Book Reviews and Studies

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Notes

“A given calculus [in this instance, subject/object orientation] must be supple and complex enough to be representative of the subject‐matter it is designed to calculate. It must have scope. Yet it must also possess simplicity, in that it is broadly a reduction of the subject matter”. (Kenneth Burke and Joseph R. Gusfield, “Vocabularies of Motive,” On Symbols and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 158–160; 159)

A popular song that well articulated the main perceived grievance of the tribal people that supported Doe (and became fuel for the fire of the long civil war that followed) was, “Who Owns the Land, Papa's Land? We Want to Know”.

Romanian readers will perhaps recall a similar situation faced by Sorin Dumitrescu from 1976–1978, when Elena Ceauşescu prevented his return to his UNESCO post in Paris. See Mircea Malitza, “Reflections on the Creation and Functioning of UNESCO‐CEPES: The Personal View of One of its Founders”, Higher Education in Europe 27 1–2 (2002): 11–29.

There were 243 persons total on ship, selected by the American Colonization Society (ACS) from an initial application pool of 2,000, who, it was claimed, “could reach the full dignity of manhood more rapidly in a country of their own than in a country where their efforts are paralysed by their relation of inferiority to the dominant race” (in Mason, p. 53). As Mason describes them, “among the adults there were 88 farmers, three blacksmiths, one carpenter and one tanner. Their age distribution was widespread; 126 were more than twelve years old, 84 were between two and twelve and 33 were under two years” (p. 52).

Liberia's population, despite is small size, is composed of sixteen ethnic groups, which together form 95 per cent of the population (with the American‐Liberians forming the remaining 5 per cent). See “Roots of the Civil War”. Retrieved on 26 August 2008, from <http://www.usm.maine.edu/˜kuzma/security/toure/Civilwar.htm>.

Originally founded in 1889 by the Episcopal Church of the USA as a missionary outreach in Cape Palmas, Maryland County, the School was forced to close in 1929, ostensibly by problems wrought by the Great Depression, but perhaps more directly (as Mason tells it) by the inability of the Rev. John Kuhns to manage a student strike over poor conditions:

Therefore, after a few days without arriving at a satisfactory conclusion, he called a morning assembly. Everyone attended, was on time, and excited that the problems had been solved. Instead, Mr. Kuhns, who had his luggage already packed, announced that as of that moment, Cuttington was closed. He picked up his luggage, went out and boarded a ship that was in the harbor, and sailed [back] to the United States of America. (p. 115)

The School was re‐established at its current location (Suacoco, Bong County) in 1949 upon 1,500 acres of public land donated by the Government of Liberia. Today, Cuttington University (as it is now known) continues to operate as a private higher educational institution entrusted with a public mission. (At the time of its rebirth, and for many years afterwards, it was one of only two higher educational institutions in the country, the University of Liberia in Monrovia being the other.) Current information on the University can be had at <www.cuttington.org>.

A sadly ironic invitation, given the increasingly autocratic nature of President Tubman's rule in his later years in office. Isabelle Duyvesteyn states, “In Liberia, even during the Tubman and Tolbert regimes, a cult of the president existed”, which both Doe and Taylor amplified. (see Isabelle Duyvesteyn, “Political Actors”, in Clausewitz and African War: Politics and Strategy in Liberia and Somalia. London: Routledge, 2004, p. 61).

With Michael Cole, The New Mathematics and an Old Culture; A Study of Learning among the Kpelle of Liberia. Case Studies in Education and Culture. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967.

Still actively writing and consulting in retirement, Dr. Gay has recently published Africa: A Dream Deferred (Northridge, California: New World African Press, 2004), reviewed in Higher Education in Europe 30 1 (2005), and has also penned “An Analysis of: The End of Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals, by Jeffrey D. Sachs”, Higher Education in Europe 30 3–4 (2005): 249–265.

Growth Without Development: An Economic Survey of Liberia. Northwestern University African Studies 16. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1966.

Actually, Mason refers to signs of indigenous dissent occurring much earlier. In 1947, when he was attending The Episcopal High School in Robertsport, political drawings were found depicting “young men with guns claiming their ‘rights’”. With the benefit of hindsight, he observes, “It seems reasonable now to conjecture that the action at EHS was festering in many places throughout the country and that the Tubman Unification Policy [a plan to integrate the various extant tribes into one Liberian society] enunciated in 1954 was not as effective as it seemed”. (p. 109)

By this reference to the initially uncertain views of the then‐Bishop George D. Browne on cooperation in the management of Cuttington, Mason points to a general problem of Church‐related colleges being subject to the final rule of a Bishop (or other denominational leader) who is presented with an inevitable “built‐in” conflict of interest, i.e. did the Bishop well represent the interests of the whole Episcopal Church of Liberia, of which he was the head, or the specific interests of Cuttington, which he also headed as Chairman of the College's Board of Trustees? Mason aptly provides this illustration of the problem:

[While in the states] I visited with a fund raising consultant in Columbus, Ohio regarding undertaking a fund drive for Cuttington's 100^th anniversary [in 1989]. The same subject was discussed with the appropriate authority at the [Episcopal Church USA] headquarters in New York. They made it clear that Bishop Browne had not been able to decide for which institution the funds would be raised: the Episcopal Church in Liberia or Cuttington University. That lack of clarity had been a major cause for the delay in launching the campaign. I was also told the fund raiser would not be allowed to campaign with the Church's dependable list of donors. Those contacts were designed to set the tone for a major thrust in international relations and development between Cuttington and the [US] universities visited, as well as a foundation for a massive fund‐drive for the rehabilitation and development of Cuttington. (pp. 246–247)

The secret Poro society for men (and the parallel secret Sande society for women) forms the basis for adult‐development training for youth in traditional Kpelle “bush” culture. See William P. Murphy, “Secret Knowledge as Property and Power in Kpelle Society: Elders versus Youth”, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 50 2 (1980): 193–207.

For his life‐long services to higher education and the Episcopal Church, Mason had been granted an honorary Doctorate of Science by Cuttington University College in 1973 and an honorary Doctorate in Divinity by the General Theological Seminary (New York, USA) in May 1999. Now approaching his 80^th year, Mason is spending his active retirement in Elizabeth, New Jersey well occupied with his extensive family and local Church activities.

A fact noted by the American embassy representative in Monrovia upon the formal re‐activation of the Peace Corps programme in Liberia in August 2008 (which had been suspended in 1990 on the outbreak of the war). See “US, Liberia Sign Agreement for Peace Corps Return”, 18 August 2008. Retrieved on 26 August 2008, from <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080818/ap_on_re_af/liberia_us_peace_corps>.

Sounding a seconding affirmation of this universal need of education, yet with a note of pessimistic caution, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton once remarked:

Well, the need [for education] has been desperately urgent, not for one year or ten, but for fifty, sixty, seventy, a hundred years. If, when thought is needed, nobody does any thinking, if everyone assumes someone else is thinking, then it is clear that no one is thinking for himself or anyone else. Instead of thought, there is a vast, inhuman void of words, formulas, slogans, declarations, echoes – ideologies!…

Nothing can take the place of thoughts. If we do not think, we cannot act freely. If we do not act freely, we are at the mercy of forces we never understand, forces which are arbitrary, destructive, blind, fatal to us and our world. If we do not use our minds to think with, we are heading for extinction, like the dinosaur: for the massive physical strength of the dinosaur became useless, purposeless. It led to his destruction. Our intellectual power can likewise become useless, purposeless. When it does, it will serve only to destroy us. It will devise instruments for our destruction and will inevitably proceed to use them… It has already devised them. (“Truth and Violence: An Interesting Era”, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Garden City, New York: Doubleday/Image, 1968, p. 79)