20 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



Clearly a combination of both methods would be the ideal and 

 one which should not be hard to achieve. In the case of Great 

 Britain there seems to be scope for more co-operation on the part 

 of the universities. A few university departments have contributed 

 to the study of African problems, such as those to which certain 

 of the Imperial Agricultural Bureaux are attached, the forestry 

 department at Oxford and the anthropological department of the 

 London School of Economics. But with these exceptions, it cannot 

 be said that the great universities are playing an important part 

 in the modern scientific development of Africa, except in providing 

 training for some of the men who are subsequently absorbed into 

 the services. From time to time expeditions go into the field under ' 

 the auspices of universities or scientific societies to undertake special 

 inquiries, but nearly always the financing of these depends on indi- 

 vidual initiative on the part of their members. It may in the future 

 be found possible to introduce post-graduate students and others 

 in search of subjects for research to matters related to African 

 problems. There are already a number of first-class centres of 

 research suitable for visiting workers, and at nearly all of these are 

 specified problems of wide application, of the type that the local 

 staff have no time or opportunity to undertake. If the universities 

 were to assist in the solution of such problems the advantages would 

 be many, both to the African territories in obtaining for short 

 periods keen men possessing the latest knowledge in their special 

 subjects, and to the workers themselves in the opportunity for 

 widening their experience and in carrying out the type of research 

 which may become widely known. Difficulties would arise in 

 financing these schemes, but it might be possible to pool contribu- 

 tions from various sources in such a way as to encourage a method 

 of work by which more than one partner would benefit. 



Another instructive contrast between the British and French 

 colonies is that in the former there sometimes appears to be a cer- 

 tain lack of economy in apportioning the work to be carried out by 

 officers who have had a high scientific training. Especially perhaps 

 in East Africa, there are many first-class agricultural officers, 

 trained at Cambridge and Trinidad, among whose work there 

 figures prominently the kind of routine field duties which could 

 be discharged at least as efficiently by men less highly trained. It 



