'A little book of logic': reconstructing colonial arts of suasion at Government College, Umuahia

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Periodical article

Title:	'A little book of logic': reconstructing colonial arts of suasion at Government College, Umuahia
Author:	Ochiagha, Terri
Year:	2014
Periodical:	History in Africa (ISSN 1558-2744)
Volume:	41
Pages:	63-82
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	elite secondary education textbooks curriculum educational history
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/hia.2014.1
Abstract:	Memories of political pedagogies in the elite colonial classroom are typically fragmentary and constitute limited historical evidence. But when contextualized and used in combination with coetaneous sources, such as textbooks and lesson notes, they can be crucial in the reconstruction of the transmission of political knowledge, its classroom assimilation and postcolonial negotiation. This article pieces together a number of unconnected but mutually consistent epiphanic moments in the life-writing and interviews of writers Chinua Achebe and Chike Momah, tracing and identifying a mysterious textbook of logic - R.W. Jepson's 'Clear Thinking' (1936) - and its use as a tool to rein in and redirect anti-colonial nationalist undercurrents at Government College, Umuahia, the elite colonial school famous for having produced eight renowned Nigerian writers. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]