it should be taught only to pupils intending to continue their studies to a higher level. Finally, it was suggested that in the secondary school, as in the elementary, the vernacular should be the medium of instruction except in the highest classes.16 The only exceptions were the subjects English, which should be taught wholly in English, and science and mathematics, which might reach a point where it would be advisable to use English as the medium of instruction; The stance adopted by the Committee was in stark contrast with British policy in nineteenth-century India. There schooling, through the medium of English, had been allowed to proliferate unchecked on the grounds that is was the necessary vehicle of 'useful knowledge', which was needed for the modernization of a morally and economically bankrupt society.17 The first of the colonies to respond to the memorandum was Somaliland (November) some four months after the memorandum was circulated. The rapid response was due to the fact that the Acting Governor did not consider the document relevant given the current stage of educational development in the territory. This was a polite way of saying that there was no formal government provision for schooling in Somaliland in the late 1920s. The majority of the African colonies responded by June 1926, although Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland dragged their feet and did not communicate until November 1926 and April 1927 respectively. Such was the speed of communication in the days when it seemed that the British Empire would last forever! Brief comment on each of

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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 replies conveys the varied nature of the responses and the unique circumstances of each of the territories.18 J. C. Maxwell advised the Colonial Secretary, on the Governor's behalf, that the Gold Coast approved of the memorandum in principle but agreed that it was not possible to implement it in the light of existing practice which placed a high premium on the teaching of English at the elementary level. The Hon. Mr Casely-Hayford, an African lawyer and member of the Legislative Council, expressed strong support for English as the means of access to higher education and training: 'We have heard much about the Advisory Committee in England. Sometimes people seem to think that a peculiar kind of education will suit the Africans. We think that scheme of education which has helped other nations to rise to the height of their opportunity should not be barred to the African'. Maxwell agreed:
To attempt to displace English from its present position in elementary schools would be a very serious political mistake to make as well as an educational blunder. In fact it is one which would not be tolerated by the people of the Gold Coast... they are too much alive to the value of the knowledge of English to allow it to be superseded in the elementary schools as a medium of instruction.

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Maxwell also pointed to the fact that English was the only language used in the West African colonies that had a literature19 and that it would doubtless long remain the official language of administration. He also drew the Advisory Committee's attention to language policy in the United Kingdom by citing the fact that it was English that was taught in the elementary schools in the Scottish Highlands, Wales and Cornwall, rather than the Celtic vernaculars. He emphasized the fact that English was the pathway to a wider intellectual life, not just in India, but also in West Africa. He claimed that there was too much emphasis in the memorandum on small village schools. More importance should have been given to elementary schools in large centres. There it was essential to teach English from the beginning of schooling and for it to be the medium of instruction in most subjects at both elementary and secondary schools. It would be impossible, he claimed, to confine English to the secondary schools. As his Director of Education remarked, there were only two such schools in the colony with a total enrolment of 242 pupils. To follow the advice outlined in the memorandum would virtually eliminate English from the education system! Maxwell did not deny the importance of vernacular languages but to emphasize them at the expense of English would, 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 embodied a greater emphasis on vernaculars, had already engendered discontent in the colony amongst Africans. D. J. Oman, the Director of Education, drew attention to the numerous practical problems raised by the policy outlined in the memorandum. There was an acute shortage of vernacular teachers and vernacular texts, and the ever growing physical mobility of the population, especially the move to the towns, made the choice of a vernacular as the suitable medium of instruction almost impossible. Moreover, trying to force languages on people against their will could lead to serious political trouble. Other
18 Subsequent quotations and comments are derived from documents contained in the 'Vernacular' file in Box 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 who taught at Achimota College during the interwar years, stated that as a result of the work of German missionaries, the complete Bible was in print in some Gold Coast languages, including Twi, Ga and probably Ewe. To that extent, there was an African literature. Personal correspondence with the author, November 1993.

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practical problems included teacher training and secondary schooling. The teachers' colleges drew their students from a variety of language areas and most staff were English-speaking expatriates. Secondary schools likewise drew their pupils from as many as six different language areas. To establish district vernacular secondary schools would be prohibitively expensive and lead to the creation of an elite English-speaking class cut off from the rest of the people. While Oman sympathized in theory with the Advisory Committee's wish to use vernaculars as the media of instruction in secondary schools, he considered that the practical application of the principle in the Gold Coast presented so many difficulties that to insist on it in the present generation would only result in delaying the progress of the African for the sake of a theory. He also highlighted the overwhelming commercial demand for competency in English. Alek Fraser, the recently appointed Principal of Achimota College, strongly supported the memorandum in principle but drew attention to the practical difficulties outline by Oman. There was a long tradition of English teaching in the Gold Coast and it was not possible to cut it off: "The Africans have to pay the piper in education, and they 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 thought the analogy with India hardly applied as the major Indian languages all had their own literature. He referred the memorandum to his Board of Education for detailed comment. The Board highlighted various political and practical problems but avoided any final statement. Instead, the various mission heads expressed separate opinions. In general, they all supported the principle of using vernacular languages in the early stages of schooling but all insisted on the need for English beyond Standard IV. The Reverend B. Lasbrey, Bishop of the Niger, emphasized the strong African demand for English schooling 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 is justified; if the purpose is to train trustworthy men to raise the tone of village communities, the neglect of the vernacular does not contribute to that end. The neglect of the vernacular tends to make a boy despise his own language, undermines his self-respect and leads to a feeling of pride and superiority over the elders of the town.

The Reverend W. A. J. Gardiner thought the proposals were 20 years too late. The African demand for English was irreversible. The Reverend H. W. Stacey was even more to the point:
We cannot go dead against the desires of the people whether they are wise or not. The Africans fear that the object of the proposals is to make them 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' and that the proposals would slam the door of opportunity afforded by English in their faces.

Further practical problems raised by Stacey and others included the inadequacy of most vernacular languages. Stacey, for example, commented that Yoruba was poor for geography and impossible for mathematics teaching.20 There was also wide agreement that an emphasis on vernacular schooling would enhance African tribal disunity, result
20 Ward disputes this statement, claiming that the British often mistook a language for a dialect. To the best of his knowledge no one has ever drawn up a comprehensive list, based on scholarly research, of all 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 600-900 languages in British Colonial Africa, of which 100 were already in use as the medium of instruction'. Personal correspondence, op. cit.

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in poor teaching of English, create a privileged minority who could speak English, and encourage the growth of pidgin English as a lingua franca. The Reverend J. K. Macgregor, Principal of the Hope-Waddell Training Institution, was especially forthright in his criticism:
The memorandum proposes a policy that is not desired by the people, that will upset the work of every Government Department and of every commercial firm and will cut the life of Nigeria off from the main current of the life of the world. The adoption of these proposals would establish Broken English as the lingua franca of West Africa.

In the case of Sierra Leone, the Acting Governor, H. C. Luke, drew attention to the great variety of tribes and languages found in the comparatively small area of the territory. This was a legacy from the days when Sierra Leone had been a haven for freed slaves. The 1921 Census listed no less than 12 different tribes each with its own language. In the circumstances, Luke suggested that English was the only practical lingua franca for which there was overwhelming African support: 'Although local educational opinion displays on the subject of vernacular education a considerable measure of divergence, even those most keenly in favour of it would admit that what the natives are clamouring for is English'. Moreover, he informed the Advisory Committee that Africans had advised the Director of Education that if the vernacular was forced on them they would refuse to send their children to school. Luke sympathized with the theory behind the memorandum but saw insurmountable difficulties in implementing it in Sierra Leone. Evidently he had talked about the problem with Hanns Vischer personally, and they had agreed that Sierra Leone was a particularly difficult case. In the Gambia, the fourth of the West African colonies, there was general agreement that the vernacular should be the basis of elementary education but equally strong support for the teaching of English at the earliest opportunity. The Reverend C. B. Cotton was adamant about the need to start English at an early stage of schooling: 'If a modern or imperial language is omitted from the curriculum the mass of natives must be deprived of modern thought and enlightment, and even of self-improvement to any appreciable extent'. There was much mingling of the native races, especially in Bathurst, which made the choice of a vernacular medium of instruction very difficult. As Sam J. Foster, an African, Oxford-educated barrister and member of the Gambia Legislative Council remarked, it was an impossible task to select one vernacular language in a heterogenous town like Bathurst. J. Meehan, the Roman Catholic Superintendent of Education, remarked, 'This [memorandum] looks all right in theory, but I doubt if it will ever work in practice'. The paucity of vernacular textbooks and the time and cost that would be involved in translating books into vernacular languages were also stressed. British East Africa included Zanzibar, Kenya, Nyasaland, Somaliland, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia and the newly acquired League of Nations' Mandate, the former German territory of Tanganyika. The responses were similar to those from West Africa although the widespread use of Swahili as a regional language cut across many territorial boundaries. The popular use of Swahili was highlighted by Donald Cameron, the Governor of Tanganyika, and S. Rivers-Smith, his Director of Education. The latter claimed that to insist on the use of the mother tongue would set back the clock of progress for many tribes:
The vast majority of African dialects.. .must be looked upon as educational cul de sacs [sic].... From a purely educational standpoint the decent interment of the vast majority of African dialects is to be desired, as they can never give the tribal unit access to any but a very limited literature...

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Rivers-Smith also stressed the important link between language policy and economic growth. 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 handicap under which he will always be at a disadvantage when compared with others who, on account of geographical distribution or by means of education, are able to hold intercourse with Europeans or Asiatics...

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At the same time, he believed that the forcing of English on Africans would do irreparable harm to Africa: 'Our work is to evolve a better type of African, to develop pari passu the development of Africa, but still an African'. In that process African language was essential to being an African. In the future, Rivers-Smith believed that Swahili would undoubtedly become the parent language of Central Africa. It would gradually de-tribalize the natives but not de-nationalize them as would the spread of English. He rejected the proposal to restrict the teaching of English on the grounds that there was no secondary schooling in Tanganyika nor 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 took the brightest pupils from surrounding elementary schools. As elsewhere, Rivers-Smith also outlined in detail the many practical difficulties involving teachers, their training and the availability of textbooks in any widespread adoption of vernaculars as media of instruction. G. B. Johnson, the Acting Director of Education in Zanzibar, expressed the dilemma facing 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 education which must ever be the development of all that is best within, and not the imposition of exotic forms of thought from without. Yet the education of the African must follow the path of progress in modern thought and enlightment and this necessitates to a considerable extent the adoption of Western ideals in many of the practical features of life.

He likewise expressed a concern shared by most officials about the socio-political implications 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 waste of money, time and energy: at the end of such a period the boy has not gained a practical working knowledge of the language. On the other hand, he has acquired, in most cases, a very much inflated opinion of his commercial value, together with a distaste for manual occupations, and a feeling that he would suffer a social degradation by being engaged in them.

Johnson also strongly opposed the use of English as the medium of instruction at the secondary level because it resulted in very slow progress. It was, he said, a practice which seemed to him to be indefensible. The use of Swahili as a lingua franca was generally acknowledged but Father Grollemund was at pains to point out that language was the expression of the very soul of a people: 'To ask a people to sacrifice its language is to ask it to sacrifice its soul'. He also claimed that attempts to replace African languages with a foreign language had failed in the past. The result was invariably a mongrel language or a mongrel native. Theodore Burtt, another missionary likewise warned against the tendency to convert the African into a 'Black European'. In Uganda there was agreement between the Governor, his Director of Education and the three main missions that elementary schooling should be initiated in the local vernacular before the introduction of a regional language. They were equally united,

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however, in rejecting the Advisory Committee's suggestion that the vernacular should be used at the secondary level. As E. R. J. Hussey, the Director of Education, remarked, 'when the secondary stage of education is reached the vernacular should be thrown overboard as the medium of instruction [in favour of English]'. Unless this policy was followed he believed that it would be difficult to achieve a high enough standard of English 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 be treated as subjects rather than the medium of instruction. In neighbouring Kenya, where it was claimed that some 30 dialects were spoken,21 there was strong support for the widespread use of Swahili as the main medium of instruction. I. R. Orr, the Director of Education, emphasized the use of Swahili as an administrative device amongst the varied tribes. For example, the government newspaper was published in Swahili. Within the school system, the first government examination was conducted in the vernacular with English and Swahili as optional subjects. Thereafter all examinations were in English with Swahili as an optional subject. Like Hussey, Orr stressed the need for an early start to the teaching of English if it was to be learned thoroughly enough to use as the medium of instruction beyond Standard IV. The Reverend G. A. Grieve commented that to confine the teaching of English to the secondary schools would be quite 'impractical, unpopular, and difficult to enforce'. Africans would undoubtedly find means outside the schools to satisfy their thirst for English. Moreover, the core of the secondary school curriculum consisted of English, science, and mathematics which were all best taught through the medium of English. To postpone the teaching of English until the secondary stage seemed an obvious backward step. Amongst the missionaries there were some conflicting views. W. Scott Dickson and Miss M. S. Stevenson both advocated restricting the use of English 'for most Kikuyu at the present stage of progress teaching English is a waste of time'. They likewise believed that English should be introduced as early as possible for a select few - 'to teach in 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 of instruction from the earliest opportunity because it was not merely an instrument of livelihood but the pathway to a wider intellectual life. The Reverend J. Brittan was an equally forthright advocate of English. He claimed that all vernaculars suffered by comparison with English:
African mother tongues must ultimately decline. Efforts to foster them may retard the process but I do not think they can prevent it... The more progressive in all the tribes are already beginning to feel themselves handicapped by the lack of English...industrial development will more and more force the native to recognise the handicap and lead him to conclude that where government and business 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 more and more as a lingua franca. But when I was set to translate Plato into Twi, I found that Twi had an abstract vocabulary which was being squeezed out by English. I think we had eight Twi words for 'justice' of various kinds....'. Ward also recalls marking Twi Cambridge Overseas School Certificate examination papers together with an African colleague. At one point his African colleague jumped from his chair and exclaimed, 'Who can this candidate be? He or she is writing the real old Twi which you hardly ever hear 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 by the will to build a literature. Personal correspondence, op. cit

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He too, supported an early start to the use of English in schools: 'a chief cause of failure to master English is the late stage at which it has been introduced'. If mathematics and science 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 widespread knowledge of English because of the multiplicity of dialects, As the Governor, H. J. Stanley, remarked, 'We cannot wholly ignore the wishes and aspirations of the natives themselves, and I am not at all sure that fundamentally those wishes are not based on a sound instinct'. English had an obvious economic and survival value. E. S. B. Tagart, the Secretary for Native Affairs, supported the teaching of English as early as possible on the grounds that to withhold it might provoke trouble. P. E. Hall, the Acting Secretary for Native Affairs, stated, 'There is such a determination to learn English, that to attempt to withhold it after the earliest stages involves a constant, even if unexpressed, conflict of will between teacher and taught....' G. A. Latham, the Acting Director of Native Education, likewise expressed great enthusiasm for the spread of English. To restrict it to the secondary stage was too late. Not only did Northern Rhodesia not have any secondary schools but 'To leave English out of the curriculum would take much of the interest out of education for most natives and.. .undoubtedly create discontent and a feeling that the Government was withholding something from them for sinister purposes of its own'. B. H. Barnes thought the memorandum was far too timid. It highlighted the importance of English as the key to literature, science and thought but then restricted its use in practice. 'Are we afraid of education?' he asked. The Reverend C. H. Leeke was even more forthright. He thought the memorandum was 'to idealistic' and 'too late'. The Africans were already acquiring a knowledge of English and adopting European ways. Moreover, the need for a common language in Central Africa, for example, Swahili, cut at the roots of most of what the memorandum said about the necessity to retain the mother tongue. He concluded his remarks by saying, 'I consider the Memorandum so skilfully worded as to be at first sight convincing [but practical problems] make the policy set forth too idealistic and absolutely impracticable'. The best solution, in his opinion, was to teach English and 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 in principle 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 English seemed to be general and increasing in all the tropical African colonies and should be met by instruction in English in the upper standards of the elementary schools. He also mentioned the lack of literatures in vernacular languages: 'For the educated African quite 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 Dutch Reformed Church.
If the African native is to remain African, and develop as an African, and not become a parody of the European, his education must, to as large an extent as possible, be given in his mother tongue.... If he is to be himself and develop as an African he must be helped to respect what is good in his tradition.

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They also claimed that the practical difficulties of manifold dialects were not insuperable. By instructing the Africans in their own language they would be kept in mental touch with their own land, people and village environment. The missionary archives 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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Advisory Committee, dated 30 June 1926. Scott was then the Director of Education in the Transvaal. Later he would become Director of Education in Kenya [1928-35] before retiring to Britain and becoming a leading figure on the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies. Scott explained to Oldham how the economic and social life of the native and the European were interwoven in South Africa and of the native determination to learn English. If English was not taught in the schools, he said, they would close for lack of children. To postpone the teaching of English until the secondary stage would mean cutting it out altogether because the average length of schooling was so short. In a somewhat resigned mood he concluded by saying, 'I suppose this craving for the white man's wisdom is natural and irresistible...'. The responses to the memorandum confirmed the varied approaches and attitudes held towards the use of English and vernacular languages in colonial schools in Africa in the late 1920s. On the basis of the responses, Oldham and Lord Lugard drafted a revised memorandum which drew extensively on much of the evidence reviewed in this paper but the Advisory Committee subsequently pruned the draft to a more acceptable length. On one point the Advisory Committee made a significant amendment to the initial draft. Lugard and Oldham had suggested that the primary object of the memorandum was to suggest 'a general policy for adoption in the present phase of education in Africa'22 which they believed to represent a wide consensus of competent opinion. This was amended to read that the primary object was to suggest, 'in the light of the opinions received from Africa, some of the lines of policy for adoption in the present phase of education in Africa' P The rewording was clearly less prescriptive and more in keeping with that aspect of British colonial policy which sought broad agreement in thought between officials in Whitehall and those at the periphery of empire. Colonies were still free to decide on education policy in the light of local conditions. The main purpose of the memorandum was not to dictate any specific policy but to offer guidance, where it was needed, in grappling with the often complex problems of native education. The revised draft of the memorandum was finally approved by the Colonial Office for distribution to colonial governments in May 1927.24 It contained a fair summary of the arguments contained in the responses to the original memorandum but it also retained 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 more skilful class-teaching in a vernacular, and the enshrining of local tradition in a vernacular of which the African can be proud, may, in some cases, have to be postponed, though never abandoned. The demand for Africans who can speak and write English really well, for every kind of technician, skilled artisan, 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 well as the higher aim of opening up access to English literature and development, it will not gain the necessary African support. If, on the other hand, those who are being thus taught are to remain in touch with their communities and become in any true sense the leaders of their people, it is an essential part of their education that they should be able to reproduce and express in the vernacular the new knowledge of which they are the privileged recipients.

Nowhere in the evidence placed before the Advisory Committee is there any overt suggestion that the Colonial Office had any predetermined wish to dominate, subvert,

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

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or control the minds of Africans or any other indigenous peoples for that matter. Indeed, the evidence suggests quite the reverse. Most colonial educators were forever mindful in the 1920s of the potentially disruptive impact ofEuropean civilization on African tribal life and equally anxious to mitigate the worst excesses of economic exploitation. But Africans were not passive recipients of change. They were equally attracted to the material benefits of western civilization and soon realized both the economic and political importance of knowing how to speak and write in English. Western commercialism and learning both contributed to the breakdown of traditional African tribal society but they also opened up new vistas and ways of life for African people. In the final analysis it is probably true to say that the English language, which embodied the rule of law, respect for personal freedom, and the knowledge of modern science and philosophy, contributed as much as any other single factor to the eventual demise of colonialism. The British were certainly not cultural imperialists in the French tradition, insisting on the use of English from day one of a child's schooling and exalting the worth of British culture above all others. It is true, however, that British colonial education policy was 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 vernacular in native education no specific request was made for African opinion. In almost every instance the governor or his representative consulted Europeans about 'native policy' and it was their thoughts, not those of Africans, that were conveyed back to Whitehall. In retrospect, however, what seems to emerge most clearly in British colonial education is the absence of any common policy save for the loose adherence to several general principles such as the importance of voluntary effort in the provision of schooling and an abhorrence of rigid conformity, whether it be towards the school curriculum or the structure of schooling. In theory, French colonial education policy was renowned for its uniform structure and conformity to basic principles. British policy, by contrast, seemed more often to be a genuine mix of enlightened paternalism laced with a liberal dose of pragmatism. Nowhere was this more clearly illustrated than over the language issue in African education in the 1920s. The language issue resurfaced in July 1929, soon after the Advisory Committee had been reconstituted to include all British colonies in its purview. Arthur Mayhew, the new joint secretary, produced a memorandum on bilingual education, ostensibly in response to the growing popular demand, evident in all colonies, for a knowledge of English.25 Mayhew made no attempt to outline a specific policy. Instead, he highlighted the main issues needing to be considered by colonial administrators as they grappled with the issue. He emphasized the growing need everywhere for knowledge of a second language for purely practical reasons while equally endorsing the supreme importance of the mother-tongue. He also stressed how language policy was highly dependent on political, religious and economic considerations. Bilingualism was a subject keenly discussed, he wrote, 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 Michael Sadler, to examine Mayhew's document in greater detail. Eventually, after various redrafts, it was circulated in 1930, to colonial governments and 'bodies with expert

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25 A copy of the memorandum is included in the file marked 'Language Teaching' in Box 223, IMC/CBMS Archives.

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knowledge of the subject'. By then it had been renamed A Preliminary Memorandum on the Aims and Methods of Language Teaching in the Colonies26 and included a questionnaire which sought greater information on language policies in each of the colonies. It was clearly stated that no general linguistic policy was thought possible or even desirable but the Advisory Committee did think that much could be learned from the experience of others 'even if the conditions are so different as to give no basis for universally applicable conclusions'. Two reports were subsequently compiled based on the replies to the questionnaire from both the African and non-African territories.27 As might have been expected, the African report indicated that practice was mostly in line with the 1927 memorandum discussed earlier in this paper. It was also noted that the replies said little regarding ultimate aims 'indicating a natural reluctance to define too precisely a linguistic policy which must depend to some extent on the further development of the colony, economic or otherwise'. Of more interest was the report on the non-African colonies because it highlighted the immense variety of circumstances and policies adopted and the sheer futility 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 oriental languages with their own extensive literatures and long-standing cultural traditions; The Western Pacific (Fiji, etc.) where English had to be considered in relation to vernaculars with no literature or 'important cultural traditions'; 28 The Mediterranean Colonies and Palestine where English existed alongside other European languages; and The Tropical Colonies (Mauritius, Seychelles, British Honduras and West Indies) where English existed alongside local patois or other European languages. Both reports were factual rather than prescriptive. The Advisory Committee approved them both in 1931 and submitted them to the Colonial Secretary for general circulation but there is no record thereafter that they ever left the Colonial Office. Practical problems and the circumstances of the local environment clearly dictated a policy of expediency. Moreover, there would have been no means to enforce any alternative. In the late 1930s, Lord Hailey remarked that among the many problems of Africa, none had attracted more discussion and, indeed, more controversy than the type of 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 the British with its wide latitude in local practice and heavy reliance on voluntary schools over which the government assumed, in practice, little or no direction.30 Language policy in British colonies clearly provided a classic example of what Hailey described as the 'exercise of a traditional skill in accommodating principles to circumstances'. As such, it hardly constituted a blueprint for cultural imperialism although it certainly provided scope for the exercise of a degree of enlightened paternalism. In the final analysis, however, it seems most likely that Hailey's description was a euphemism for British expediency or for what cynics might colloquially refer to as 'muddling through'.

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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 contrast with the culture of India and the Far East. 29 An African Survey (1938), 1208. 30 Ibid. 1209.

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It is noteworthy, however, that pragmatic as British language policy may have been, there was no dramatic shift in emphasis after the colonies gained their independence. English remained, and in some instances, as in Nkrumah's Ghana, reinforced its pivotal role throughout the schools and institutions of higher education. In Chinese-dominated Singapore, English was not only retained as the language of government and commerce, but Cambridge-educated Lee Kuan Yew also chose to retain close links between Singaporean schools and the British 'A' level examinations to ensure that his country remained on the educational gold standard. Elsewhere, notably in neighbouring Malaysia, the vernacular was given pride of place throughout the education system but only at considerable cost to educational standards and international comparability. Postscript H. S. Scott re-examined the language issue in the context of African schooling in the early 1940s but after an extensive survey he endorsed the general position adopted in 1927.31 By then, however, the African demand for English was fast becoming universal and threatening to get out of hand. Early in 1943, Christopher Cox, the newly appointed Educational Adviser to the Colonial Office, visited Nyasaland where it had long been policy to restrict the teaching of English to a small minority of Africans. As a consequence there was growing discontent amongst Africans led by the rising young nationalist politician Charles Matinga. Cox sought an informed opinion on the matter from Dr Margart Read, a leading social anthropologist and acting head of the Colonial Department at the University of London's Institute of Education. 'It seems to me', she wrote:
...that where you have widespread literacy in the vernacular and do not teach English widely, you are cooking up a powerful explosive.32 This seems so obvious that I can't see how everyone doesn't see it! It is not only a question of teaching English in the schools. Those who can read English need access to books and papers in libraries, and they want to hear English spoken round them... I know that English is regarded partly as an economic asseta means to a better job, but that is by no means all the truth. It is only the superficial aspect of the demand for English, but the one most stressed by 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 Matinga, have most influence on their fellows. They need a universal medium of communication with Africans speaking other venaculars, and still more on their travels, they want the chance of reading and hearing other English points of view. The lack of opportunity to learn English appears to them as a deliberate attempt to 'keep them down', and itjust feeds the general suspicion about the government's intentions in the economic and political spheres?3 I think that English ought to be introduced as a subject in Standard 1 everywhere and that teachers should be trained to teach it on [sic] modern methods-I am quite convinced that only when Africans speak and read English with ease and appreciation of its literature, do you get any real flowering of vernacular literature.... In other words, this exalting of their language must be of their volition, and as long as we try to confine them to their own language we appear in their eyes to be denying them the true path to learning - the one wefollowed ourselves.

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Margaret Read's comments reflected the change in attitude that was occurring in official circles by the 1940s. When colonial governments first took a systematic interest in education after the First World War officials were still strongly influenced by the Indian experience 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 Colonial Office' 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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Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa, held in January 1924, it was no accident that the Chairman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, W. A. G. Ormsby-Gore, warned of the need to avoid making the same mistakes in Africa as has been committed in India. Throughout the interwar years colonial educators struggled 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 prolonged economic depression of the 1930s, coupled with the fact that scarce financial resources were channelled into the building of roads, railways, harbours etc. rather than into the provision of social services contributed to the slow rate of educational progress. At the same time, it is important to note the relatively rapid pace of socio-economic change in African colonies, especially in the 1930s, which resulted in a growing demand for English as highlighted by Margaret Read. It was against this backdrop that educators struggled with the need to square what often seemed like conflicting educational theory with practical expediency. Official sources certainly do not support the view that colonial schooling in British colonies in the interwar years was dictated by a deliberate policy of cultural imperialism but colonial administration was most certainly motivated by the concept of 'good government'35 or what might more accurately be described as enlightened paternalism. Unfortunately the meaning of enlightment remains open to various interpretations. It is increasingly difficult now for the present generation to appreciate fully the mind-set of both the rulers and the ruled of some 60 years or more ago. In hindsight it is easy to condemn past policies but it is surely incumbent on those of us who seek to understand the past to ask what viable options were open to officials at the time. In an important recent study with the provocative title Linguistic Imperialism?6 Robert Phillipson traces the rise of English as the world's dominant language. In doing so, he examines British colonial schooling and concludes that both the dominant language of education, English, and the content of schooling were of alien origins and of dubious relevance. Many colonial educators would readily have endorsed his conclusion but the problem still remains for Phillipson and other critics who might wish to portray the English language and the curriculum that accompanied it as the tools of cultural imperialism to suggest how colonial education policy might have been otherwise, given African demands for schooling comparable to the metropolitan model and the need then, as now, for people to communicate across state boundaries. Perhaps we need once more to heed the advice of the late Sir Keith Hancock,37 who warned historians to steer clear of the term 'Imperialism' because the emotional echoes it aroused were too violent and too contradictory and it had no precise meaning.

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35 J. M. Lee, Colonial Development and 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.