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The World the Students Made: Agriculture and Education at American Missions in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1930–1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Todd H. Leedy*
Affiliation:
Center for African Studies at the University of Florida

Extract

In 1930, the same year in which the segregationist Land Apportionment Act was passed, the governor of Rhodesia addressed a meeting of representatives from the various missionary organizations operating in the colony. He proceeded to argue against the sort of education that might create a class of African intellectuals who would eventually challenge white economic and political dominance:

The nature of the intellectual advance to be aimed at should be one of which advantage can be taken in the ordinary daily lives of the people, and should be a step forward in a field already familiar to them, rather than a violent transition into fields which belong to a different type of civilization. As the life of African peoples is to a preponderating extent agricultural, education should aim at making them better agriculturalists and better able to appreciate all the natural processes with which agriculture is connected.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 History of Education Society 

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References

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