Education and Life

In the article of the Year Book of Education 1938, already quoted, ¹ Mr. H. S. Scott poses the question as to whether it may not now be too late to rescue African educational knowledge and practice from oblivion and disrepute. The educated African to-day, he says, only recognizes education in Western garb. ² This is hardly less true for the Ovimbundu than for other Africans. Nevertheless I am convinced that if action along the lines herein suggested is taken without delay, it has a good chance of success. I have good proof of this from experience, especially with pupils and teachers of the Normal and Religious Education Departments of Currie Institute. In 1936–7 much of the material used in the descriptive part of Chapters V–VII was gathered by pupils and teachers, largely as a class project. The enthusiasm with which they undertook and carried on the project, the interest with which they turned to other phases of their culture, and the reports received afterwards from those who had finished school and returned to their villages, were eloquent proofs of the prestige which their own culture still has for educated Ovimbundu. Adaptation is yet possible, if it is undertaken without too much delay.