B. Goff, Your Secret Language: Classics in the British Colonies of West Africa. Classical Diaspora.

Lambert, Michael

B. Goff, Your Secret Language: Classics in the British Colonies of West Africa. Classical Diaspora. London & New York, Bloomsbury 2013. Pp. 239. ISBN 978-1-78093-205-7. Price UK65.00[pounds sterling]; US$130.00.

In this stimulating contribution to Bloomsbury's Classical Diaspora series, Barbara Goff, Professor of Classics at the University of Reading, sets out to 'reconstruct a cultural history of Classics in the British colonies of West Africa' (p. 1), namely Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (later Ghana) and Nigeria, in which, she argues, a relationship with Classical education, unique to African colonies, was forged.

Focusing on the period between the beginning of formal education in West Africa and the independence of Ghana (c. 1827-1957), Goff uses an array of different kinds of texts, from British parliamentary papers to autobiographies, university histories and fiction, to construct a complex narrative, in which she demonstrates how the study of the Classics was inextricably linked both to British cultural imperialism and African 'cultural agency' (p. 3).

As a Classical education, particularly in Greek and Latin, which was essential for university entrance, shaped an African 'middle class', it was lauded by the colonial authorities as 'proof' of the success of Britain's 'civilizing mission'. However, when that very education, which, as Goff ably demonstrates, was a significant feature of the 'move into modernity' (p. 7), equipped the 'educated native' with an oppositional voice, the authorities, in the form of educational commissions and reports, questioned the value of a Classical education in Africa and promoted agricultural or vocational education.

In Chapter One ('Colonial Contradictions', pp. 21-64) Goff focuses on the beginnings of Classical education in West Africa in the Protestant missions, (12) where Greek (both New Testament and Attic), Latin and Hebrew were taught so that Africans could read the Bible in the original languages (p. 25). The teaching of Latin was especially valued for its apparent help in the acquisition of English.

Goff introduces her cast of colourful characters with possibly the first West African, under British colonial rule, to learn Greek and Latin--Philip Quaque (1741-1816), the son of an indigenous chief in the Gold Coast, who was sent to Britain by a Methodist missionary, studied in Islington, and became the first African to be ordained in the Anglican Church. On his return to the Gold Coast, he taught at a school for the 'Coloured' children of European fathers and African mothers.

Using this biography, Goff highlights a number of important themes which re-occur in her cultural history of classical education; the link between an education in the Classics, the introduction of Christianity and the gradual destruction of traditional African cultures (and the reaction to this), and the link between an education in Classics and upward social mobility. Of particular interest in this chapter is the establishment of Fourah Bay College in 1827 (Freetown, Sierra Leone), which grew out of the Christian Institution, (13) and became West Africa's first university, affiliated for nearly a century to the University of Durham (1876-1967).

One of the distinguished alumni of Fourah Bay College was Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba 'recaptive', (14) whose intellectual prowess and knowledge of Greek was such that it was mentioned in official reports (p. 34). He became, inter alia, the first African to be ordained as a bishop in the Church of England, the translator of much of the New Testament into Yoruba (15) and the head of the Niger Mission, the first all-African mission in West Africa. The latter is especially significant as it reveals how the missions became nodes of European cultural transmission; as European missionaries found the tropical climate deadly, (16) Africans had to be trained to spread the gospel to Africans, and this entailed a Classical education.

Goff then examines negative European responses to Africans educated in the Classics, surfacing, for example, in a British parliamentary report as early as 1865, (17) and in the recorded discussion after a lecture given at the Anthropological Society of London (also in 1865). Evidence presented to the report contains comments about over-educated Africans, (18) familiar to students of South African history, and the post-lecture discussion records opinions about the superficial nature of African Classical learning (p. 45). Racism of this kind was partially responsible for the establishment, in the early 20th century, of many secondary schools by Africans themselves who embraced the values of a middle class, liberal education afforded by a study of the Classics. Examples of these include the famous 'Mfantsipim' in the Gold Coast (19) and the Ibadan Grammar School in 1913. Significantly, the Classical education provided by schools such as these helped shape the 'leading exponents of anti-colonial and nationalist politics' (p. 58).

Goff's second chapter ('Classics and Cultural Nationalism', pp. 65-98) focuses on an interesting selection of these 'leading exponents', who articulate resistance to the Empire in ways which reclaim African culture, often deploying classical tropes to 'promote African identity and political development' (p. 67).

One of the earliest of these was James Africanus Beale Horton (18351883), (20) whose historical and political works contain numerous classical references, which, for example, compare Africa under the British to Britain under the Romans (to the detriment of the conqueror in both instances). In short, Horton argues that Africa has a history which predates that of Greece and Rome and may well have influenced it (pp. 70-71). (21) Goff's probing analyses of Horton's works conclude that he uses his training in the Classics to 'prove not only Africa's centrality to history, but also its right to modernity, or as Horton calls it, "civilization"' (p. 74).

More overtly nationalistic are the writings of Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), (22) who, unlike Horton, uses Classical antiquity to illustrate African 'independence and cultural autonomy' before colonisation, and concludes, in an early expression of pan-Africanist ideology, that Africa must be for the Africans (p. 79). (23) Interestingly, in his inaugural lecture as President of Liberia College (1881), the erudite Blyden argues that only a Classical education can offer the African an education untainted by the kind of racism encountered in more recent Western literature (pp. 85-86).

As her final exempla, Goff uses the satire of Kobina Sekyi (1892-1956) (24) to illustrate how a Classical education was regarded by some West Africans as pernicious, creating an Anglophilic elite with inauthentic identities, and the suggestively-titled Ethiopia Unbound (1911) by Joseph Casely Hayford (1866-1930), (25) to demonstrate how Blyden's views on the purpose of a Classical education in West Africa were used by the author of what may be West Africa's first novel.

In Chapter Three ('Twentieth Century Struggles', pp. 99-154) Goff analyses how the fate of Classical education in West Africa was affected by Britain's policy of 'Indirect Rule', (26) and by the report of the Phelps-Stoke Commission on Education in Africa (1922). Imperial rule through traditional chiefs, resistant to Christianity and its cultural weapons (i.e. the Classics), resulted in hostility to the 'educated African' (already the butt of Sekyi's satire), and the consequent resentment of the educated elite. (27)

Goff's exploration of the trope of the 'educated African' (a 'bogeyman' for both Europeans and some Africans) is of particular interest in this chapter. Features of this trope include the notion that whatever education Africans achieve is not 'real education', but a 'simulacrum of learning' (p. 104) that mimics the coloniser, thus creating a fake 'detribalized' identity which undermines one of the aims of 'Indirect Rule'. (28) Ironically, the 'educated African', particularly the African with a Classical education, 'is blamed for the flaws in the colonial system of which he is a product' (p. 104). Goff includes in her analysis African sources, such as Samuel Johnson's History of the Yorubas (published in 1921), which are also hostile to the alienation of the 'educated native', especially one with a smattering of Greek and Latin. (29)

The response of the colonial authorities to the growing debate about the relevance of a Classical education in West Africa is demonstrated, for instance, by the cutting of 'Latin, Chaucer and much English history from the King's College syllabus' (in Lagos, Nigeria, p. 112) (30) and the report of the Phelps-Stokes Commission, (31) which 'found against the classics at every level' and 'came down firmly on the side of agriculture, hygiene, sanitation, carpentry and housecraft, and moral education' (p. 124). (32) The report, published as Education in Africa (1922) was enthusiastically welcomed by some colonial authorities (e.g. the Governor of Ghana), (33) and resulted eventually in some significant changes to examination and matriculation requirements. (34)

One of the members of the commission, James Aggrey (1875-1927), (35) who had excelled at Greek and Latin at Mfantsipim, was important to the commission as an African exponent of 'adaptation', who combined the best of both European and African traditions in his educational philosophy, and in his leadership role at Ghana's famous Achimota School and College. (36) The 'liberal' education offered at this school, and indeed the teaching of Latin (which the parents insisted upon), became the focus of contempt both for African nationalists and for the colonial administrators who could consider it 'subversive' (p. 142). (37) From her examination of school textbooks, which featured tales from classical mythology, and from requests, such as that by Bo School in Sierra Leone to teach Greek in 1947, Goff concludes that the Phelps-Stokes Commission was not 'ultimately successful in eradicating the Classics from West African syllabi' (p. 149).

Goff's final chapter ('Classics and West African Modernity', pp. 155-212) deals with the period after 1938 when Greek and Latin were no longer considered essential for the Cambridge School Certificate, the Eliot Commission of 1945 which resulted in the establishment of three university colleges in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Nigeria, and the end of Indirect Rule in 1947, when Britain needed to take into partnership the 'educated elite' rather than the 'traditional chiefs' for political and cultural reasons (p. 180). (38)

Into her account of the cultural politics of this period, Goff weaves analyses of the autobiographies of nationalist leaders such as Robert

Wellesley Cole's Kossoh Town Boy (39) and Joseph Appiah's Joe Appiah: Autobiography of an African Patriot. (40) In both examples, Goff illustrates how the study of Latin and the Classics at school was associated with the kinds of moral values admired by the African middle classes, which shaped the backgrounds of these nationalist leaders: discipline, hard work, rationality, control and perhaps, most importantly, a hierarchical form of masculinity, (41) which was performed in the school community, a prefigurement of the incipient nation (pp. 166-75). (42) In short, these autobiographies reveal how an education in the Classics prepared both of these leaders for the 'independence struggle' (p. 179).

That Classics was a foundation discipline at the University Colleges of Ibadan in Nigeria and the Gold Coast (in Legon, near Accra), when these universities were established in 1948 in a 'special relationship' with the University of London, reveals to what extent a study of the Classics was associated with the highest standards at an international level (pp. 187-88). (43)

To be sure, there were detractors who objected that these universities, staffed by expatriates, were too colonial. Nkrumah, for example, apparently 'complained in 1957 that more university students were studying Latin and Greek than studied African languages' (p. 1 89). As late as 1978, Mazrui opined that 'there is a crisis of identity confronting every modern African university--and the mystique of ancient Greece is at the heart of it' (p. 190). Mazrui goes on to explore the African contribution to Greek culture and to suggest that the Greeks must be allowed 'to emerge as what they are--the fathers not of a European civilization but of a universal modernity' (p. 191). This kind of exploration of 'cultural transmission' between the Classical tradition and Africa characterised the work of John Ferguson, first Professor of Classics at Ibadan in 1956, who discovered that Nigerians could learn about European culture through the Classics, and they, in turn, 'could also contribute immensely to our understanding of the ancient world' (p. 195). (44) Goff does not explore the post-independence period at any length, but cites Agbodeka's 1998 study of the University of Ghana in which he notes that in most West African countries 'Classics has lost the battle against modernity' (p. 1 99). Despite this, Goff records that in 2012 Departments of Classics or Philosophy and Classics persist at Ibadan, Cape Coast, Legon and Fourah Bay, where Classicists have 'adapted' the discipline to local conditions to help it 'negotiate modernity', in the face of enormous obstacles (p. 199).

Goff's study is of profound importance for anyone interested in the history of the study of Classics and its reception in Africa. Furthermore, for any student of Reception Studies and its methodologies, Goff's work reveals a sophisticated grasp of the intricacies of postcolonial theory and its application to a wide variety of texts. I would have been happier had she tackled the post-independence period in West Africa as well--why the University of Ibadan, for instance, currently has the largest staff complement of any Classics Department in Africa would make fascinating reading. Stylistically, there are occasional lapses, which are characterised by a postmodern 'fruitiness' (45) or a vatic terseness. (46) The standard of proofreading, as one would expect of Deborah Blake and her team, is remarkably high.

Michael Lambert (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

(12) Goff does mention that 'in British colonies Roman Catholic missions were slower than those in the Protestant tradition to found secondary schools and teach Latin, despite the requirements of the church service' (p. 103). The late arrival of the Catholic missionaries was because of British prejudices; the emancipation of Catholics in the metropolis occurred as late as 1829, by which stage Fourah Bay College had been established.

(13) Founded by the Anglican 'Church Missionary Society' (pp. 27-28).

(14) In 1807, the slave trade was abolished in the British colonies. Despite this, the trade continued and British anti-slavery ships 'recaptured' slaves off the coast of West Africa and settled them in coastal areas of Sierra Leone (pp. 26-27).

(15) Goff notes that he translated much of the Bible, working from the 'original New Testament Greek' (p. 36). I presume then that Crowther translated much of the New Testament, not the Old.

(16) Sierra Leone was known as the 'White Man's Grave' (p. 37). Goff distinguishes between West African colonies, which were not 'settler colonies' such as those of British East Africa, or South Africa, but 'colonies of exploitation' (p. 37). The distinction is somewhat specious.

(17) Goff notes that as the 19th century moved towards the Berlin Conference of 1884 and the consequent 'scramble for Africa', European discourse about the 'nature and potential of Africans' became more racist (p. 38).

(18) Comments such as mission school products are lazy, dishonest and consider themselves superior to other 'natives' (p. 39). The testimony of the Reverend Schrenk, a Protestant from the Gold Coast, suggests that the teaching of Greek and Latin, in combination with Christianity, can help the African adolescent master his unrestrained sexual desires! (pp. 42-43).

(19) Founded by the Methodists as the Wesleyan Boys High School in 1876 and then refounded, with a Fanti name and motto, rather than a Latin one, by a 'consortium of West African leaders' in 1905 (p. 51).

(20) A graduate of Fourah Bay, King's College (London) and Edinburgh (pp. 68-69), Horton was a medical doctor, who wrote significant works on politics and history such as West African Countries and Peoples (1868) and Letters on the Political Condition of the Gold Coast (1870).

(21) Thus demonstrating that he was well aware of the Black Athena position long before Diop and Bernal (p. 74).

(22) Born in the Caribbean, Blyden, who corresponded regularly with another Victorian statesman-classicist, Gladstone, emigrated to Liberia in 1850 and became, inter alia, ambassador to Britain and a leading member of the West African intelligentsia (pp. 75-78).

(23) Especially in Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887) (p. 79).

(24) For example (pp. 87-90) his drama, The Blinkards (1915), and his short story The Anglo-Fanti (1918).

(25) Founder of the National Congress of British West Africa, Hayford attended Booker T. Washington's International Conference on the Negro in 1912, and was a well-known African nationalist of the age (pp. 90-95).

(26) The system, created by Lord Lugard (1858-1945) to achieve the 'pacification' of the predominantly Muslim Northern Nigeria, in which Britain governed through traditional chiefs (p. 99).

(27) As Goff notes, official opinion came to see education as a kind of scapegoat for the dissatisfaction of that elite' (p. 101).

(28) Frequently represented by the British '... as a means to preserve native African social forms rather than undermining them ...' (p. 101).

(29) Other features of the trope of the 'educated African' involve his use of the 'Latin tag' for social effect (pp. 107-08).

(30) By Lord Lugard with the approval of the Colonial Office.

(31) Headed by the Reverend Thomas Jesse Jones (1873-1950) who had recently completed a report on Negro education in the United States (p. 124).

(32) The report even characterised a Classical education as 'educational slavery' which isolated the African student from modernity characterised by the study of physical science and modern research (p. 124).

(33) The report resulted, in London, in the foundation of the Advisory Committee on Native Education whose Memorandum on Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (1925) was influenced by the Commission and made much of 'adaptation' of education to the 'mentality, aptitudes, occupations and traditions of the various peoples...' (p. 129).

(34) For example, in 1934, Twi, Fanti, Ga and Ewe were accepted as examination subjects by the Cambridge University Local Examinations Syndicate and the University of London accepted the first three as subjects which counted towards Matric exemption (p. 131).

(35) Born in the Gold Coast, he had emigrated to the USA where he lived for more than two decades, acquiring degrees in Medicine, Classics and Theology, and even delivering orations in Greek and Latin at his graduation! (pp. 135-36).

(36) Founded in 1924, this famous school was co-educational, non-denominational, and provided an holistic academic and practical education, which included Greek and Latin. Half the members of the governing council had to be African (pp. 139-40).

(37) Mfantsipim consolidated its 'academic, traditional classical identity' in the 1 930s and Adisadel College (founded by the Anglican Church in 1910) continued teaching Greek and Latin, and became famous for its productions of Greek plays. At Wesley College in Ibadan (Nigeria), the principal had to be compelled to offer Latin in the school, as withholding it prevented the students from matriculating--certainly before the reforms of 1938 (pp. 143-48).

(38) Such as maintaining cultural ties between emergent African nationalism and the metropolis via a Classical education (p. 180).

(39) The first volume deals with the schooldays of Cole (1907-1995) as a 'young Freetown boy in the 1920s' (p. 165). A later version, An Innocent in Britain, deals with his adulthood.

(40) Appiah (1918-1990) was the scion of a wealthy, Ashanti aristocratic family. He was educated at Mfantsipim, imprisoned by both Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings, and retired from his extraordinarily interesting public life in the 1970s (pp. 169-70).

(41) As Greek and Latin were not taught at girls' schools (p. 165).

(42) As Senior Prefect, Appiah led a school strike in 1936, 'clearly a rehearsal for his adult anti-colonial activity' (p. 175) and so, suggests Goff, following Holden, 'horizontal fraternal identification' was perhaps more important for Appiah than 'vertical filiation with the father' was for Cole (p. 175).

(43) In the early years, an Honours degree in Classics was the only Honours degree offered at Ibadan (p. 188).

(44) Ferguson founded the Classical Association of Nigeria and the student classical association 'Hoi Phrontistai' (at Ibadan), both still in existence. As examples of cultural transmission, Ferguson explicitly mentions sacrifice and comparative study of classical and African proverbs or Homeric and African epic (p. 195).

(45) For example: 'Horton's texts also suggest that the rigorously digitized classical education which we encountered in Chapter 1 could, almost paradoxically, give access to a breadth and depth of cultural reference which grounded the authority of a radical discourse' (pp. 74-75).

(46) For example: 'Despite the alleged differences between the British and French systems, the anxieties are shared, because structural' (p. 103).