Seward daily gateway., 1925-06-05
COMMISSION REPORTS
 SIMPLE EDUCATION AS
 GREAT NEED IN AFRICA

NEW YORK, June 5.-(P)-The natives of Africa are at present on the sidelines, watching European and Asiatic settlers play football with the future of a continent rich in natural resources and the great question mark in international peace and pros perity, says the official report of the Educational Commission to East Af- rica, issued recently by the Phelps Stokes Fund.
 The commission spent six months in the field travelling from French Somaliland to Cape Town, and sup plemented the work of a similar group which studied West, South and Equatorial Africa in 1920. The chair man of both commissions was Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, educationa di rector of the Philps-Stokes Fund which was founded in 1908 to pro- mote Negro education in the South and in Africa. In the African stud ies the American and British gov ernments and the missionary soci- cities of Great Britain and North Am erica cooperated by lending experts to serve on the commissions, and the British government rendered Dr. Jones an official dinner at Lances ter House, London, on his way back from Africa
 Dr. Jones, who writes the report, calls for the inclusion of the native in a plan of cooperation which will include governmental officials, mis- sionaries, settlers, and traders. He looks to the European nations, which control all of Africa, except Liberia on the West Coast of Abyssinia in the east, to take the leadership in working out a definite plan and not leave it to the individual and unco- ordinated efforts of the governors of the various colonies.
 Richly endowed by nature, Africa has been losing ground in the man. power essential for unlocking this great physical wealth, says the re- port. The heritage of the slave raids, the ravages of disease and an ignornce which permits malutrition in a land of plenty are all given as causes for the sparse population. The African problem is essentially pop ulation problem, Dr. Jones writes
 The solution he recommends is stated in terms of education intelli- gently adapted to the needs of na- tive life. Simplicity rather than com plexity is urged, and Dr. Jones gives as his basic "simples" of education: CD health and sanitation for a land where the infant death rate ranges from 300 to upwards of 600 per thousand; CD training in crop pro- duction, animal husbandry, food pres ervation and the farm trades for people who are often decimated by famine in land of plenty; (3) pro- per understanding of the "decencies and safeties of the home" including preparation of food, provision of pro- per clothing and care of the ill; and
 (4) healthful recreation and amuse- ments for a people notorious for the physical and sexual excesses of their primitive games. He pays high tri- bute to the character-building influ- ence of the Christian religion; at the same time he would salvage as much as possible of native traditions and customs, modifying them and direct ing them into the proper channels. The report also recommends that director of education be included in every territorial administration, and that the pioneer and continuing importance of the missionary schools be recognized by grants-in-aid How ever degraded her status in any tribe, the African woman WieldS great power over the health and the home life of her family, and education is therefore every bit as important for the girls as it is for the boys. Hand in hand with such development of education of the masses should go adequate provision for the thorough training of native leadership which is becoming increasingly essential | to a peaceful working out of Euro pean responsibilities in Africa.