Godkin Lecture Series at Harvard University; Sir Eric Ashby

From Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. The 1964 Godkin lectures. This is the last of the three addresses. Bice or Eric Ashby. Master of Clare College Cambridge University. African universities and western tradition is the subject of this year's Godkin lectures. The topic of this final address is African nationalism confronts the universities. So Eric will be introduced by Carl Kazan associate dean of the faculty of Public Administration Harvard University. Ladies and gentleman. Tonight. Eric Ashby completes his series of Godkin like Cheers from 1964. On the problems of African university education. It is sometimes said and with justice. That the scholarship of today is

increasingly specialized. And that scholar. Finds it harder to communicate with scholars. But in the equally increasing. Application of scholarship. To practical life. The reverse. Trend is to be observed. The problems increasingly. Cross the boundaries of traditional disciplines. The structure. And arrangements of education. Once a problem left to the philosopher on the one hand. Perhaps to the psychologist on the other. Has become the concern of The Economist. The Politician. The sociologist. The administrator.

Today we think of education. As a prime. Kind. Of investment. And. In looking. At the problems of the developing countries. That kind of capital which seems most needed. Is educational. Rather than material. Capital. It is fitting then. That we should be hearing about the problems of education in the developing countries from one who has crossed. All the lines of. Discipline. And activity scientist. Scholar. Academic administrator advisor to governments statesman. Thank you. It'll be.

With the German ladies and gentlemen. Those of you who have been patient enough to keep company with me through these lectures despite the weather have heard our British export policy for universities in Africa has been built up for since World War 2. And then yesterday you had to how to exported universities one in Ghana and one in Nigeria have developed. Up to the time of their country's independence. And tonight we come back to my theme. Which is that universities. Like plants and animals must adapt themselves to a new climate. If they are to survive. Adaptation is a response to pressures from the environment. If an organism. Or an institution is too inflexible for adaptation then it dies.

And also if it's too responsive. If it capitulates to every current and eddy in the environment then it too is likely to die. So let us tonight observe the political and social pressures in West Africa as they play upon the universities. And the responses of the university to these pressures and I begin as I began my first lecture with a quotation this time from an editorial in the Lagos Daily Times. This is the quotation. We cannot embrace the technological and reject the cultural implications of Western civilization. We must involve ourselves in both. But in this process we are in danger of losing altogether as the American Negro in different circumstances has lost all sympathy with the basic culture of our society. Now these words reflect the ambivalent public attitude of Africans toward the British pattern of higher

education. On the one hand. To have institutions as similar as possible to the best to be found in Britain on the other hand. The fear that these very institutions would destroy the foundations of their society. Ever since the colleges opened their doors in Garner in Nigeria. That has scarcely been a week without comment in the West African press about higher education over some issues like academic standards Africanized mission of staff the content of curriculum the control of universities by the state. There's been a running debate for 15 years. To follow the course of this debate is to watch African nationalism confronting the British academic heritage in the book which has been made out of these lectures. I have analyzed in some detail and with a good many references. The public attitudes toward these matters. All I can do in this lecture tonight is to give you

a very brief summary of this analysis. And in making this summary analysis let us follow the anatomy of universities. As I've already used it in the last two lectures. Thinking of the Constitution of the curricula and of the relations between the universities and society. And this time I want to begin with academic standards. Now over academic standards the debate in Africa is overwhelmingly in favor of preserving the British academic heritage from time to time that a murmurs of complaint in the press. There's very little point wrote one critic. There's very little point in basing our agriculture costs on an imaginary universal or even British Standard. A standard in education is high enough when it can adequately serve the needs of the community for which it's designed. And then another one wrote the obsession of

satisfying London examination requirements is too great for this college and other critics often disgruntled contributors to the correspondence columns make the point that the standards of Abadan across our must obviously be unnecessarily high. Because students who fail to get admission to these two places go to American or British universities and graduate successfully. And in particular are Nigerians who had degrees from American universities were critical of the rigorous entrance requirements and the high standards imposed on West African universities through their affiliation to the University of London. Now all these assaults on standards were vigorously repulsed by editorials in speeches by African intellectuals and even in pronouncements by political leaders. The suggestion that Nigeria should look to Egypt for a pattern of higher education

which was made a few years ago with easy entrance and enormous glasses was rejected with contempt in the editorials of the Lagos Daily Times. And advocates until a few years ago of an American type university met with similar opposition. When doctors equally was a present president of the Republic of Nigeria some years ago wrote in favor of a land grant college idea of for Nigeria and said he hoped that a university on these lines would be built in Nigeria. The headline in the newspaper in Lagos the next morning not his own but one of the other ones was Zik once yanked style university at cut rates. And then the article proceeded to defend the standards are to bad. But in the end of thorough TD in the August persons of doctors equal himself who did found his American type university and I'm going to talk about it in a

few moments. Then doctors are set their seal on this policy in the prospectus to the University of Nigeria doctors equally as chancellor assures the public that high standards will be maintained. And Doc turn chroma speaking after his installation as Chancellor of the newly created University of Ghana said. By the attainment of university status I trust that both the lecturers and the students of the college have accepted the challenge to maintain the high academic standards already set. And so throughout tropical Africa you find a similar climate of opinion about standards. London guaranteed unstabilized the academic standards of degrees for Ghana and Nigeria are the Sudan and Uganda. And London's guarantee has been willingly accepted and gratefully acknowledged. Paris and Bordeaux guaranteed standards in

Senegal and Senegal responded by asking only a fortnight after independence for deca our university to be adopted as the 18th University of France. Lovano still guarantees standards of the university in Leopoldville and African nationalism so far has exerted no pressure upon the universities to cheapen their degrees. Now let's turn to the delicate question of African izing the staff of African universities. Consider the question as it appears through African eyes. Africa is utterly dependent on her graduates to lead that continent into the age of technology. The universities have become in Dr MCR words the focus of national life reflecting the social economic cultural and political aspirations of the people. And yet these same universities. Were not only insisting on

being treated as autonomous corporations financed by the state and yet claiming exemption from state control. Worse than that. Decision making on academic matters was in the hands of Senates composed almost exclusively of expectorate constantly looking to Britain for advice and guidance. In Abadan for instance that independence only three out of 30 members of the Senate were Nigerians. Academic and even administrative appointments were made only after consultation with a body sitting in London and composed of Representatives of British universities. And so it's no wonder up the chief a world of world speaking at an action group Congress in Calabar said this. Our political independence would be a sham. If the control of much of our intellectual life remains in foreign hands and the policy of Abadan is influenced by bodies established outside the

country. And doctors equally at the Foundation Day ceremony are to badan in 1061. Declared that there is no need for us to be running helter skelter a brawl begging for experts to come and guide us when we have indigenous experts law in Nigeria. Well unfortunately there are not indigenous experts good law in Nigeria nor will there be for a generation yet. But we mustn't expect this indigestible effect to bring comfort to Africa as they inevitably feel as you would feel in Cambridge Massachusetts if 60 percent of your faculty were British or as we might feel in Cambridge England if even less than 60 percent of our faculty are. White America. And so. The official policy of. Public Statement the party line. Have to be for the replacement of expats in

universities by Africans. But. And one is always having to say Buckton talking about Africa but African leaders are far too intelligent and anxious for the progress of their people to allow this policy to stand in the way. As with so much else in Africa what is done over Africa is much more important than what is said. African leaders speaking in private. Are frank in their appeals to Europeans and Americans to come to Africa to teach to build roads to provide the skill of accountants and quantity surveyors and statisticians and the like. And the African people display to the expectorant who comes to serve them in the right spirit and urban courtesy and a thoughtful hospitality. They openly seek his advice. They are receptive even to his adverse criticism quite properly they want to reserve to themselves responsibility for policymaking in their own country. But provided

administrative posts are Africanized they are content for the present to call on foreign experts to help them. In one African university college the story is told of a nix Patry a college principal. Who announced to his governing body. That if there were two candidates for a professorship one European and one African and both able to fill the post. Then he'd recommend the African without considering further which of the two candidates was the better one. And he sat down smugly to wait for congratulations from his African colleagues whereupon the African members of the governing body protested that this wasn't the way to maintain academic standards and build up a good institution. And so African nationalism although of course dedicated to a policy of Africanized nation of the faculty of universities hasn't so far allowed this policy to interfere with the quality of teaching and research.

Now let us turn for a few minutes. To another one of the. Patterns on the template of universities the content of the curriculum. And here are public attitudes to grown into a consistent pressure upon the imported traditions of European academic life. During the initial phase while tropical Africa established itself on the gold standard of learning the content of higher education couldn't very accepting trivial detail from that in the metropolitan country. But it wasn't long before this sensible and reasonable pragmatism became the subject of heated debate a debate which still goes on. Now everyone on both sides of the debate was prepared to agree that subjects like mathematics and physics can't be taught any differently or made any easier just because the students belonged to a Hamitic race

living in latitude 10 instead of a Nordic race. Living in latitude 50. Everyone was prepared to agree. The details of the syllabus in such subjects as biology and geography and history should be modified to make the subjects more relevant to African conditions. The points of difference were much more fundamental than these. African nationalism challenge the European tradition over the very purpose of the university in Africa. Is it true. As the first principle of the University College in Accra in Accra so eloquently assured the people of Ghana. Is it true that there is only one kind of university concerned with only one tradition of learning. Or should the universities of Africa refurnish the house of Western tradition and adapt their degree structure to fit the needs of African society. When I'm gone I am minister of state. Kojo bought CEO cautiously suggested at a conference in

1055. That African universities should adapt their curricular to the present needs of Africa at the same time preserving the best from the university systems of Europe and America. The expect 300 joined up published in the newspaper. Was that all an African university needed to do was to follow the European tradition that. Go on islands we're told was what every country outside Europe had done. Now if. Africans had never studied in the United States. They might've acquiesced in this dogmatic fidelity to the European tradition. But many Africans including such leaders as equal in the chroma were familiar with American universities. There they saw that European academic tradition had undergone massive adaptation and in directions to which seemed appropriate for Africa. The pattern of American education. Said one commentator who was

working for a doctor's degree in Columbia. The pattern for American education was worked out while America was a colony fighting to gain its independence. It is therefore just the right pattern. For African Colonials struggling to obtain their freedom from alien rule. Well the pressure for adaptation increases continually over the years 1948 to 63 and it to talk to common and quite different for its. First. Complaints the priorities in the curriculum were out of phase with Africa's need for high level manpower. And secondly complaints that the curriculum was not putting down roots into indigenous African culture. Both these complaints were justified. As late as 1958 for instance the college Abaddon offered no courses in engineering or law or geology or anthropology sociology or

public administration. It had only just started courses in economics and had to take an eight years to establish a Department of Education. There were no courses in Arabic or Quranic studies although millions of Nigerians are Muslims. And yet there were courses in Christian religious knowledge and in classics and in some years a fifth of the honors arts graduates emerge from the college. Having studied nothing for three years but Latin Greek and ancient history. The idea that universities in tropical Africa might recapitulate the phylogeny of universities in Europe. And begin as a learner and the long year began. Our society is primarily concerned with professional and vocational training was not part of the Asquith doctrine. If it had been one might have seen in British West Africa a fresh and totally different pattern of higher education with agriculture and engineering

and economics and medicine. But the core of the curriculum. And pure scholarship in science and humanities are rising as natural consequences of these vocational studies and being none the less rigorous for that. There was an opportunity I believe to do for Africa in the 1960s what the Morial Act did for America in the 1860s namely to make a new contribution to the idea of a university but the Asquith commission took no account of American experience. And so higher education in tropical Africa because the same is true of universities planted there by the French and the Belgians became identified with European traditions of Clark Klee and literary education scores of times the torrent of ivory tower was thrown against the university colleges in Ghana and Nigeria. It still is in a bitter attack on the University of

Ghana. Only three weeks ago ivory tower appears as a headline in one of the columns of the newspaper. But the same time. The pressure of African nationalism upon the curriculum is manifested in another and quite different form. There is a desire to see incorporated in the undergraduate course material about the indigenous cultures of tropical Africa. It's sophisticated political systems with our subtle checks and balances. It's passionate identification with the soil. Through religion customary law the cultivation of crops and the care of animals. Its philosophies and codes of behavior its languages its folklore and music can dance until very recently. An African could graduate even in the humanities in utter ignorance of the roots of his own heritage. And this knowledge is not

simply of antiquarian interest but a teacher who doesn't understand or respect the village culture of his pupils can't reach their mind. It's an administrator unfamiliar with the customs of the people in his charge can't earn their confidence. A lawyer a doctor an engineer who is out of touch with the society he serves can serve that society well. Of course there was and still is opposition to these two pressures for adaptation of the curriculum. But since independence the opposition has weakened and these two pressures the one for more emphasis on subjects relevant to Africa's economic needs. The other hope for the incorporation of a study of indigenous cultures into the curriculum. These have already evoked a lively response from universities in Nigeria and Ghana in Ghana. The university has a flourishing Institute of African studies under a

European Thomas Hodgkin which not only pursues research but provides courses for all undergraduates in Nigeria. The pressures for adaptation have had their main effects on the new universities leaving the original institution now called the University of Abadan under far less duress than it might otherwise have been exposed to. I would like to give you for a few minutes one example of the new look could Nigerian universities as it's to be found in and soak up in the eastern region. Its founder and executive chancellor is the president of the Republic doctors equally. It had long been doctors equals belief that the American land grant college provided a better model than a British university for Nigerian higher education. Accordingly he arranged that the new institution which he called somewhat disingenuously the University of Nigeria. Should be sponsored by

Michigan State University with cooperation from the University of London. The new university opened its doors in 1960 and by October 1963 only three years later it had over twelve hundred students and over 200 faculty members. The traditionalists of African higher education that is to say those who imagine that any departure from the Asquith doctrine is heresy. Lost no time in deciding that the University of Nigeria would debase academic standards and so the university has come in for a lot of criticism which I think can be dismissed as arrogant academic snobbery. Still let us look at the facts. The minimum qualifications for entry are lower than those for other Nigerian universities. But the undergraduate course lasts together longer. And in any case half the freshmen last year are

entered with much more than the minimum entry requirements. But if I can digress for a moment this policy of admitting to university work freshman who are two years short of the minimum standard for a British type university is I believe part of the challenge which the United States is now presenting in Africa to the countries which were brought up under British tutelage and in the discussion which I hope some of you will feel like having after this lecture. I should be most interested to hear some exchange of views about this problem because America in several ways not only in this university but in other scholarship schemes is confronting Nigeria with what is really a major questioning of the whole policy of admission on the British University tradition.

In soccer in place of the specialisation to be found in the six forms the university offers to the freshman year the course of general studies covering natural science social science and the humanities and thereafter follow in true land long college style. Literally hundreds of credit earning courses. Ranging from subjects as isso Terry. As the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire Igbo phonology and morphology and vector analysis. To subjects as down to earth as seed testing household sanitation and shorthand. And among one of the more unusual and surprising courses offered is a course in Eskimo music. Now the conservatives African graduates of British universities shake their heads at this exuberance. They can't conceive how the

serious business of a university can be conducted in such a super market of education. Notwithstanding the fact. That other not entirely dissimilar supermarkets on the Pacific Coast have their Nobel Prize winners and their members of the American National Academy I believe it's far too early for head shaking. Of course one can have misgivings but only time will show whether the University of Nigeria is a viable adaptation of higher education to Africa needs an instructor graduate with his hundred ninety two credit hours and his minimum quality point average of 2 may find he has as much to offer the new Nigeria as his brother graduate from Abadan has to offer who has soaked for three years in the classics or in the literary criticism of Dr. Levy's. For his brother graduate from Abadan still remains a facsimile of the graduate from

England. The quality of teaching in Abadan remains high. And the research output of the university is impressive. But in its undergraduate curriculum the Faculty of Arts has made no concessions to the climate of African opinion. Once the university was released from the control of London the two most obvious changes one might have expected in the arts curriculum was a broadening of the calls to diminish specialisation for the rank and file of students and the introduction for all undergraduates have some material bearing on indigenous African culture and institutions. Neither of these changes has been admitted. The new three year curriculum for a bachelor's degree is essentially an honors course. It requires three subjects in the first year but thereafter it ties the student to a choice either among two subject on his courses. There are six of these and four of them require Latin or Greek. Or among eight single subject honors courses. Only one of which has

more than an incidental bearing on the continent of Africa. And that is the course in Arabic and Islamic Studies. And so it's still possible in Abadan for a student to graduate an arts without having pursued any subjects at university level except Latin Greek and ancient history. This doesn't matter because it isn't obligatory. What does matter is that it is not possible for a student who graduates in arts to spend any substantial time during his last two years on any subject bearing on the languages and cultures of his own continent. Apart from casual or incidental lectures given by the Institute of African Studies and a very welcome emphasis given to Africa in the courses on geography and history the early. Concession made is the study of Arabic and Islamic Studies which is more likely to partake in by Muslims than by other people. One hopes that as more Africans have a hand in determining academic policy in a bad on

this pedantic acquiescence in the pattern of education very venerable in itself but already abandoned by the new universities of Britain will be abandoned in Nigeria because Abaddon secure in the quality of its scholarship. And free from the political constraints which hamper the University of Ghana could take a lead in adapting the European cultural tradition to African soil. Finally let us turn to consider the relation between universities and the state. I have already described how the English speaking universities of Africa were endowed with constitutions on the British patent. Unaccompanied by the conventions which alone enable these constitutions to be worked. I choose tonight to case histories to illustrate how these constitutions are standing up to the pressures of African politics. One in the University of Nigeria.

The other in the University of Ghana. The history of the University of Nigeria begins in 1955. With an act of the legislature which established on paper but only on paper. The first institution of full university status in Nigeria. You have to remember that the college in a bedroom. Had been full of university status it was still attached to London. The 1955 act can be taken to represent what was at that time an African point of view. Because we know that it was drawn up with no constraint from Britain. Indeed London wasn't consulted to talk all about it. Furthermore it was known that one of the aspirations of the founder was to adopt some features of the American land grant college. But surprisingly enough. The provisional constitution bore no resemblance whatever to those of say Wisconsin or Michigan State. It was almost identical with the ordinance for Abadan drafted under British guidance. The free and uninhibited

drafters copied the very words devised by the colonial power in London. The university was to be an autonomous corporation. Sovereignty rested with a predominantly lay Council. Academic policy was delegated to a senate of academics and to ensure that there should be some measure of internal self-government that was established a congregation comprising the whole academic and administrative staff. But the Constitution didn't stay that way. Three years later the American fairy godmother now known as a ID. Expressed an interest in the project. And intrusted to Michigan State University the responsibilities of an academic midwife. By April 1959. Plans were well advanced and the provisional council described in the 955 act was appointed. And then in June 1959. A law to amend the University of

Nigeria law was enacted. It's a very brief document. Only occupies a page about a few technical points such as order taking and investments. And then tucked away in it. And missed by many people. Is this sentence. Referring to the provisional council the minister of education may give directions of a general or specific character as to the exercise and performance of the council's functions such as the university council and the council shall give effect to such directions. In brief it was a sellout to the state. Sovereignty was transferred from the autonomous council to the Minister of Education. But this wasn't the end of the story. In December nine hundred sixty one. There was enacted a law to consolidate the laws relating to the University of Nigeria. The title is singularly inappropriate. Far from consolidating the

pattern set out in 1954 it substituted a totally different one. First. The university council regains sovereignty over the university. It's no longer subject to directives from the minister. This is encouraging. But at second glance not surprising. Because the council is now presided over by an executive Chancellor appointed for life. Who is none other than Dr as equally president of the republic. Then membership of the council has sunk from nineteen to nine. Seven of the nine members are appointed by the chancellor or the government. Academics originally well represented on the principal executive committees are now excluded from. The Senate. Originally the seat of academic power is now merely advisory to the council. Decision making which on the British pattern is dispersed among academics with the lead governing body acting as an upper house with a veto is here concentrated in a

lay governing body which is executive in a preamble to the act. It was explicitly stated that academics should not be burdened with executive and administrative responsibilities. Power should reside with people appointed by the state for the state represents the electorate and the electorate pays for the university. Now all this is very repugnant to British academics but in fact the University of Nigeria law doesn't expose the university to a any greater risk of interference from the state than already exists in the universities of say Germany or France or Belgium. The university is still a corporation separate from the state. And in Nigeria as elsewhere are the freedom of the universities depends on the conventions which grow up around the Constitution. It must be admitted that the conventions in soccer have made a shaky start

for the council has already issued some decrees on questions which ought to have been left to the academics to determine for instance last year the numbers of students to be admitted into each of the faculties. Giving quite contrary advice from those of the deans. A thing which doesn't happen in respectable universities. And also it took a view contrary to that of the academic people about external examinations. However there are hopeful signs. It's. Because the African faculty is continuing to press for self government over academic matters and I believe the African faculty is being listened to. But the fundamentally important point and the point I want to stress is that although there has been much. Oh bleak and vicarious interference there has been no direct undisguised intervention by the state in the university's business. And this is true of all five universities in

Nigeria. All the Nigerian governments both the regional and the federal one. Seem anxious to adopt conventions similar to those which ensure the freedom of universities in Britain. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the government of Ghana. The impact of nationalism on the university in Ghana has already been described by witnesses who have experienced its operation with great sympathy and understanding and perception. Adam who is now a member of the faculty here in Harvard has traced the melancholy story. It began long before independence eight years ago. Dr. Macrae withdrew the government grant for adult education conducted by the university on the grounds that one of the lecturers had expressed sentiments critical of the government. On that occasion I myself had to interview in a coma to try to

persuade him to change his mind. Since then there have been a series of clumsy interventions in the internal affairs of the college. Some of these might have been avoided by the exercise of a little diplomacy on either side but on the one hand the government was anxious to display its power over an institution which was constantly and sometimes querulously asserting its right to autonomy. And on the other hand the faculty constantly on the alert as Adam calls constantly on the alert for infringements of academic freedom. Naturally reacted sharply to any symptoms of interference. The expats academic staff were accused most unfairly of perverting the flower of Garner's youth. And filling their minds with pernicious non-African rubbish. The ideals of disinterested thinking and disengagement from political affairs for which the founders of higher

education in Ghana had worked so effectively were dismissed as the machinations of neo colonialism and then a crisis came in May 1961. When the principal of the college received a letter from Dr. McCrimmon office stating that in the circumstances of transmuting the college into an independent university and breaking the link with the University of London. All appointments of members of the academic staff will automatically be terminated and those who wish to apply for reappointment must jus do so. By June the 10th there was a storm of protest. And an international gesture of disgust. The crew now realized that the chief blundered. And a few days later this disastrous letter was followed by another one revoking the decision and saying that the staff would be automatically reappointed without reapplying but that it might be necessary to terminate certain appointments. Over the next few weeks the gun ion government tried

to repair the damage with sweet reasonableness toward the university. But in the event six appointments were terminated. What mattered wrote Adam curl What mattered was not the number. It was the fact that the government had established a precedent for ending academic employment on nonacademic grounds. It's. A government which disregards the elementary conventions of academic freedom is not likely to listen to University's views about its own constitution and so it isn't surprising that the draft submitted to the government by the University College in 1961. As a constitution for the newly independent University of Ghana was rejected. It is said the doctor himself scribbled totally unacceptable over his copy of the draft. Meanwhile an international commission a very curious one whose report I think. Has an all time record for the

number of footnotes. Almost like a German book on theology in the 1903. And. An international commission appointed by the Ghana government has given further advice about the pattern of higher education in Ghana and on the 1st of July one thousand sixty one. The University of Ghana Bill received its first and second readings in the parliament and in Accra. It was not submitted to the university authorities for approval. It represents unrestrained capitulation to African conditions. Perhaps I should say almost unrestrained. For there are still many welcome signs in it. But Ghana wants to preserve international standards and to maintain the respect of the International Brotherhood of universities. However state control is a Shaw. For eight out of the 14 members of the supreme governing body are nominees of the chancellor. And the chancellor is Dr McCrimmon himself Dr McCrimmon has an

assurance therefore that a safe majority of the governing body is very unlikely to indulge in sustained opinions inconsistent with his own wishes. This concentration of power over the university into the hands of the president and his nominees denotes the importance which African countries attach to their universities. Beneath this powerful state control governing body. There is in the new constitution a reasonable framework within which conventions of academic government could be established which would be satisfactory I think to the most fastidious of faculty members. But to the deep disappointment of Garner's friends there is now very little hope that these conventions will be established. It is true that over the last two years the faculty has exercised a sensible and constructive influence in academic affairs.

Standards continue to be common doubly high. African studies are being developed imaginatively technology is receiving the emphasis it deserves. But through all this one cannot but overhear the strident voice of the president. If reforms do not come from within we intend to impose them from outside. And no resort to the cry of academic freedom is going to restrain us from seeing that our university is a healthy University devoted to guard and interests. Just two months ago in pursuance of this policy the GAAR non-official government controlled press demanded that the university be brought to heel and purge of neo colonialist subversion. Synthetic demonstrators born brought onto the campus in buses. Paraded through the university carrying slogans and smashing windows.

Six members of the faculty were deported. And Dr. McCrimmon now claims the right to nominate heads of departments in the university in defiance of the Constitution. And it is said the Tede There are therefore proposes to revise the constitution so that he can force the issue. Of course no university Constitution is proof against this. But there is one comfort. And that is that the University of Ghana will long outlive the present generation of politicians. It's time to sum up. In 1056. A group of African intellectuals in Leopoldville. Published a manifesto on self-government in the Congo. One poignant phrase from this manifesto stands in my memory. We wish to be civilised Congolese not black skin to your appearance. These words sum up the problems of African

universities and Western tradition. The chief of these problems is not political nor administrative. Nor even educational. It's a problem in Social Psychology. Can Africans select what they want from European civilization and reject the rest. Or does European civilization in Africa behave like a dominant character in hereditary concealing the recessive indigenous African civilization. I think there is little doubt about the answer. European civilization is dominant. Under its influence. Traditional African ways of life. Are At first concealed. And we don't know but they may ultimately be destroyed. But and this is the main point I want to make in all these three lectures. But in the very process of exerting its dominance as it

flows into the cities and villages of Africa. Europe European civilization itself becomes changed and so do the instruments of European civilization. Signs of this adaptation are evident in three characteristics clear European institutions transplanted to Africa. Parliament. And church and university. In these lectures we've been concerned with the university. And although I have given you only a superficial analysis dealing with superficial criteria. I think we can draw certain modest conclusions. The first is that Africans have eagerly accepted the European University and acknowledge that the university is a supra national institution with standards and values which strive to be independent of nationality race politics and religion.

The idea of the university therefore has taken root in Africa and perhaps the most vivid proof of this is the two of the oldest institutions of higher education in the world 500 years older than Oxford or Cambridge. The institutions of Al-Azhar in Cairo and Caroline in fares have recently undergone a complete transformation into a Western type of university. A kind of wine that is a city university which is copied from the French and the ancient and venerable Al-Azhar in Cairo now has schools of business administration and engineering. But this is my second conclusion patterns of adaptation to the African intellectual climate. Are already emerging. I said at the beginning of these lectures that there is a strong element of rejection in African nationalism which is a selective rejection in their universities the Africans naturally reject Western

control and they're still suspicious of the traditions of autonomy associated with the British university. Academic freedom is a new conception to Africa in Nigeria. Academic freedom has been. I think one could say provisionally accepted as one of the embellishments attached to an imported product but its relevance for the intellectual life is not yet understood. In Ghana academic freedom is pushed aside by the present government whenever it suits the government to interfere. Over curriculum and pattern of courses the Africans are still being cautious. They are determined to provide courses which meet specific manpower needs. It's and they are experimenting with research and teaching in the field of their indigenous civilization where they have already devised interesting new techniques but they show no haste to make changes of

emphasis in the conventional corpus of knowledge as it's found in European universities. Over two features essential to the health of any university the African so far show every sign of accepting the Western tradition one they are spire to maintain their degrees on the gold standard of learning. And secondly they welcome the foreign scholar provided he is a scholar not a mere administrator with a genuine hospitality. And so when you read the rather. Violent a fusions of the African press about African beauties well to remember that the universities of Africa are in fact as Cosmopolitan in their academic staffs as any in the world. These lectures are given to an academic community by an academic and so I have naturally preferred to analyze the

past rather than to prophesy about the future. But I shall end with one glance into the future. In this process of adapting the Western tradition to African universities selective rejection is not enough. There must also be affirmation. African scholarship must become self reproducing. Inventing its own techniques establishing its own values. The don't know all the world's knowledge and not merely a recipient of it. And so I believe that the prime task of African intellectuals is to make African nationalism created. To enable scholars to fulfil this task. The universities of Africa must not only preserve their present loyalty to the Western tradition they must also discover and proclaim a loyalty to the indigenous values

of African society. And so I believe that their future lies in the achievement of this double loyalty. Thank you very much. A T. I was there right through him behalf of the university the faculty of public administration and the entire Harvard community. I wish to thank you. For these lectures. They show a new. Dimension of the duties of the citizen. To which the Godkin lectures are dedicated and they show further. That. Mother Cambridge. Can show to its provincial. Daughter. An example

and directness of approach. Breath of sympathy and vigor a style which we would do well to emulate. Ceric. Sir Eric Ashby master of Clare College Cambridge University has delivered the third and final of the 1964 God can lectures at Harvard University. The topic of this final address was African nationalism confronts the universities. The general subject of this season's lectures is African universities and a Western tradition. So Eric a botanist who has been president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science since 1962 headed a commission which made an influential report on higher education in Nigeria. He is an honorary advisor to the Nigerian Universities

Commission a member of the Council of mockery University College in Uganda and a member of the British University's grants Committee. So Eric is the author of several works on botany science and education. His most recent books include a challenge to education the scientist in Russia and technology and the academics. In one thousand three friends of Edwin Lawrence the Godgiven editor of The New York Evening Post a nation who died in 19 two gave to Harvard a fund of over $10000 to establish in his memory the Godkin lectures. The subject of the lectures was to be the essentials of free government and the duties of the citizen or upon some part of that subject the fund which is administered by the Graduate School of Public Administration makes possible the appointment of a special visiting lecturer. Each year. Recent Godkin lecturers have included Paul Douglas Adelaide Stevenson Chester Bowles Hugh Gates

go James B Conant Nelson a Rockefeller and this year are Eric Ashby master of Clare College Cambridge University and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This program was recorded on Thursday evening April 9th. Wait I want the kind of leadership that called a cruiser Brian. You've given your not know what Professor Richardson said I think he will go down one minute back up because he had showed a great ration card with us stack. And said so your convocation address. OK about we go. With. Bridge. Player and great. What kind of action. We. As you want to hug you have Electrolux. One of the calls all of the trouble which was written more than walking

université it has seen the fact that there was no easy to talk to action of the university people and people's wishes to fluff. And bother you which ought to have done that and gone I was not given the proper opportunity to do it. My breast feed is one big difference when it knocks.