An ant carrying a leaf near Santa Fé, Veraguas Province, Panama. Norman Leys likened the state education offered to Kenyans in his own day to that provided by Wackford Squeers in Charles Dickens’s novel Nicholas Nickleby. Yet in referring also to Mr Gradgrind from Hard Times, Leys hinted at something more sinister: “a board of fact,” as one of Gradgrind’s colleagues fantasised, “composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact.” Joshua Fitch testified that by the 1860s Dickens had made Squeerses extinct; Dickens’s reward was to see Gradgrinds multiplying right across the State education system. Fitch was an exception: see Could Do Better. Another was Edmond Holmes, who championed the Montessori method. See Free to Grow.
NO doubt there are modern Mr Gradgrinds* who consider the ant and the bee examples more suitable for Africans than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.* Napoleon attempted, without conspicuous success, to exclude political and speculative subjects from the instruction given in the colleges of France. Authoritarians in Kenya are not likely to be more successful.
The reader may consider that too much attention has been paid to these false educational ideals. He may be assured that in Africa the obscurantist is an even greater danger than the exploiter. What the African in Kenya needs is knowledge, enlightenment, the acquisition of the appetite which makes men seek the truth. He needs these exactly as the whole human race needs them. He not only needs them but wants them. No people in the world has a keener appetite for education or a greater aptitude for learning. They have as much right as we to understand the world we both live in, and far greater need of knowledge as a defence against oppression.
Abridged
Abridged from ‘Kenya’ (1924) by Dr Norman Leys (1875-1944).
* Thomas Gradgrind is a character from Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854), a school board Superintendent whose educational philosophy was relentlessly utilitarian. For him, to teach is to pour facts into the ‘little pitchers’ that are boys and girls; a teacher is a fact-checker who piously no-platforms anyone whose worldview does not accord with his own. ‘We don’t want to know anything about that, here’ he scolds Sissy Jupe when she explains that her father works for Sleary’s circus. ‘You mustn’t tell us about that, here.’
* The ant and the bee are insects famous for co-ordinated industry and obedient productivity; the birds of the air and the lilies of the field are symbols of happy-go-lucky independence. The reference is to Matthew 6:25-34, where Jesus says that earthly necessities and anxieties should not dominate our lives. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God,” Jesus ends, “and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Questions for Critics
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Précis
Leys developed his point, comparing the Kenyan curriculum with the blinkered ideology of Dickens’s Mr Gradgrind. He argued that Africans both needed and wanted an education which enlarged both mind and heart, and went so far as to say that even colonial greed was not as serious a threat to Kenyans as failing to satisfy their appetite for free inquiry. (60 / 60 words)
Leys developed his point, comparing the Kenyan curriculum with the blinkered ideology of Dickens’s Mr Gradgrind. He argued that Africans both needed and wanted an education which enlarged both mind and heart, and went so far as to say that even colonial greed was not as serious a threat to Kenyans as failing to satisfy their appetite for free inquiry.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, despite, may, since, until, whereas, who.
About the Author
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Already. Given. Mission.
2 Lesson. Oppression. Which.
3 Good. Human. Only.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
b (5+2)
be. beau. bee. boo. oboe.
baa. boa.
Post Box : Ask Nicholas
Grok : Ask Grok
You are welcome to share your creativity with me, or ask for help with any of the exercises on Clay Lane. Write to me at this address:
See more at Post Box.
If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.
Related Posts
Britain’s first qualified female doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, had a message for the first women to study for London University’s degree in medicine.
Picture: Attributed to Reginald Grenville Eves (1876–1941), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. . Source.
Posted January 17 2022
Educational reformer Emily Davies argued that Victorian women had more to offer society than a purely ornamental erudition.
Picture: From the LSE Women’s Library Collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 4 2021
Schools inspector Edmond Holmes expressed frustration with those who think that society at large owes them unthinking obedience.
Picture: Photo by Mark Owens, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Open Government Licence version 1.0.. Source.
Posted August 5 2020
Picture: © Deutsche Fotothek (picture by Roger and Renate Rössing), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0 Germany.. Source.
Posted March 7 2017