People all around the world are searching for hope, but many dont have someone to tell them about the hope found in Jesus. The first school in Nigeria was started by the Methodist missionaries at Badagry in 1842. Among several others, the native Bishop Ajayi Crowther produced the first translation of the Bible in Yoruba. better grades In this respect the Christian religion therefore differed from the traditional religions of West Africa, which along with an acceptance of one Supreme Being worshipped a hierarchy of gods. It started first among the Yoruba recaptives who had embraced the Christian faith while in Sierra Leone (freed from slave trading ships by the British Royal Naval Squadron), and who returned home between 1839 and 1845. The Methodist Church Ghana came into existence as a result of the missionary activities of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, inaugurated with the arrival of Joseph Rhodes Dunwell to the Gold Coast (Ghana) in 1835.Like the mother church, the Methodist Church in Ghana was established by people of Anglican background. Thus as early as 1823, the Roman Catholic Sisters started a clinic for the sick and for children in Banjul. Lack of transport from the coast to the interior parts of West Africa was one of the major difficulties encountered by the missionaries. Study for free with our range of university lectures! THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES AND VERNACULAR LITERATURE; Another valuable contribution of the Christian missionaries in West Africa was the development of literature in the local vernaculars, this included the translation of the Bible into some of the important local languages. Even if secondary education was provided, it was often reserved for the sons of local chiefs (Oliver 1952:212; Beck 1966: 120), an elite the colonial government could then call upon to help rule the colony, a common practice in colonial Africa. And yet this was what earlier missionaries in pagan Europe had done when, for example, they had changed the Sabbath to suit the pagan Sun Day (hence Sunday), and had also adopted the dates of the pagan festivals to celebrate Christmas Day and the Easter festival. Public money was spent only on the small number of government schools, totaling nineteen when Governor Guggisberg assumed office in 1919. Another important German missionary was Wilhelm Johannson, better known by the English version of his name, William Johnson, who is revered in the history of the CMS in West Africa. 1991. Series CLS. %%EOF At the time of its inception, however, there was no publication that systematically or comprehensively addressed the enormous problems that characterized the education of Blacks in the United States and elsewhere. The Christian religion teaches the doctrine of one supreme God and is opposed to the worship of any other forms of deity. Among the early Protestant evangelical societies founded in Great Britain were the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Wesleyan Missionary Society and what became known as the Presbyterian Missionary Society of the Church of Scotland. They include Sierra Leone 1900-1933; Ghana 1903; Cape Verde 1904-1910; and St Vincent 1907-1912. 6: Christian Missionary Activities in West Africa Although modern scientific research has confirmed the medicinal properties of these concoctions, traditional medical practice had several shortcomings. Missionaries travelled through dense evergreen forests, crossed rivers and climbed mountains to bring the Gospel to as many Ghanaians as they could. PROBLEMS FACED BY THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES. They need YOU. All rights reserved. Initially,. These new movements considered such ventures to be their contribution to Europes reparation for centuries of exploitation of Africans, reparation for the centuries of exploitation which the Trans Atlantic slave trade had caused to African society. They were followed by other major missionary bodies, including the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. The churches opened primary schools both in the capital and in the rural communities. As long as the Africans could read the Bible, the missionaries were satisfied that they had had enough academic education. Contribution of the Methodist Church to education in Ghana Furthermore, mission schools discouraged traditional ways of life outside of the classroom. Today almost all of the population is Presbyterian, although the ancestral royal cult and many spirit cults still flourish. This was the work of the great missionary, Thomas Birch Freeman, who placed two missionaries, Mr and Mrs. de Graft, in charge of the school. Before 1925, there were only three secondary schools and three teacher training colleges in Ghana. In my study, I explored how colonial era conflicts and disagreements over marriage norms lastingly affected educational development. By using postcolonial theory as a framework for analysis, it is evident that the Western formal education introduced to the people of the Gold Coast by the Christian missionaries and the British Colonial government did not serve the indigenous population well. The statistical evidence suggests that education would have spread more evenly. Textbooks were heavily biased towards western ideas and values. The early European Christian missionaries in West Africa experienced a number of difficulties, some arising from factors outside their control and others of their own making. From the second half of the eighteenth century, a fervent wave of evangelical spirit developed in the United Kingdom, Europe and the New World which inspired men and women with the missionary fervour to found religious societies whose members would go out to Africa and the other lands. The missionary activities in Nigeria, especially their educational programs helped to whip-up the consciousness of a shared identity and helped to train a new set of elite that championed the course of nationalism and constituted a virile leadership for the young nation at independence.Click to see full answer What is missionary education?A mission school or [] Mission schools were popular because of the new skills and opportunities they offered. The others included the Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. 1931. After six years at St. Peters, Father Burke was named chaplain and professor of English literature at St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Osu, Ghana. As Ayandele points out (1966:285), the ideal of many of the missions was to make their converts live literally as the unlearned and ignorant apostles of old. This ideal, combined with the fact that many missionaries discovered that Africans with only basic education were best at spreading the Gospel, meant that missionaries were reluctant to provide higher primary or secondary education (Ayandele 1966:286). Both the academic and vocational forms of education the missions provided served to strengthen the rule of the colonial powers, so that the native inhabitants were second-class citizens in their own land. However, the motivation behind teaching Africans basic literacy and mathematics might not have been a cause for concern if not for the fact that the religious motivation curtailed education. His funeral Mass was Sept. 27, followed by burial at St. Mary Cemetery at Techny. Kalu, Ogbu. Although Lokoja had a small C.M.S. The work of the missionaries also had little success initially. Although there were many disagreements between European missionaries and African populations, antagonising polygamy is probably the best-documented norm conflict. Two important private schools with strong Christian influence must also be mentioned: Accra High School, founded in 1923 and Accra Academy, established in In many instances, they made their converts rebel against traditional rulers and other spiritual leaders. Also, the traditional doctors more often than not could not diagnose illness accurately. What are the contribution of the missionaries? - Alqatirat missionaries was the development of literature in Yoruba. In the later 19th century, the immense African interior remained the principal object of the Catholic Priests, and from 1867 until his death in November 1892 Cardinal Lavigerie planned the planting of churches in Africa South of the Sahara. The Contribution of christian missionaries to education in Meru 1908-1963. In 1858 ten years after the founding of the first college, the Presbyterians opened a sister college at Aburi for the training of women teachers. Among his pioneering achievements, he arranged for three youths to be sent to England for training as evangelists. These missionaries saw death in the course of their evangelizing work as a means to ascend to heavenly glory. student life A notable example was the Asafo Company, a purely military and social organisation of the peoples of Ghana, which was condemned by the early missionaries because of its presumed connection with fetish practices. Amidst much honest missionary activity in the country for two centuries, prosperity gospel teachers have also gained influence, and numerous indigenous cults have arisen with distinct appeal and just enough truth to create confusion and syncretism. Henry Townsend who went from Sierra Leone to Badagry in 1842 in his company was the Rev Ajayi Crowther. Prominent among the early Christian missionaries to come to the Gold Coast (Ghana) were the Roman Catholic, Methodist, Basel, Bremen and Anglican missions. Many Ghanaian communities got divided along religious lines. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The European missionaries engaged in trading and other commercial activities as well. The CMS began to work in the freed slave villages in Sierra Leone in 1804 and the Methodist in 1811. They had to speak through few interpreters who did not have sufficient education to interpret correctly. We shall now turn our attention to the activities of the Christian missionaries in Ghana. ASSESS THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF GHANA. For instance the scholar E.A. Thomas Birch Freeman, son of a London-based West Indian father and an English mother. Furthermore, they were skilled farmers that could grow cash crops to be consumed back in the mother country, such as cocoa from Ghana (Foster 1965: 153). Another reason why the Europeans came to spread the Christian religion in Ghana was to pave their own way into eternal glory. Some progressive Europeans, like the first principal of Achimota College, Rev. Father Burke became director of the Divine Word Language and Cultural Centre in Ghana. Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bremen, Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy (SOCIUM), Universitt Bremen. The Portuguese were the first to introduce the Christian faith into West Africa but following their departure from the West Coast in the mid-seventeenth century, the Christian religion survived only in Upper Guinea where a bishop was maintained in the Cape Verde Islands serving also a part of the mainland. Copyright 2023 ABWE. In Nigeria, one of the lasting works of the C.M.S. How to Get Involved in Church Missions: The Ultimate Guide, 16 Causes of Crime Essay (with Solutions), Justify the Title of the Novel Second Class Citizen, The Role of Ghana in the Formation of the OAU, Economic Developments in Ghana Before Independence, 11 Causes of the Rise of Nationalism in Africa, Importance of the Odwira Festival in Ghana. It would be wrong, however, to blame all these ills on the Christian missionaries alone. This thesis discusses and assesses contribution of Christian Missionaries to education in Meru from 1908 to 1963. By 1885, the church had spread further inland, thanks to Father Joseph Lutz who started work around Onitsha in 1886 and spread the gospel in many parts of the present day Imo and Anambra States. Required fields are marked *. senior high school crs The early success of the missionaries included areas like Freetown and surrounding villages. In 1892, the Church Missionary Society opened the Iyi Enu Hospital in Onitsha which is today a leading hospital in Anambra state. Contributions of Missionaries Towards Education in India In 1981, Father Burke was promoted to headmaster and rector of Pope John XXIII Secondary School and Minor Seminary in Koforidua. Last, missionaries provided a very poor education, causing their students to be ill-equipped for social or material success, as they believed education to simply be a means for proselytization, were unqualified teachers, and allowed inter-denominational rivalries to interfere. He professed vows in 1953 in Conesus, N.Y., and was ordained to the priesthood in 1961 at Techny, Ill. Ekechi, Felix K. Colonialism and Christianity in West Africa: The Igbo Case, 19001915. The Journal of African History 12, no. Series CLR. Andrew Jackson Foster (1925-1987) was an American pioneer of deaf education in several countries in Africa. This made it difficult for the early missionaries to stay in the country for long. Are you ready to discover the points for an essay on the contribution of the Christian mission to the social and economic development of Ghana? But with the abolition of slavery, the introduction of cocoa, and the Churchs efficient school system, she gradually became the Church of the social elite. ]v#5%{,%Y{iKsZ|Cm7NismGmg_zxKYh?>bQ?ni8G.wx:qAm$ eb!^Kr$,.9Qq^|1. Volunteers and donors to organizations such as Compassion Canada believe that they are being humanitarian when they build schools in Africa, volunteer as teachers or help in other ways to improve the quality of education in African nations, yet missionaries and colonial governments were similarly lauded as performing a great work of humanity (Beck 1966:117) and likewise believed that they were helping their African pupils.
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