From colonialism to developing countries: surveys and educational reform in British Tropical Africa, 1910–1990

Abstract

During the first years of the twentieth century, Christian missionaries tried to improve their efforts to bring the message of the Gospel to areas such as British Tropical Africa. The process stemmed from the World Missionary Conference in 1910 in Edinburgh, Scotland, where conference organisers used the then popular method of social surveys to determine the content of the conference. They continued to use surveys to determine the best ways to decide what the missionaries should do to improve their efforts in colonial areas. After the First World War, they applied for financial support to conduct surveys to determine how best to shape education in British colonial Africa. They thought their intentions were praiseworthy. The period of conquest had ended, and the British government and the missionaries expressed the desire to improve the lives of the indigenous peoples. This paper will explore three important questions. First, what benefits did they expect to receive from the surveys and how did the missionaries construct their surveys? Second, did the surveys enable the missionaries and the colonial officials to accumulate objective evidence on which they could make reasonable policy decisions? Third, did the surveys reveal the changes that were likely to affect local conditions?

Keywords:

• social surveys
• missionary schools
• colonial education

Notes

¹ Clive Whitehead, “Education in British Colonial Dependencies, 1919–1939: A Re-Appraisal,” Comparative Education 17, no. 1 (March 1981): 71–80, stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3098767 (accessed July 13, 2011).

² Martin Blumer, Kevin Bales and Kathryn Kish Sklar, “The Social Survey in Historical Perspective,” in The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, 1880–1940, ed. Blumer, Bales and Sklar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 1–48.

³ Charles T. Loram, The Education of the South African Native (London: Longmans, Green, 1917), 146–61.

⁴ Booker T. Washington, “Europe,” in Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1901), Ch. XVI; Bartleby.com 2000, http://www.bartleby.com/1004/ (accessed June 19, 2012).

⁵ Michael Sadler, Education of the Coloured Race (publisher S.I.: s.n., 1901).

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Brian Stanley, The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2009), 18–26.

⁹ W. H. T. Gairdner, Echoes from Edinburgh, 1910: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (New York: Fleming H. Revell, n.d., 1910?), 18–26.

¹⁰ Stanley, The World Missionary Conference, 26–37.

¹¹ World Missionary Conference, 1910, Report of Commission I: Carrying the Gospel to all the Non-Christian World (New York: Fleming H. Revell, n.d., 1910?), 1–4, 241–45.

¹² Ibid., 267–77.

¹³ Ibid., 277.

¹⁴ Ibid., 365–69.

¹⁵ World Missionary Conference, 1910, Report of Commission III, 370–72.

¹⁶ Ibid., 372–78.

¹⁷ John R. Mott, “The Continuation Committee,” International Review of Missions 1, no. 1 (1912): 62–78.

¹⁸ Joseph Oldham, “Editors Notes,” International Review of Missions 1, no.1 (1912): 1–14.

¹⁹ A. G. Fraser, “Impressions of Hampton Institute,” International Review of Missions 1, no. 4 (1912): 704–13.

²⁰ J. Müller, “The Basel Industrial Mission,” International Review of Missions 2, no. 1 (1913): 165–73; W. M. Zumbro, “The Manual Training School at Pasumai,” International Review of Missions 2, no. 1 (1913): 173–78; C. W. Weston, “The S. P. G. School at Nazareth,” International Review of Missions 2, no. 1 (1913): 342–48; S. Higginbottom, “The Agricultural Work of American Presbyterian Church at Allahabad,” International Review of Missions 2, no. 1 (1913): 349–51; Booker T. Washington, “David Livingstone and the Negro,” International Review of Missions 2, no. 1 (1913): 224–35.

²¹ W. E. B. DuBois, “Negro Education,” The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races 15 (February 1918): 173–78.

²² Ibid.

²³ Joseph H. Oldham, “Christian Missions and the Education of Negro,” reproduced completely in Thomas Jesse Jones, Educational Adaptations: Report of Ten Years’ Work of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1910–1920 (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1920), 24–7.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in Africa (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1922), xiv–xvi.

²⁶ Ibid., 11–27.

²⁷ Ibid., 27–28.

²⁸ Ibid., 28–35.

²⁹ Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, Educational Policy in Africa: A Memorandum submitted on behalf of the Education Committee of the Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland (London: Abbey Press, 1923).

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³¹ Advisory Committee on Native Education in the British Tropical African Dependencies, Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1925).

³² Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in East Africa (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1925), 211–12.

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³⁶ King, Pan-Africanism and Education, 95–97.

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³⁸ Murray, The School in the Bush, 38–46, 300–10.

³⁹ Julian Huxley, Africa View (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1931), 1–16.

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⁴¹ Huxley, Africa View, 312–33.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ Ibid., 101–05; Jones, Education in East Africa, 68–69.

⁴⁴ Huxley, Africa View, 334–44, 361–62.

⁴⁵ Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1999), 260–64.

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⁴⁷ Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 71–113.

⁴⁸ Lord Hailey, An African Survey: A Study of the Problems Arising in Africa South of the Sahara (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938), xxiv–xxv, 1229–33.

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⁵⁰ Hakim Adi and Marika Sherwood, eds., The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress Revisited (London: New Beacon Books, 1995), 5, 125–61.

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⁵⁵ Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: The British Indian and Colonial Education Service, 1858–1983 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 82–83.

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