Chapter X.

A PERMANENT POLICY OF EDUCATION.
" Governors come and Governors go, and with each, there is a change of Policy. How do we know that the next Governor will not change Government's policy?" That is a remark that has been made more than once to me by Africans with some bewildering experience of the past.
In the long-ago changes of policy were no doubt so real and numerous as to justify the above remark, but since the closing years of the 19th century they have been more apparent than real. A definite policy is difficult to carry out with visible results when money is lacking ; a system of makeshift must prevail to a certain extent, and it is the makeshifts that are seen and not the policy behind them. But nowadays these make- shifts are steadily growing fewer; the West African colonies are growing wealthy; there is money to spend, thanks to the infinite patience and courage of the administrators of yesterday who guided their charges through the difficult days of poverty and fighting, and so laid the foundations of their present prosperity.
*****
With regard to the permanence of policy in education, I believe that the future is assured by the recent creation of an advisory committee, and I can wind up my booklet in no better way than to repeat what I said about this body when addressing the Legislative Council on the 6th March, 1924.
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" I am happy to announce that, after conferring with the Governors from East and West Africa and representa- tives of the British Mission Societies in June last, the Duke of Devonshire approved of the formation of an Advisory Committee on native education in the British Tropical African Dependencies. The object of this Committee is to advise the Secretary of State on any matters of native education which he may from time to time refer to them, and to assist in advancing the pro- gress of education in those Colonies and Protectorates.
" I cannot attempt to convey to Honourable Members the intense feeling of satisfaction which the formation of this Committee gave to those who are deeply interested in the welfare of the African races when they realised that education is in future to be conducted on a perma- nent policy. I shall always remember with deep gratitude, a gratitude in which the people of this country will in due course share, the keen, weighty, and sym- pathetic support lent to the formation of this Committee by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Honourable Sir Frederick Lugard, the Honourable William Ormsby-Gore, Mr. J. H. Oldham, and Dr. Jessei Jones. In the Advisory Committee we have a safeguard against the educational crank, and a body of men whose names guarantee that the welfare and progress of the native races will take precedence of all other considera- tions. Amongst them are the most prominent repre- sentatives of the highest and soundest thought on British education generally, while at least three have had an unrivalled experience of the requirements of native races.
*' The Committee, which will sit under tEe Chairman- ship of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, consist of: —
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The Right Reverend A. A. David, D.D., Bishop of Liverpool.
The Right Reverend Bishop Manual Bidwell.
The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Lugard, G.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O., the chief mover, in the foundation of Hong Kong University.
Sir Michael Sadler, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., the Master of University College, Oxford.
Sir James Currie, K.B.E., C.M.G., LL.D., the late Principal of the Gordon College, Khartoum, and Director of Education in Sudan.
Mr. J. H. Oldham, the Secretary of the Inter- national Missionary Council.
Sir Herbert Read, K.C.M.G., the Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Colonial Office,
The Hon. William Ormsby-Gore, M.P., late Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies.
" In addition the Committee has a paid Secretary in Major H. Yischer, C.B.E., M.A., formerly Director of Education in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria, an officer to whose knowledge and systematic handling of native educational questions I can bear testimony from personal experience. His duties will include paying visits to the Tropical African Dependencies as occasion, arises in order to be in a position to furnish the Com- mittee with first-hand information regarding local conditions, and to keep it in touch with the educational authorities in the Dependencies."
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