On Tuesday,
18th July, a party of twenty-five from the second and third forms, accompanied
by Miss Ellis and Miss Bardens, went to Exeter
Cathedral for the 900th Anniversary of the enthronement of Leofric,
the first Bishop of Exeter. We went on the 4.45 p.m. train to Exeter, and were met at the Cathedral by the
clergyman who was to show us around. We entered by the West door. The first
thing we were told to look at was the masonry of the roof, which seemed
something like huge branches spreading out from tall trees which were the
pillars. The height from floor to ceiling in the cathedral is sixty-nine feet
and the unbroken length of vaulting is 300 ft. On our left we saw the small
chapel of St. Andrew, surrounded by a wooden screen which contains some of the
oldest wooden carving in England.
We walked up the nave of the Cathedral noting some more points of interest.
One of the most striking articles in the Cathedral is the clock, of a kind of
which there are only two others in England, one at Ottery
which does not work, and the other at Wells which does work. The clock was made
in the 14th Century and indicates the time of day, the date and how new or old
the moon is.
There are many different chapels around the Cathedral dedicated to certain
Saints, and many stone effigies. In the chapels, beautiful windows of stained
glass can be seen. These windows, during the war, had all been taken out in
little pieces, but now the glass is all carefully pieced together again.
A most magnificent piece of carving is the Bishop’s chair, sixty feet high and
all of wood. This too was taken to pieces and hidden during the war and is now
restored to its normal position. It was built in the 14th Century for Bishop Stapeldon, who was the King’s Treasurer.
There are many other marvellous
sights in the Cathedral, which we saw and were told about. One thing of
particular interest, hanging on the south wall, is a flag which was presented
by Capt. Scott’s mother, as a remembrance of Captain Scott’s voyage to the
Antarctic.
We spent about an hour in the Cathedral and afterwards we walked through the
Bishop’s Gardens and caught the 6.45 p.m. train home. We had a most enjoyable
time and we should like to thank Miss Bardens and Miss
Ellis for taking us.
C. HARWOOD. III G.
Notes on Nigeria
“Wide through the landscape of his dreams The lordly Niger
flows.”
If any of us think of Nigeria,
I think it must be a very indistinct picture that we visualise, perhaps
with scenes from “Sanders of the River” blending with impressions gleaned from
an atlas and geographical text book. Some of the mists of ignorance were “a
space unsettled” for the 5th and 6th on Monday, July 10th, when Mr. Strickland
gave an informal talk on Nigeria
in the Assembly Hall.
Mr. Strickland is the British “District Officer“ in Southern Nigeria, which means that he is a guiding
influence in practically every phase of Nigerian life. He is here on leave
after a long residence there. The work of a district officer no longer entails
slashing one’s way through dense jungle with considerable risk of being shot at
with poisoned darts, but it is still a difficult task in other ways.
To begin with, the majority of the inhabitants are
very ignorant and illiterate - and are by no means energetic. Much, but not
enough, is being done to educate them, but the results of the education are not
always directly beneficial; the old-fashioned native was content to grow a few
bananas for himself, and had few desires and no ambition, but as soon as a
native can read or write he finds it easy to dupe his fellow-natives. One way
is to spread the idea that the best way to secure good treatment is to bribe
the District Officer; then one collects shillings from all the small farmers in
the district, ostensibly for this purpose, but while the D.O. does not receive
the bribe - which the collector, even if he wished to, would not dare to offer,
he may well receive the odium attached to it, while the “educated” native
enjoys the proceeds.
A few of these natives progress to a higher level of education, but still in
most cases the result is merely an increase in their “taking ways.” At the top,
there are some quite highly educated; these generally come to England and
qualify as lawyers. Perhaps it is obvious why! They do not as a rule qualify as
doctors, architects or engineers, though there is a real vital need for such
qualifications if Nigeria
is to develop. They seem singularly deficient in engineering skill, as the fate
of their lorries and ‘buses, not to mention the D.O.’s
car and autoscythe - graphically shows. Mr.
Strickland revealed a good deal of quiet humour in illustrating this deficiency,
leaving us with a glorious picture of sixty excited Nigerians of all sizes
riding hazardously on every portion of a twenty-seater
‘bus (itself a superannuated trade lorry) as it hurtles along a road consisting
of a series of huge corrugations. “You cannot train a native driver to keep his
head in a crisis. If something goes wrong as the vehicle is going downhill, he
doesn’t look for a suitable spot to run it on to. He jumps off! And you can’t
entirely blame him, for the thing probably has no brakes.”
Mr. Strickland answered many questions about the occupations, communications,
architecture, language, etc. of the Nigerians. The avowed policy of the British
administration is to grant self-government to Nigeria as soon as practicable;
but native administration of local taxation, police, etc. is so unreliable and
so corrupt that one can hardly avoid the conclusion that it will be a bad day
for the vast majority of Nigerians when the British withdraw, and control is
handed over to the “educated natives.”