NEGRO DREAM REALISED

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1926, Page 9

NEGRO DREAM REALISED

ALL BLACK VARSITY WILL OPEN. London, Sept. 16. January 1 next will be a red-letter day in the history of the Gold Coast. Off" that day the doors of a college set in an estate of four square miles on a hill overlooking the West African city of Accra, will be thrown open to native students. It will be the beginning of the realisation of an ardent negro dream, a university where the 'black man will teach his own culture to his own people. Tho name of Achiinoto—the lull where the college is being built—already echoes like a magic sound wherever educated Africans gather. Aehiiuota is to bo the mainspring of a peaceful revolution, not just a university, but the keystone of a farseeing Government . scheme of education which includes colleges, secondary schools, elementary schools, and kindergarten throughout the length and breadth of the colony.

Everywhere they will be stalled by West African teachers, engrossed in developing a new and higher civilisation for their country. The immediate and practical object of the new university is to produce teachers and leaders for this sublimation of African nationality. For this high purpose the world h>iiS been searched for a staff of professors and tutors specially suited to the task. Dr. A. G. Fraser, a Scotch professor, who did sixteen years’ hard educational work in Ceylon, and thoroughly understands tho yearnings of coloured peoples, was appointed princ.pal some time ago. The assembling of the staff was placed in hi liaiids, and he lias secured the co-operation of Dr. J. E. K. Aggi-ey-, a brilliant native professor who has accepted the post of vice-principal. Dr. Aggrey belongs to a leading Gold Coast family of the Fanti tribe, and is himself a chief. He lias wide academical distinctions and a, world-

renown as a negro educationist. For th© moment is is the only native member of the staff. Dr. Fraser, Dr. Aggrey and some twenty-five other professors and teachers are at present hard at work, preparing for the opening of the college. They are closely studying native languages and institutions, the lore and customs of tho Gold Coast, its history and music, its people’s aims and ideals. On their shoulders will fail the vital responsibility of standardising the language and producing the first native text-books. Their task, too, will be to express

in educational form the West African’s philosophy and outlook on life. All the advantages of .European training and civilisation will be at hand, but the essential object is not to Europeanise the African, but to assist him to stand on. liis own feet in the higher realms of life. To this end the English tongue will be “a subject” in the Achimota curriculum. Tho students will be taught in their own vernacular and not in English. Coincident with the establishment of tho university “bush schools.“ which have sprung up all over the Gold Coast with unfortunate results,

———————— are to bo abolished. Away in tho bush, boys and young men who have secured a mere smattering of tlie English tongue and the “three R’s” masquerade as teachers and start native schools. Extracting high fees from ignorant natives, the unqualified “teachers” hand to tl.eir students a little “pidgin English” and often mischievous ideas of European life and customs. By January 1 next, however, all teachers in the colony must bo registered. “Bush schools” will be illegal, and those attempting to tench without propc- oiuiliflcations will be gradually ell