SELECT DOCUMENTS UWI in Barbados, 1963-1968 Compiled, Edited and with a Foreword by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles H.R.H

SELECT DOCUMENTS UWI in Barbados, 1963-1968 Compiled, edited and with a foreword by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles H.R.H. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone Chancellor of the University of the West Indies CONTENTS

2 FOREWORD Professor Sir Hilary Beckles Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Principal, Cave Hill Campus

5 VICE CHANCELLOR’S ADDRESS Harbour Site, Bridgetown 12th October, 1963 Dr. Philip M. Sherlock Vice-Chancellor of the University

15 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 12th October, 1963 Honourable J. Cameron Tudor Minister of Education, Barbados

30 CAVE HILL CAMPUS Selected Images

35 CHANCELLOR’S ADDRESS Harbour Site, Bridgetown 13th March, 1964 H.R.H. Princess Alice Countess of Athlone

39 MINISTER’S ADDRESS Laying of Foundation Stone, Cave Hill Campus 26th January, 1966 Honourable J. Cameron Tudor Minister of Education, Barbados

47 GRADUATION ADDRESS Cave Hill Campus 6th February, 1968 Rt. Hon. Errol Walton Barrow Prime Minister of Barbados FOREWORD

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Principal, Cave Hill Campus

Moving beyond its network of extra-mural centres, the University of the West Indies extended its reach into the community of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean with the establishment of a College of Arts and Science. Opened on Saturday, October 12, 1963, at the Deep Water Harbour, Bridgetown, the latest enterprise of the UWI took on board a mere 118 students. The project was placed in the care, for the first year, of Acting Principal Mr. Leslie R.B. Robinson, MA, the talented young Jamaican mathematician who had established a reputation for sound management at the Mona campus. Some of the finest minds in the region were mobilized to give shape and form to this eruption in capacity building. Vice- Chancellor Sir Arthur Lewis had bequeathed to his successor Sir Philip Sherlock, a strategic plan for university expansion in the Eastern Caribbean. Lewis was committed to Barbados as a prime and proper location following the development of the St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad in 1962. Premier Errol Barrow of Barbados, an admirer of both Lewis and Sherlock, was keen to fashion with the help of UWI a critical component of the education revolution he prepared to unleash, and took personal responsibility for advancing the Lewis initiative. Barrow placed in charge his loyal and dependable Deputy Premier and Minister of Education, the intellectually astute Cameron Tudor. The project team, now led by Vice-Chancellor Sherlock, could only but succeed. Brilliant, passionate, and focused, these architects of Caribbean educational transformation went about their task like missionaries impatient of the future imagined. The

regional university was at its best with this test of its commitment to community development. It did not disappoint. The Chancellor of the University, Her Royal Highness, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, made an inspection visit to the college in its temporary buildings at the Harbour on Friday March 13, 1964, following a meeting at Mona of the University Council. Her blessed journey to the dusty site of an academy in the making was more than an act of validation. It constituted a seminal moment in the history of the regional university, and in particular a transformational development in higher education in Barbados, and the Windward and Leeward Islands. The persistent oversight and presence of Dr. Eric Williams, Pro- Chancellor of the University, provided intellectual validation of the project. His conceptualization of the course of the college spoke to the energy within UWI as the development engine of the region. The laying of the corner stone for the college at its permanent residence at Cave Hill took place on January 26, 1966. In 1970 when the regional Faculty of Law was placed on these premises the college evolved into its present form – The Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. Its journey represented a spectacular process in regional institution building and national resource mobilization. Starting with an Extra-Mural Studies Unit, and moving on to a Liberal Arts College, the UWI finally birthed a fine progeny, a fully fledged campus in Barbados. It is fitting, therefore, fifty years later, that the university present for purposes of reflection a selection of key addresses delivered at the college in its first five years. They capture so precisely the spirit of enterprise and sacrifice that informed the effort to drive our societies away from their colonial scaffold through an investment in higher education. Critically, they capture the concept of publicly funded university education as a reparatory ‘politic’, a discourse that problematized legacies of imperial exploitation and imagined in their place states of intellectual freedom and citizenship.

The founding architects of education did not retreat from the magnificent moment so pregnant with movements of liberation. They harnessed the energy of the tide, and crafted a campus which they invested with a remit to be the soul and salvation of the people of the Eastern Caribbean. Vice-Chancellor Sherlock spoke in the soulful tone of unrestricted truth, while Chancellor Princess Alice laid bare the expectation that Caribbean people would seize their destiny and push forward an “enlightened development’. Minister Tudor, unmatched in oratorical skill, set forth the case for a university campus distinguished for its intellectual maturity, research relevance, and moral commitment to community. These articulations have stood the test of time; they belong to discourses still pressing upon the present. Taken from our archives, these documents return to us like commandments for academic crafting in a turbulent, disturbing, distorting present. They are as relevant today as they were then. The truth of this relevance is found in its clearest form in the graduation address delivered by Prime Minister Errol Barrow at the College of Arts and Science at Cave Hill on February 6, 1968. It was the first occasion on which the Prime Minister addressed a full gathering of university stakeholders at Cave Hill. His message was clear: the University, he urged, must stand with the people, and for the people. It should use its resources with the greatest prudence, and be an example of commitment and concern in difficult and generous times. In this way, he said, the host community would develop a “settled conviction” that the “efficient growth” of the campus was critical to its well being. In fact, he said, the community would come to realize that the campus was their “PATH TO PROSPERITY”. These historic documents, then, belong to the present and to the future. They ought to be read and digested by all invested with care for the regional university, and by all within the academy whose responsibility it is to protect and nurture this grand enterprise of the Indies.

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

CAVE HILL, BARBADOS, W.I.

ON OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE

College Of Arts & Science

The Vice-Chancellor’s Address

Dr. Philip M. Sherlock Vice-Chancellor of the University

Twelfth of October One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-three

(1963)

THE VICE-CHANCELLOR’S ADDRESS

Speech by Dr. Philip M. Sherlock, Vice-Chancellor of the University, on the occasion of the opening of the College of Arts and Science, Barbados, on 12th October, 1963; Your Excellency, Hon. Premier, Hon. Chief Minister, My Lord Bishop, Hon. Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen. On Thursday evening I left a meeting of the Senate at Mona to come to Barbados for this ceremony. And just before taking off as it were from one stratosphere to another, I was asked by the Senate to convey their greetings and best wishes to this gathering, to you, Mr. Premier; to you Mr. Principal; and to the new College. This is a part and a most valued-part of a great enterprise. I would like to begin by saying that I join with the principal, Mr. Robinson, in recording our sincere thanks to all those who have made this gathering possible and who, in fact, have made it possible for us to begin this programme. It was only in February that the University Council decided that teaching should begin in Barbados this year, and so we were working against time. But you, Mr. Premier, and your Government have been most generous in your support, and we thank you. We thank also all those who have contributed in every way to the start of this programme. We owe so much to so many. And I think not only of the present and not only of those here, but of the foundations which are of such assistance to us, great philanthropic foundations like the Nuffield, the Ford, which have been abundantly generous, the Carnegie Foundation (one of our earliest friends) and the Rockefeller Foundation. And it is a particular pleasure to me tonight to express our thanks also, not only to these great foundations, but to the foundation which, in a peculiar way, is a part of us — the American Foundation of the University of the

West Indies, the Chairman of which is Mr. Ronald Tree who is happily with us this evening. I think also of the past, of the services rendered to us by two Council members in particular who came from this region. I refer to Sir Grantley Adams, and also to Sir Garnet Gordon. And I think that at this time they must, both of them, rejoice at the developments which have taken place. As the Principal pointed out tonight, and as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor emphasized at the great gathering which was recently held in Trinidad at St. Augustine, the University of the West Indies has embarked on a programme of expansion, bringing the courses for the new General Degree into the Eastern Caribbean — into this community, into the community in Trinidad, and, we hope, in increasing measure, into the other island communities. At the conference which was recently held in Antigua, for instance, plans were made for strengthening the extension work of the University, increasing the number of Resident Tutors available in the eight territories, and beginning a new programme of teaching in Public Administration, in the hope that this will be of special assistance to these governments. There is, also, the work which is in the capable hands of Dr. O’Loughlin, the beginning of a programme of economic studies, and an expert service in the field of economic development which already has won the appreciation of the governments of this part of the Caribbean. And the University itself has, indeed, made radical changes in its policies. In 1948, how well I remember it, thirty-two students in their scarlet gowns for the first time entered upon the study of medicine. That was in October 1948. And now, this October, there are two thousand students in the University of the West Indies, just over a hundred here enrolled in Barbados, some five hundred at St. Augustine, and another fourteen or fifteen hundred at Mona. And the growth has not been only in

numbers, but in something that is, to the minds of the Council of the Senate, supremely important, in the actual content and organization of the University; for, once a strong centre had been established — a centre which, through the assistance of universities overseas and particularly the University of London, had won respect in all academic quarters everywhere — once this strong centre had been established under the leadership of my predecessor, Sir Arthur Lewis, and our Pro-Chancellor Dr. Eric Williams, changes were made which brought the facilities of the University here to Barbados and to Trinidad and, in increasing measure, to the island communities. It is not only a change in organization, something that goes deeper, I think, a change in the content of the General Degree. And it was this that our Pro-Chancellor was particularly concerned with, and about which he spoke, when he came to Barbados earlier this year. The fact that we now require, and I think rightly and wisely, that we now require that all undergraduates entering for the General Degrees should take courses in Caribbean studies. This is more than training. Education is a much bigger thing than training. And education begins on one’s doorstep. And for too long education at university level in the West Indies has been centred elsewhere and has, indeed, proved sometimes to be a divisive force in the community. I think every teacher will know what I mean, that sometimes the man who gets the opportunity for university education does well in the academic sense, but in strange and subtle ways grows away from his community and ceases really to belong to it as a citizen of the Caribbean. And at this time, particularly, in the history of this region it is supremely important that the young student, the young West Indian student should not only study his biology in the tropical environment which is his, should not only study his medicine in the environment which enables him to see the effects and causes of diseases in this region, but should also take his general studies learning something of the history and the nature of this West

Indian society and also of the Caribbean region of which we form a part. Today, in some places, local insularities and local nationalisms are quite understandably on the increase, and the University, therefore, becomes one of the most important unifying forces in a region that, throughout its history has been bedeviled by divisions and fragmentation and by the frustrations that flow from them. And this community of three million people, scattered in this fantastic way over great distances, has common traditions and a common history. We all began in the same way, whether we be of European or African or East Indian stock, we began in the same way, as uprooted people brought across the ocean and making a home for themselves. But for so long our education never enabled us to see that this was our home, and the true purpose of our insistence on Caribbean studies is to make certain that our university education itself shall be something indigenous, something that at the same time belongs in a particular way to this community and yet is never parochial, but is conscious of the universality of scholarship and knowledge. This is our purpose. This is our task. So that the West Indian may be at home in the West Indies. This really is the purpose for which we exist. And at this particular time in our history it is going to be difficult for all of us. Jamaica is now an independent nation facing many serious, difficult problems. Some of them economic, some of them social, and discovering with every day that political independence is not an escape from difficulty, is not an escape from reality, is no miracle that suddenly transforms the world; that independence confronts the Jamaican today with the gravest and most serious problem in his country’s history. That people of Trinidad and Tobago are finding that this is true. For this is the meaning of independence — LEARNING TO STAND ON ONE’S FEET, LEARNING TO DRAW ON LEADERSHIP FROM WITHIN

ONE’S COMMUN1TY, learning to use resources, however limited, for the development of all, seeking help, seeking fellowship elsewhere but carrying always this terrible and urgent responsibility of tomorrow. And you in the Eastern Caribbean are on the threshold of independence and face the same tasks. And tonight, if you will allow me to do so, because this is something that concerns me most deeply, and this is why I put such faith in the University of the West Indies: at this particular time, it is well for us to understand that we have in fact no escape from the responsibilities of nationhood and independence, and that the remedies and our own security lie in the training and the discipline and the devotion of the West Indian people….. not in grants-in-aid from elsewhere, not in foreign aid however generous, but WITHIN the West Indian community. So that this University, in a special way, has a task additional to the traditional tasks of research and teaching, the inescapable and the urgent task of helping, or performing its own special duty, not only of training young men and women through the discipline of the mind, and discipline is today unfortunately an unpopular word, but believe me our future depends on the extent to which we are prepared to impose a discipline upon ourselves; and these students who tonight enter upon this course, for the first time, become a part of a growing student community which will find in study, and in the training of the mind, some of the instruments that the West Indies needs, that the West Indies must have, if it is to survive. Barbados, in fact, has one of the most remarkable arguments for education. I am convinced that it is because of your long tradition of education, because of the value that you put upon it, because of the money that you are prepared to spend upon it, because you have the most comprehensive system of education in the West Indies and hardly any illiteracy — because of these things you can support a population of thirteen hundred to the

10 11 square mile and maintain a standard of living which many a larger and more powerful nation would wish to have. What we are concerned with is no charity. It is no form of welfare. It is something — an integral and essential part of our society and the only guarantee of its security and stability. I looked at the map, the map of the Caribbean, the other day. I got no comfort from it when I looked at the independent islands. Cuba which won its independence with great heroism and through the struggle and devotion of that great man Marti, throwing off one dictatorship to pass under another. Haiti, the first country in the New World in which the coloured man, the African, won his liberty by his own effort, with its splendid history and its memorable Toussaint, today groaning under the shabby dictatorship of Duvalier. The Dominican Republic which seemed only a few months ago to have moved from a dictatorship and ruthless tyranny to stability, still uncertain, still trying to find its way. This region, this great arc that stretches from Venezuela to Florida, like so many parts of the world today, is passing through a period of profound change. Believe me, the values that belong to us, the freedoms that we cherish could be in danger. Why should we be spared the travail of other lands? These things will be preserved only insofar as you and I now set ourselves and dedicate ourselves to the task of ensuring West Indian stability and the way of life which is ours, the way of life which we wish for our children. So, in the University we are not only grappling with the fundamental tasks of research but are, like you and your government, Mr. Premier, engaged upon the most urgent task that has ever faced the West Indian people in its history; and it is indeed a task that faces, not only us, but Mankind. For what is happening? We have passed into a new age. The Space Age is not to come, it is here. And we have at one and the same time, in this middle of the Twentieth Century, Mankind with its incredible mastery over technical knowledge and science, and

10 11 at the same time the uncertainty in its heart about the equality of men and women…the two crucial, central problems of the Twentieth Century here in Barbados, and in our beloved islands, and on the mainland, and throughout the world, the problem of human relationships, the problem of the heart and man’s mastery over technical knowledge. And in closing let me try to put what I am trying to say into a parable. Because this is the choice that confronts us and it is, to my mind, the inescapable role of the University of the West Indies to contribute to the West Indies, not only men and women who are trained according to the highest standards, but men and women who dedicate themselves to the building of West Indian society. This is the challenge which the University offers to you who enter its gates this evening, a solemn and a difficult and a hard challenge, but the kind of challenge that makes men and women, and makes societies….Let me tell you, let me try to illustrate what I mean: Some two years ago the United States put its first man into space. It was one autumn, and we read the story of how the scientists had imprisoned a man in a tiny capsule and shot him out into space and kept him there. And I marvel at the courage of that man. I wouldn’t have remained alive if anybody had tried to do that to me. I would have dissolved into a jelly with fright. A tremendous act of courage and faith…..he was there alone circling the world at this incredible speed. Alone, alone in space. One of the first men in space. Alone? No not alone. Because he was upheld by the labours and the scientific endeavours of hundreds and thousands of men, men and women and the long experience and the search of countless scientists. They put him there. They kept him there. They brought him back. They spoke to him and he spoke to them. Alone and yet supported by this great army, a demonstration of man’s growing mastery over material things, man’s growing mastery over material things. At that very same time that autumn, a young man, he had been

12 13 in the American army, sought admission to the University of Mississippi, James Meredith, a coloured man. He was alone. He could read on the faces of those who barred his way contempt, in their eyes disgust, on their lips curses. He had taken this upon himself. In that moment he became, not only the American Negro seeking the rights of citizenship that were his, he symbolized the aspirations and the desires of every minority group in the world, Jew or Gentile, Black or White. This is the splendour of what he did. It was the individual incarnating in himself in that moment man’s insistence upon equality, freedom and the right to knowledge. Did I say alone? Not alone. For it was the glory of the United States that the Federal Government, itself, founded on the principles of equality, stood by him and said to the State: “These things shall not be.” Alone in one sense, yes! And yet in another, upheld not only by the power of the Federal Government, but by the thoughts and prayers of men and women who seek brotherhood throughout the world. Here is the demonstration, the dilemma of the Twentieth Century which exists here in the West Indies, the urgent task of increasing our knowledge and mastery over material things, and at the same time of carrying further that destruction of prejudice which once marked our society. And, if this West Indies has anything to contribute to the world of today, surely it is in the field of human fellowship and equality at this particular time. And this doesn’t mean the removal of one barrier in order to set up another. Turn to that most moving book by James Baldwin — The Fire Next Time — in which he pleads with such power and force and eloquence for an understanding that the problem of the American coloured people is a problem not of the Negro, but of humanity, and that it would be a betrayal of that to remove, shall we say, one prejudice of white against black for another prejudice of black against white. We are engaged with something much larger, something that is a challenge to

12 13 the manhood and courage of all West Indians: to make safe the values in which we believe, to protect the liberties won with blood in the past. And this can be done. Other people have done it, but they have first recognized the task and the demand upon them. And this is the task which the University after much questioning within itself, has set itself to perform, the pursuit of knowledge, carrying out faithfully the works of scholarship, but all of it within the social setting of the needs, the urgent needs of the West Indies. And I am confident that the students will help us to build this new society. “Methinks I see in my mind a mighty and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her mewling her mighty youth like the eagle and gazing with undazzled eyes at the full noonday beam.” This is the prophetic quality of the vision, the confidence in humanity, the confidence in his fellow men which moved Milton, which moved Lincoln even in times of the darkest doubt, which carried Washington and his scarecrow army through the travail of Valley Forge and winter. These are our heritage, the heritage of all free men. And so it is a great honour and pleasure and privilege to welcome you, and to try to explain the task of the University in these critical days, to ask for your prayers, to ask for your confidence and, let us, above all, go forward in confidence and in strength to the task which awaits us. It is my honour to ask the Premier of Barbados to declare the College open, and after that the Hon. J. C. Tudor, Minister of Education, Member of the Council of the University of the West Indies, will address us.

14 15 UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

CAVE HILL, BARBADOS, W.I.

ON OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE

College of Arts & Science

Inaugural Address

Honourable J. Cameron Tudor Minister of Education

Twelfth of October One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-three

(1963)

14 15 THE MINISTER’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Inaugural dissertation by the Honourable J. Cameron Tudor, Minister of Education, on the occasion of the Opening of the College of Arts and Science, Barbados, on 12th October, 1963.

A LIBERAL EDUCATION IN A TECHNOCRATIC AGE

Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Principal, Your Excellency, Mr. Premier, Members of Council and Senate, Undergraduates, Mr. President, Mr. Dean, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am deeply honoured to have been asked by the University to deliver the Inaugural dissertation on this outstanding occasion. Yet, I fear that I cannot do full justice — or, indeed, justice at all — to the importance which this occasion truly merits. I had keenly looked forward, as I am sure we all did, to the pleasure and privilege of hearing our very distinguished Pro-Chancellor this evening. Many months ago, I had extended a warm invitation to him to be present on this occasion, and to address the company. He readily accepted, and had himself expected to be here. The irruption of nature which has left much personal and material tragedy in Tobago as elsewhere — has alone inhibited his freedom of choice, since the discharge of his public duty to the people of Trinidad and Tobago must, naturally, be his first concern. And I am sure that this company well understands the reason for his unavoidable absence, and would wish to regret, not merely his absence, but the unfortunate occurrence which had produced it. And I am also sure that we all wish the people of Tobago a speedy recovery from this crippling blow. Had he been here, he would have delighted and enriched

16 17 us all by his massive scholarship, his incisive eloquence, and his clear shining discernment. He would have communicated to us not a little of that vision of West Indian greatness which he sees so steadily and so well, and for which he labours so untiringly. I would not hope to lose the gap created by his absence. Yet I well understand that this sort of occasion calls for some exercise in original thinking and, indeed, some appropriate expenditure of erudition, extravagant or even lavish, as the case may be. Only a week ago, a very distinguished audience in British Guiana had the rare privilege, on an occasion similar in form, though perhaps not in content, to this one, of hearing Professor Lancelot Hogben, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana on the important theme of “A University in a changing society”. Dr. Hogben brought to bear that enormous scholarship, for which he is rightly famous, on his theme and expounded to his hearers a four-dimensional Marxist view of Higher Education in a multi-racial society, Starting at the Great Athenian schools associated with Plato and Aristotle, he skirted past the Christian Fathers, browsed happily at the Islamic cultures, dug Ptolemy in the ribs, picked a fierce quarrel with St. Thomas Aquinas, overturned the Middle Ages, patronized the Protestant Reformation, paid his respects to Marx and returned to Georgetown via the University of Cambridge. I enjoyed it immensely and would certainly have enjoyed it more, had I been able to understand it. I fear that I can promise this company no such treat. Not being a genius, I must content myself with being intelligible. I propose to speak to the undergraduates tonight on the theme “A Liberal Education for a Technocratic Age”. I have chosen this subject because it seems to me that the provision of higher education for a community emerging from colonialism is at once a logical necessity and a calculated risk. That it is a necessity is obvious, since an emergent society must soon acquire a national

16 17 identity. This, I must warn you, has nothing to do with patriotism. The Athenians of Pericles’ day yielded to none in their love of country. But there was nothing sordid or chauvinistic about this love of country. They loved Athens for what she was, and not because she was Athens, a mere geographical expression. Their national identity expressed itself in their intellectual curiosity, their fair-mindedness, their taste for experiment and, above all, their freedom of thought. Let us hear how Pericles himself described this national identity. “And not only in Politics” he says, “are we open minded.” “Without a trace of jealously we tolerate eccentricities of every kind in each other’s daily lives. We have no objection to our neighbor following the bent of his humour, nor do we scowl at him however harmless that maybe…and this is why I declare that Athens is the School mistress of Greece”. So it would seem, to me at any rate, that a national identity is that set of values appropriated by a people as a means of its own self-expression, and further it seems that this self-expression is best nourished and buttressed by the increasing provision of Higher Education. I do not argue that a people cannot possess a national identity without the facilities of Higher Education. Contemporary History is for too replete with examples to the contrary. I do insist, however, that Education, and Education of a certain range and quality, can alone nourish and sustain those values which make for a worthwhile national identity. I said that the provision of Higher Education was also a calculated risk. This is not so obvious. Education – at any level – is so valuable a thing that the provision of it – in a quantity – receives universal acclaim. What is seldom noticed, however, is that those who are most enthusiastic about providing it, damage its scope, sometimes irreparably, because they choose to ignore what I consider is the most fundamental and abiding truth about Education. This truth is really in two parts. The first part is that

18 19 you will study a subject with more awareness of its value if you know a little of its subject matter than if you don’t. This much should be obvious. But the second part of the truth is much more serious, and it is the ignoring of this part which involves the risk of which I speak. The principle to be enunciated is, quite simply, this: That is not advantageous to study theory without the practical experience of the fact to which it relates. Now you will have no trouble applying this principle to the training of doctors, lawyers, or of engineers or of theologians. With them theory and practice commingle. But you will experience some difficulty in applying it to the training of musicians and mathematicians. And for this reason. There are some intellectual disciplines which cannot be mastered without direct experience, and there are others which require only inner apprehension. Now none of these disciplines or branches of study is more important than the other. But some of them may be studies with a total unawareness of practical issues. And, therefore, when I said that in an emergent society the provision of Higher Education is sometimes a calculated risk, I merely meant that a thing, good in itself, can become useless if there is a divorce between learning and living. This is now the point at which I can usefully define the terms I used in the subject matter of my address. First, as to a Liberal Education. The term “liberal” had, in this sense, a sociological distinction called from the political arrangements of Ancient Greek Society. I shall, in the course of the discussion, give it a much wider content but, for the moment, it will suffice to accept the concept with Aristotle imparted. Ancient Greek Society was somewhat like the Southern United States of the period before the Civil War. Slavery was an established socioeconomic pattern and, as in Alabama or Georgia of the 1850’s so in Athens of the 5th Century B.C. The economy

18 19 of Athens was parasitic in that it was nearly entirely dependent upon tribute from other states, tribute levied in the interest of Athenian supremacy. Internally, the Athenians depended on a vast army of slaves to till the soil, run their households and, generally, to spare them the necessity of having to work. Relieved of this necessity, Athenians were therefore able, that is, “free”, to enjoy to the full all those cultural and intellectual pursuits associated with their fame. They wrote, produced and enjoyed excellent dramas, they had exquisite sculpture and architecture, and they had all the time in the world for political discussion and artistic appreciation. By contrast, since as Aristotle contended, a slave was not a person, it followed that no such consideration could be given to the education of slaves. And just as the great plantation houses of the South were centres of graceful and dignified living, supported by slavery, so too was the Athenian Household released for culture by the institution of slavery. And when they spoke of Liberal Education, they meant the education of a free man as distinct from the training of a slave. This kind of education was, of course, humanistic. It was based, at least in the school which Plato managed, on literature, music, mathematics, rhetoric – by this they meant not oratory by composition – mathematics, philosophy by which they meant logic – and athletics. This was, for their purposes, an extremely wide curriculum, and it produced some of the most incisive minds of that or any age. However, it is interesting to note that while this sort of education held sway in Greece for some centuries, in Rome there was radically different development. Roman education was largely what we now call vocational since the exigencies of conquering and holding a large empire forced them to train an enormous number of lawyers, administrators, agriculturalist, mechanics, caterers, engineers and economists. In short, while Greek education was liberal, Roman Education was technocratic.

20 21 This brings me to my second definition. You will see that I am examining a certain kind of education in the context of a society at a certain stage of its development. You will also note that I speak of a technocratic society and not of a technological one. I have done this deliberately, because I sincerely doubt that the present age in which we live is a technological one. I hold that it is technocratic. Now it is quite easy in a dissertation of this sort to yield to the temptation of splitting hairs. But I hope, confidently, to escape that change which, if true, would render me censurable for intellectual dishonesty. As I understand it, and I concede that I may well be wrong, technology is a theoretical knowledge of Industry and the Industrial Arts. I am willing to grant that the best dictionaries may turn out to be “contradictionaries”. But I have never been able to understand technology except as a theoretical application of science to the Arts. It has always seemed to me that it is a minor branch of the sciences of ethnology and that it treats only with the development of the arts from the point of view of theory alone. Technocracy is, undoubtedly, a different matter. As I understand it – and again the dictionaries may outflank me – a technocracy would be, or perhaps is, any society motivated – in varying degrees by the practical application of science to the problems of contemporary life. I would go further, I would say that any community, whether it be a great industrial entity, or a merely pastoral community, like Outer Mongolia, is entitled to be called a technocracy if its life is motivated – no matter to what extent – by experts, however few or however inadequately trained, whose business it is to evaluate or increase industrial and agricultural output in terms of energy factors, whether these be capital or labour. Now if this, or indeed any part of it is true, it is clear that the greater portion of this globe is inhabited by technocrats, since in

20 21 nearly every country there is some level of development going on through the practical application of skills and techniques in every field. In other words, to speak nowadays of technology is to talk as if men were still dreaming of what might be and not at all re-fashioning what was. And although there is, here and there, still some theorizing, as there must always be, the startling fact remains that from China to Peru communities are reaping the benefits, in greater or lesser degrees, of organized experiments; and, I submit, it is an organized experiment which separates fact from fancy. It follows, therefore, that the age in which we live is a technocratic one, that it has ceased being purely technological, and that all our concepts of Higher Education will have to be re-examined in the light of this fact. For if the application of Science to life, especially economic life, were only theoretical in its range, then there would be a need for greater and more intensive specialisation. Naturally so, since the search for this kind of truth requires a larger number of theorists using several approaches. But when once we grasp the essentials of applied science and the range of its application to human well being we need, not indeed to train fewer specialists, but to turn our budding specialists into generalist, if I may so use the term as well. And for this very important reason; when scientific motivation was only in the theoretical stage, when, that is, we were only, all of us, technologists, groping for the method of pressing science into the service of skills, there was no danger, or at any rate no serious danger of blowing the world up. But now that we are technocrats, or now that a few of us are exceptional technocrats, that possibility is ever present. Now the real danger of living in a technocratic age is this – Unless the kind of specialist education which produces the technocrat is amplified by other things, he is bound, by the very nature of things, to develop an excessive admiration for, and an immoderate worship of, techniques, gadgets and machinery. But

22 23 this is only to say that technocracy divorced from Humanism soon becomes technolatry – worship of skills and machines for their own sakes. Fanciful, you say? Well then, what is the Test Ban Treaty but the recognition of this truth – After all, when two great Powers challenge each other, implicitly by the size of the military budgets, and explicitly by global confrontation, to see who can produce more annihilation, what will one call that if not inordinate gadgetry? Happily there seems to be some awareness of the unruly nature of technocracy. Of course, underdeveloped countries and regions have some distance to travel before they reach the stage where the world will ‘trace the days’ disaster in the morning face’, for neither by the scale of their resources, nor by the development of their skills can they enter that particular race. But they are yet technocrats in their own sphere since they accept and, where they can, apply, the scientific method to their problems. For example, I would call a society technocratic long before it could split an atom, if it used a scientific method of evaluating its own problems. If, for instance, it could arrive at an appraisal of its rate of population growth, the productivity of its land, the per capita income of its population and so on, with a tolerable degree of accuracy. And I would be so justified because the very minimum a technocratic society must have is the scientific method of finding the truth by observation and analysis. So I would be inclined to place West Indian Society within the technocratic ring, although it does not yet possess those massive signs of industrial achievement to be found in other places. For it does, justifiably, boast of rather more than the bare minimum which I thought would establish its claim to be a technocracy. And we can now proceed to discover the kind of Liberal Education, required by our technocracy at this stage of its maturing.

22 23 Now we must not be led away here by mere hot house visions of creating an exclusive oligarchy of talent. Nor need we be taken in by all the enticements of Mr. Harold Wilson’s meritocracy. All we ask for is that West Indian Society should produce as large a number as it can of vigorous, creative and dedicated minds, capable of envisaging the pattern of a new order and in all sorts of spheres working for it and influencing its growth. This, as I see it, is one of the chief tasks of the University of the West Indies and, more still, of these colleges. The problems of social organisation, of economic viability, of preserving free institutions, have now become so technical that there will be in the future, little place for the untrained and the ill-equipped. It is clear that the employment, on a massive scale, of the technician, the scientist, the sociologist, is clearly called for. It is also clear that, at least in a democratic society, that these must come down all grades of society. But it must be remembered that the untrained and the ill-equipped are still persons, and are not to be pushed around merely because they cannot extract the square root of three without misgiving. H. G. Wells in one of his brilliant diagnoses of the twentieth century, put it rather this way. “For any revolutionary movement to succeed”, he says, “there must be this care of special intelligence of enlightened fanatics, so to speak, whose minds are liberated enough to imagine a new social order. And it is no good their pretending to be anything but what they are”. Now this is heady wine, and should be taken only on prescription. What Wells may not have grasped is that this elite can, nowadays, be nearly everybody, or at least more than a few, thanks to all those media of sound and vision without which the education of the masses cannot proceed. Still there will be the hard core of specialists, which every society needs, and which undeveloped societies need more than most. To devise a liberal education for societies of this complexity

24 25 is no easy task: It is far from easy because undeveloped societies are, in part, the consequence of a lack of education facilities. It follows that emergent societies are forced to move, in all directions simultaneously, if they are to catch up with, not to speak of overtaking, their more favoured neighbours. And if this is true of most emergent societies, it is doubly true of the West Indies. West Indian Society starts off with the consideration that it is a derived society, produced by that historical irruption which started with the age of Discovery which, in turn, was followed by that confrontation of rival imperialisms in the l6th Century. This, in its turn led to the urge to repair the sagging economies of Western Europe with unlimited quantities of gold and silver front the New World. Moreover, the breakup of the mediaeval patterns of international Trade in Northern Europe and in the Mediterranean drew the coasts of Western Africa into the fray, and this was to have momentous consequences in the establishment and maintenance of the Slave Trade. This, in brief, is the origin of West Indian Society. But that is not the whole story. For the historical current, flowing in one direction, produced a set of grave consequences, and the ebbing tide left some even graver ones. The emergence of Great Britain in the early nineteenth Century as an Industrial Power, far ahead of others in productive techniques and application, coupled with her unchallenged supremacy at sea, shattered the mercantile system, broke the back of the Slave Trade and bequeathed to West Indian Society a legacy of poverty, frustration and ignorance. And it is only now that our society is beginning to reconstruct itself. An important point immediately arises. If a Liberal education is the kind of education most suited to free men, and further, if we aim at spreading freedom, what is the context which we must give to the term liberal? I do no pretend to grasp more than

24 25 the merest fraction of the vast problem, but it may help you to see what the entire problem is if I remind you of what Aldous Huxley says in his novel “Ends and Means”. Huxley is here concerned with trying to retain human values intact amid the surging pressures and demands of technocracy. He wants to discover the best way of varying the individual’s labours so as to eliminate boredom, and he wonders how the technician or the craftsman will be able to multiply his educative contacts with other individuals working in responsive self- governing groups. On a deeper level he sees the issue as an experiment in finding the best form of community life and the best way of using leisure. But although he can offer no solution, he brilliantly sums up the problem in these words. “The problem”, he says, “is to find the best method of combining in workers the twin ideas of self-government and technical efficiency, that is, responsible freedom at the periphery with advanced scientific management at the centre.” Now if this is a fair statement of the problem, as I think it is, then when we dissect it, we shall discover that both elements of my theme are found therein. For how shall we produce “responsible freedom at the periphery”, if not by providing a higher educational structure wide and deep enough to penetrate the periphery? Again, where is an “advanced scientific management at the centre” to come from if our universities do not help us to master the ever widening range of technocracy? But consider further. Unless we devise an educational system flexible enough, to accommodate both the centre and the periphery, we shall fail, since both centre and the circumference are parts of the same circle. The inference which I draw is clear. The centrists and the peripherists are the same kind of people doing equally valuable, though different jobs. To put it in another way, the technocrat is merely the average man in full intellectual

26 27 dress. But if this is so, then unless the average man is provided with the minimum of intellectual clothing, the technocrat is not likely to emerge or, when he does, the centre will have nothing in common with the circumference. At this point you may well ask how an emergent society can best use its higher education facilities to bring about these desired ends of responsible self-government and advanced scientific management. I do not really have to provide an answer because the problem is really not a new one. You see every society is equidistant from technocracy. True, the technocracy of the latter half of the twentieth century is not that of fifth century Greece. Had, even so, the socio-economic problems of the fifth century Greece are not those of our day. Their problems called for solutions appropriate to their needs. But so do ours. And if we could appreciate how they faced their challenges we might get hold of the key to the solutions of ours. I profoundly regret that there are serious gaps in my knowledge of Hellenic Civilization in the centuries immediately preceding the birth of Our Lord. But it seems to me that Greek civilization, having evolved the type of polity known as the city state, found itself confronted by the challenge of over-population. This meant, in effect, that its rate of population growth outstripped its rate of national income growth per head of population. How very modern this problem seems to be? This is precisely what I mean when I say that each society is equidistant from technocracy. However, let us see how ever of two Greek city states met this challenge. Sparta re-acted like Nazi Germany. She proceeded to conquer and enslave her neighbours. But the effort involved in holding down her neighbours diverted too large a proportion of her resources to militarism and this, eventually, ossified her into a police state with an uncertain pattern of International Trade.

26 27 Not thus with Athens. She developed what we should now call an infrastructure, and discovered how to nourish her growing population by a development of her overseas trade. She geared her own agricultural production to a high level of efficiently – she started manufacture for export and, meanwhile developed her political institutions so as to give a fuller share of political power to the new classes which these far reaching socio-economic reforms had galvanized into activity. To sum up Athenian Statesmen faced an almost intractable social challenge, by piloting their country through an economic and political revolution and, by so doing, paved the way for the forward movement of their society. But this sounds exactly like what has been done in Puerto Rico since 1949. But the Athenians would scarcely have achieved this level of wellbeing if their infra-structure had not produced an educational system capable of imparting momentum to these struggles. And the case with the West Indies is no different. Throughout these Islands we have to staff all our schools with graduates in the next two decades. We have also to provide large numbers of business executives, administrators, industrial consultant engineers, accountants, agronomist, architects, doctors, dentists, lawyers and journalists. How are we to get these if not through the University of the West Indies. You who now have the happy privilege being the first undergraduates on this campus, are the technocrats of our immediate future. For whether you study Arts or Sciences you will be taught to apply scientific techniques to the problems of your community. And because you are to help to build a free society the peoples of the West Indies are, in this College, providing you with the sort of Liberal Education which technocrats should have. And if you doubt the significance of this venture, and if you have as yet no awareness of what this kind of opportunity can do for you, let me give you Cardinal Newman’s brilliant description of a liberally educated person.

28 29 “It is the kind of training which give a man clear, conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, an eloquence in expressing them, and force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a vein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility”. “It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to put himself in their state of mind, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them. He is at home in every society; he has common ground with every class. He knows when to speak and when to be silent. He is able to converse, he is able to listen. He can ask a question pertinently and gain a lesson seasonably when he has nothing to impart himself.” “He is ever ready, yet never in the way. He is a pleasant companion, and a comrade you can depend upon. He knows when to be serious and when to trifle. And he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with graciousness, and to be serious with effect”. “He has the repose of mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources for its own happiness when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have charm.” The art which tends to make a person all this is, in the object which it pursues, as useful a part of wealth or the art of health, though it is a less susceptible method, less tangible, less certain, less complete in its results. Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, Masters, Bachelors, Under- graduates, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, I deeply apologise for the length of time for which I have detained this illustrious company.

28 29 CAVE HILL CAMPUS SELECTED IMAGES 1963-1968

The Hon. Eric Williams, Sir Philip Sherlock, first Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago Vice Chancellor, 1963-1969 and Pro-Chancellor

Sir Arthur Lewis, Rt. Hon. Errol Barrow, UWI’s first Vice Chancellor, 1960-1963 first Prime Minister of Barbados

Professor Leslie Robinson, Hon. Cameron Tudor, acting Principal and Pro-Vice first Minister of Education, Barbados Chancellor 1963-1964 30 31 CAVE HILL CAMPUS SELECTED IMAGES

The site chosen for the permanent home of the Campus was called “The Mount”. It was Captain “Tommy” Tomlin, the architect who later designed the campus and dubbed it “Cave Hill”.

The construction of University housing in the Wanstead Area.

30 31 CAVE HILL CAMPUS SELECTED IMAGES

Distinguished officials leaving Assembly Hall.

Extra Mural Centre: HRH Princess Alice Chancellor of the University.

HRH Princess Alice after opening of Extra Mural Arts wing.

Handing over ceremony of site for Extra Mural Department. 32 33 CAVE HILL CAMPUS SELECTED IMAGES

Auditorium renovations being inspected by Hon. Cameron Tudor, Minister of Education (left) Professor Huggins, Mr. Archer and Mr. Ward, Clerk of Works (right).

The main building of the College of Arts The construction of the main building at the and Sciences. Cave Hill site.

The iconic Cave Hill clock tower. Procession walking to St. Mary’s church after the first graduation of the College of Arts and Science, February 1967.

32 33 CAVE HILL CAMPUS SELECTED IMAGES

An aerial view of the Cave Hill Campus showing the surrounding lands.

The Caribbean Trade Fair site (Department of Education, Barbados, Visual Aids Section).

34 35 UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

CAVE HILL, BARBADOS, W.I.

ON OCCASION OF A SPECIAL VISIT TO THE

College of Arts & Science

The Chancellor’s Address

H.R.H. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone Chancellor of the University of the West Indies

Thirteenth of March One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-four

(1964)

34 35 THE CHANCELLOR’S ADDRESS

H.R.H. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies paid a special visit to the new College of Arts and Science, in its temporary buildings at the Harbour Site, Bridgetown, on Friday 13th March, 1964. On that occasion Her Royal Highness delivered the following address to the assembly which consisted of H.E. the Governor and Lady Stow, Hon. J. C. Tudor, Minister of Education, the Finance and Advisory Committees of the College, staff and students:

Before addressing the students, I must take this opportunity to express my warmest thanks as Chancellor and on behalf of the University of the West Indies for the generous support and encouragement given by the ‘Government of Barbados in bringing this regional branch of the University into being. We have also been greatly helped by friends among whom Mr. Ronald Tree has been indefatigable. I would also like to express my thanks to the members of the Finance and Advisory Committees of the College for the services they have rendered in launching this project. You are all busy men and women but without your co-operation and support it would have been impossible to have opened the College last October. Now let me turn to the students, for I am indeed glad to have this opportunity to say a few words to them. It is a source of special pride to me to be able to speak to undergraduates on the Barbados Campus to stress the importance to the University of the initial success of this promising venture in higher education at the highest level. The first step was the erection of the permanent building for Extra-Mural Studies followed quickly by the promise of a magnificent grant from the Department of Technical Co-operation to build an Arts College; and the studies,

36 37 I am glad to know, are proceeding satisfactorily in temporary accommodation. Ours is a Federal University and we have all come to accept the fact that university education should be brought to the people of the Islands under the aegis of the University of the West Indies. I have just been visiting some of these Islands and I can assure you that they are much alive to this necessity. You will recall that to mark the opening of this College the University granted a Scholarship to each of the territories of the Windward and the Leeward Islands, and I am glad to welcome these scholarship winners to the Barbados College and hope that as time goes on more students will avail themselves of the opportunities that are offered here.. In conclusion, I do want you young people just on the verge of adult life as well as senior students to remember that wealth of our county in the last resort does not lie in its gold and dollar reserves as many seem to think. It lies rather in the character of its people and in their willingness to perform a full part in their country’s service. What does our country mean? To us it means learning life, good comradeship, a square deal for everybody, laws based on a moral code, freedom from oppression and restrictions, and the absolute right of the individual within the law to live his own way, and the duty to our country which falls on each one of us, is to believe in that way of life and to live for it and to work for it and actively to resist any set of men or any circumstances which threaten it. The rapid enlightened development of the University was scarcely visualized when the old University College at Mona was launched fifteen years ago with just thirty medical students, the anticipation of its founders that three to four hundred undergraduates might be expected there. Today we have at least two thousand between Mona, St. Augustine and Barbados. I am glad to think that many of you who are attending this

36 37 College are working people, which is a most commendable development, and I hope you will encourage your neighbours to follow your excellent example. I have just arrived from attending the Council Meetings at which we very heartily welcomed the regional members who had made the journey to be present and whose advice and co-operation were especially valuable. I was present at the presentation of graduates and in a few days time I shall be attending a similar occasion at St. Augustine, and no doubt you are looking forward to your first presentation in about two years time. For you have a great opportunity here too in Barbados to make a real contribution to the aspirations of the University for the spread of Higher Education throughout the whole of the Caribbean Territories - you are particularly well situated to serve our neighbours as well as developing your own standards of education. I would stress most earnestly the unity of our University and the importance of such unity of purpose and mutual interest in this all-important matter of education throughout the whole area. And now I wish the Principal and his Staff and all of you the best of luck and God’s blessing for the future.

38 39 UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

CAVE HILL, BARBADOS, W.I.

LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE

College of Arts & Science

The Chancellor

Her Royal Highness Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, G.C.V.O., G.B.E., V.A.

Minister’s Address

Honourable J. Cameron Tudor Minister of Education

Twenty-sixth of January One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-six

(1966)

38 39 Minister’s Address Hon. J. Cameron Tudor

Madam Chancellor, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Members of Council, Doctors, Masters, Bachelors and Students; Your Excellencies, Your Honours, Honourable Chief Ministers, Honourable Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen; It is a very great honour and privilege for me, Ma’am, to welcome, on behalf of the Government and People of Barbados, this illustrious company which the gracious presence of your Royal Highness so fittingly adorns. It is an equally great honour and privilege for me to have placed in your own hands, Ma’am, this pledge of fealty which the People of Barbados have made to the University of the West Indies. One thing, Ma’am, blunts the edge of our pleasure here this afternoon. It is the unavoidable absence abroad, in the service of the Crown, of the Honourable Premier. Mr. Barrow has asked me particularly to convey his respectful greetings to you, Ma’am, as well as to the distinguished company assembled here at your bidding, and to say that he hopes he may adequately atone for his absence by bringing back even more assistance for your University. I should like to extend the warmest welcome and greetings to their Excellencies the High Commissioner of Canada, the United Kingdom and Jamaica, to the Representative of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, to their Honours the Administrators of St. Lucia, St. Kitts and the Virgin Islands, to the Honourable Ministers from other territories of the Region, to the representatives of British, American and Canadian universities, as well as to all those who are here to seek succour from the rigours of the Northern Winter. In this connection, Ma’am, I think I may be pardoned if I make special mention of the presence here among us of Professor

40 41 Sir Arthur Lewis, whom we all rejoice to see this afternoon. Dr. Lewis has given immeasurable service to the cause of West Indian Emancipation in general, and to the cause of West Indian Higher Education in particular. Much of the credit in the establishment of this College must go to him, not only for his grand conception of spreading the University throughout the Region, but for his consummate artistry in persuading the United Kingdom to part with the money to construct the buildings, the corner-stone of which is laid today. And I am hoping, Ma’am — I dare hardly suggest it — whenever money is available for the construction of a Hall of Residence for Students from the Windwards and Leewards, that Dr. Lewis will give, however reluctantly, his permission for such Hall of Residence to bear his distinguished name. When Ma’am, you lay the stone which gets the College off the ground, you will have set in motion a tremendous enterprise. For these forty-six acres of land, on which this College will be built, are the gift of the people of Barbados to the University of the West Indies. But your portion is but a fraction of hundreds of acres from which a new city is destined to spring. In time the University College will be surrounded by all the artifacts of a modern community. There will be thousands of homes, primary and secondary schools, churches, theatres, cinemas, shopping centres and recreation grounds, highways and shaded walks. Thus, Ma’am is your College the harbinger of things to come, the herald of good tidings. And just as the ivy clings to the oak, in like fashion will this future township lean on the College, to garner strength and faith for a purposeful community life. When you come to us next year, Ma’am, to receive our first graduates as permanent members of your University, we hope to have the Assembly Hall quite ready for your convenience, and you also will see the beginnings of the effort which will surround the College.

40 41 Already, Ma’am, this College, despite its somewhat limited existence as a mere corner-stone, has excited the curiosity of other young Universities. Next month, I am to be visited by the Vice Chancellor of Sussex University, Dr. Asa Briggs, and his Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Fernando Henriques. Their University wishes to establish in Barbados a graduate centre for the study of Multi-racial Societies, and they wish to associate this venture in some way with the University College here. I understand that this project will receive the blessing of the United Kingdom Government and that the Council of our University will be asked to approve. The Barbados government will be invited to donate two acres of land, and the sponsors of the project will find the money for the construction of the buildings elsewhere. Provided, Ma’am, they don’t pinch any of your land, I hope you will let them have their “Sussex-by-the-Sea.” The welcome presence of so many of our friends from other territories encourages me once again to declare this Government’s policy towards the University of the West Indies. The Government and People of Barbados stand foursquare on the concept of a regional University. We agreed with that decision at the common services Conference in 1962, and we see no reason to alter our stand. We have done nothing to weaken the force of this decision and we have loyally given financial support to the University on this basis. In the coming budget year we shall be giving to the University $300,000 more than we give at present and this will bring our annual contribution in the next triennium up to something like one million one hundred thousand dollars. Moreover, we have just paid the last annual installment of $80,000 which we covenanted to the University in the last five years as a special contribution. If hard cash means anything at all, no one can doubt the sincerity of our attachment to this University.

42 43 Nor should anyone believe that our going into Independence this year, will in any way modify our policy, or weaken our resolve, to support this University as a Regional Institution. But we should be less than frank if we did not express our alarm at the recondite interpretation which is given in some quarters to the concept of a Regional University. Some people think that it refers to their own regions. We in Barbados insist that the region referred to in the Common Services Agreement is the entire British Caribbean. The Government of Barbados has considerable difficulty in understanding why such a clearly expressed agreement should generate such a variety of interpretation. Ma’am, I think I ought also to state with emphasis to our fellow citizens in the Eastern Caribbean that this Government, in supporting a Regional University, is anxious to facilitate the largest possible number of students from the Windwards and Leewards. Indeed, if it were financially possible for us to do so, we would have provided a Hall of Residence for such students, and would have offered some scholarships as well. But we already provide two hundred free scholarships at the College for our own students and we cannot at present do anything for overseas students in these respects. In saying this, I have no desire to set a limit to the possibilities of assistance to the College or to Students, wishing to drink at springs of learning. A university is at once the expression and the repository of all that is most significant in the history of a people, and its claims on the people are so cogent and so universal that they cannot be met from the resources of the Government alone. Indeed, it is the duty and the great privilege of private persons in all walks of life to view the University College as their own possession, their own heritage and their own hope. It is the duty and the privilege of all who can manage it, whether singly or in co-operation

42 43 with their fellows to make their private offerings which may be used in endowing Scholarships and bursaries for students from all territories in this region. I can think of no nobler or more profitable act of sacrifice than this, for it is made on the twin altars of knowledge and youth, the most precious possessions of any people. The invitation to share in this high service is addressed not only to the people of Barbados but equally to all natives and residents in the Eastern Caribbean area. As an earnest of its sincerity in this co-operation in culture the Government of Barbados wishes it to be known to the University and to the Governments of the Eastern Caribbean that no hindrance whatever will be placed in the way of bona fide students from the Eastern Caribbean; that any University facility established here in Barbados will automatically be enjoyed by students from the Eastern Caribbean or by students from any other part of the region; that in accepting aid for the College from foreign governments or from any other source, the Government will in each case inform the University and the Governments of other territories; that this Government will, if requested, accept any responsibility, other than financial, for the welfare and comfort of students from the Eastern Caribbean. Finally that it will undertake not to offer them employment when they graduate, so that they may return to their islands to enrich the economies which made their studies possible. Such, Ma’am is the declaration of our policy in this regard. The Independence of Barbados will not only not inhibit the opportunities increasingly available to the Eastern Caribbean, but will also actively promote and provide wider areas of growth for the University of the West Indies. And in thanking you again for the loving care which you bestow on this University, I venture to say, Ma’am, that the University’s cornerstone was first laid when, with that quiet but penetrating insight which marks the

44 45 wise sovereign, His late Majesty King George the Sixth of blessed memory planted you in all our hearts, and gave to this University pride, place and preeminence above all others, with such an “acceptable Chancellor.”

Sir John Stow: Madam Chancellor, distinguished visitors, ladies and gentlemen. With Your Royal Highness’s permission, I shall read out the text of a message sent by the Right Honourable Anthony Greenwood, Minister of Overseas Development.

“Your Royal Highness, please accept my very good wishes on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the new College. My Ministry represents a new concept of service to, and co-operation with, those parts of the world which are determined to raise educational and living standards for all their peoples; we want to join you in this task. The new grants totalling £600,000, nearly $3. million (West Indian), to the University of the West Indies, details of which will be announced today, are given in this spirit, and in the hope that they will play a part in developing co-operative arrangements of service to all the islands of the area.”

That is the end of the message. In order to emphasise the extent of British aid to the University, I should add, that this $3 million is in addition to British assistance already given to the University totalling $45 million (B.W.I.).

44 45 Rt. Hon. Errol Walton Barrow Prime Minister of Barbados

46 47 GRADUATION ADDRESS

1968

Rt. Hon. Errol Walton Barrow Prime Minister of Barbados

Sixth of February One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-eight

(1968)

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

CAVE HILL – BARBADOS

46 47 ERROL BARROW

FEBRUARY 6, 1968

First of all I should like to bid you welcome, Madam Chancellor, and to thank you on behalf of the University for the gracious dedication which Your Royal Highness has always given to its affairs. Every year we look forward to your visit, not only for the pleasure it brings, but for the encouragement which we all derive from your vigour and insight. Herodotus might well have said of you, Ma’am, as he did of the Persian emissaries “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this courier from swift accomplishment of her appointed route.” Three years ago I was pressed into service to deliver the address on behalf of our distinguished Pro-Chancellor at the graduation exercises at Saint Augustine. It would have suited me today if he were standing in my place before so impressive and so distinguished a gathering to enliven us with his eloquence and enlighten us with his learning. But for some reason he has elected to sit like “patience on a monument smiling at my grief.” The Pro-Chancellor has made an invaluable contribution to the development of the University as a regional institution. His presence in our midst must be an inspiration to those who are leaving, as well as to those who enter as novices into the mysteries of learning. We welcome to our University today the Minister of Overseas Development on two grounds. First, he escaped from our common bondage at the same institution of learning a brief twelve months before me, and needs your sympathy in the exacting servitude in which we have both ended up as Ministers of Government.

48 49 But of more importance is that the Right Honourable Reginald Prentice represents on this occasion the Government of the United Kingdom without whose generosity the construction of these buildings may have been postponed for an indefinite period. The citizens of the United Kingdom deserve our thanks for this their most significant contribution west of Suez. The Government and people of Canada have made their own very substantial contribution to this University. In addition to funds already provided for expansion at Mona and St. Augustine, and apart from the numerous scholarships now enjoyed by students of all the territories, the Government of Canada has already earmarked a substantial sum for further development at this site, and this sum will meet the cost of constructing a hall of residence for the students of the other territories, who we hope will come here in ever increasing numbers. Both the University and the Government of Barbados have already dispatched their thanks to the Government of Canada, but would still wish to greet our Canadian friends in this public recognition of their assistance. Since I am addressing this distinguished company as a member of the University Council, I may perhaps not without some diffidence express the University’s appreciation to the people of Barbados for the gift of land on which the College stands and for the provision of the ancillary services. In a deeper sense, however, the citizens of Barbados have merely established in a positive way their commitment to and faith in this region. By surrendering so large a portion of their scarcest commodity to a regional enterprise, they have demonstrated that they yield to none in their desire to promote the unity of this region. When in July 1962 the Common Services Conference made the historic decision to retain and to expand the University as a regional institution, it was felt by many that this was a pious hope in view of the political uncertainties then prevailing in the area.

48 49 At that time none of the subscribing territories was a sovereign state and the peculiar political contrivance which had held them together in chafing submission was in ruins. The breakup of a civilization is often accompanied by a deceptive amount of social activity. As in a bodily fever, the pulse becomes more rapid, the rate of oxidation faster, even the flush on the patient’s cheek may give the deceptive appearance of health: only the glassy eye will indicate that the patient is unconscious of what is going on about him: his mind instead is grappling with phantoms. Louis Mumford writing on the condition of man retracing the decline of the classic societies continued – “In this hellenistic world, so rational in its surface activities, phantoms and visions appeared in growing numbers precisely at the moment when the Museum of Alexandria was supporting a vast corps of savants and professors who were carrying exact science beyond the realms Aristotle had explored. Theophrastus developed a systematic botany. Hero of Alexandria invented the reaction steam turbine, the first groping toward the modern steam engine. Archimedes founded the science of hydrostatics and made decisive contributions to mechanics. But these inventions and discoveries did little to lighten labor: steam or clockwork was used merely to open temple doors without human hands - and thus superstitiously heighten the religious awe of the worshiper. Slave labor, which undermined the ancient polity, also reduced the province of the machine. And though the scholars of Alexandria collected, collated, classified, made accessible to other scholars, a growing body of knowledge, the results did not flow out into life: after Aristotle’s synthesis, learning tended to fill books and deflate men. Frustrated, cheated, the ordinary man descended to new depths of irrational impulse and superstitious habit. Have we not seen a similar reaction in our own time? In the context of our rapidly changing times I wish to

50 51 demonstrate that these reactions are as much in evidence today as they were two thousand years ago. I wish to discuss The University and The People. It is of the utmost importance that our statesmen and scholars, students and scientists should all realise that a university institution cannot survive unless it has as its constant goal service to the communities which support and sustain its activities. At this college of Liberal Arts and Science we have embarked with some assistance on a task of bringing people to the University. It is vital that we should endeavour within the shortest possible time to bring the University to the people. The contributions made by the smaller territories represent in most cases a large proportion of their resources and will be justified only to the extent that commensurate returns in trained manpower are increasingly available. Occasionally there have been signs that the concept of a regional university is not held with the firmness it deserves. One hears of peculiar interpretations given to the concept which seem to suggest that words have lost their meaning. While I should not wish to see duplication of effort and the resulting financial chaos which this would bring, I think wholly proper that each new development should buttress and extend the regional character of this University. It would be too much to expect the territories to connive at specious definitions of regionalism which cover the hand of selfishness with the glove of extravagance. While it is conceded that each territory must establish its own priorities for national development, it must never be forgotten that all the territories are now firmly committed to important common enterprises for economic development. In all of these enterprises, whether for the establishment of Free Trade or a Development Bank or the improvement of communications, it is on the University that they lean most heavily for the studies upon which they reach their conclusions. Then the University

50 51 by its accessibility to all becomes the instrument of general progress. It would be a senseless reversal of this trend if new development were to be regarded by anyone as opportunity for territorial aggrandizement. University costs are rising steadily. More money has to be found for maintaining existing services and for financing properly planned expansion. It now requires nearly $3,500 a year to keep a student at Mona, nearly $3,300 at St. Augustine and over $2,500 at this campus. Even with generous assistance from overseas for capital construction and for scholarships and Research Fellowships, the territories must still provide several million dollars each year for the current operations of the University. The larger territories, apart from their mandatory payments to the central university budget, maintain hundreds of students from public funds in furtherance of their policies for the spread of higher education. This investment on their part cannot be curtailed until there is evidence that it is no longer necessary. Meanwhile the university itself has to teach more students, do more research, provide even more special services to Governments. All of this activity will necessarily be reflected in higher costs though equally in speedier development. The calculated sacrifice of present comforts to future benefits can only be justified if the fullest use is made of available resources. When therefore we speak of bringing the University to the People, we should not only mean that more and more people should directly as students enjoy its facilities, we should also intend that the citizens of the region should be encouraged to regard the University as their most important asset. We cannot rightly urge them to sacrifice for it merely by pointing with pride to its facilities or to its achievements or even to its international standing. They must feel for the University the same concern which the fortunes of sugar, tourism, industrial development

52 53 and national security engender. They must be helped to know, as a settled conviction, that the efficient growth of this University is almost their only path to prosperity. The University for its part must eschew conspicuous consumption. It is the People’s University. In this most exacting role it must lead the territories in the difficult art of making one dollar do the work of two. Governments have to run the fierce gauntlet of parliamentary approval for public expenditure and they sometimes have to impose taxation which is never acceptable. If the University raises its level of expenditure to a height not easily justifiable by the benefits conferred on the taxpayer as citizen, the Governments will not have a pleasant time with their fellow citizens when they ask for increased provision. The greater awareness there is of the University’s moderation the more generous will be the region’s response. Dr. Samuel Johnson once said of Scotsmen that they “sustain their culture on a little oatmeal”! I should not live to prescribe this somewhat unpalatable diet for our University, but I think that we can still sustain our culture by the prudent use of a slender purse. Madam Chancellor, ahead of all our striving and self denial lies our goal of a prosperous and civi1ized community of people in this region. These territories have now awoken after three centuries of neglect to find that the world has nearly passed them by. They must now cover in less than a decade the distances negotiated at leisure by more favoured peoples. To make one blade of grass grow where two grew before, to train ten persons in the same time as it would have taken to train one, to remove ignorance and squalor, to offer gainful employment to every citizen and to preserve our cultural heritage in all its richness — is a task which might well discourage even the most stouthearted. In addition to these urgent domestic preoccupations, we are all of us subject to the pressures of the world outside the

52 53 region. Other countries more powerful than our own territories in populations, economic strength and military capacity, daily make decisions to which we are not a part but from the consequences of which we cannot renege. Already the cost of financing numerous vital public services in each territory has gone up in the wake of sterling devaluation, to mention only one example of our interdependence. Events like this impress upon us by direct experience how very urgent it is to hasten our region’s growth by all available means in the shortest time. It seems to me that we need to press into service all the instruments of our progress. Every resource of mind and spirit must now be fully deployed in all these territories. Not the least valuable to us of these resources is our University now nearing the end of its second decade. In its short life it has shared with our national game the matchless honour of unifying these territories. But it does not engender that feeling of common identity which we all experience when in a Test Match the battle sways from side to side. On such occasions the whole region holds its breath and offers expert but conflicting advice to our captain from which he, I must assume, prudently distills the formula for victory. If we could feel, Madam, a similar sense of identity with the fortunes of the University we should not only love it more, but we should also experience our greater need of it. Our support of this institution ought to be based not only on its capacity to serve but also on its success in keeping all together. For the work which the University does is valuable not merely because we get our money’s worth, but because through it we know each other better, and, best of all, because it should give the people whom we serve a cause for rejoicing. The physical plant and amenities which the University has acquired supply a planned degree of comfort if not of luxury. If the graduates whom we turn out upon our societies are not conscious of those who in the words of the historian Polybius

54 55 supplied the luxuries and comforts, those from whose harvests or cargoes the money for taxes came then the University will have failed the society — it will have failed the people. Your Royal Highness, Right Honourable Pro Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Pro Vice Chancellors, members of staff, graduates, undergraduates, behind all the rightful glamour and pageantry of this occasion lie the hopes of nearly four million people. These hopes must never be frustrated. These human souls must reap with every passing day the full reward of their patience and sacrifice. They must never have an opportunity to be impatient or embittered. We must keep asking ourselves- “Who has given to me this sweet? And given my brother dust to eat? And when will his wage come in?” I as a proud West Indian steeped in the heady wine of classical culture need not apologise for bridging the span of two thousand years by an appeal to the wisdom of our own West Indian poet Derek Walcott, a distinguished graduate of our West Indian University — “But let us hope, or bless. I bless with a maker’s hands, with ten clasped prayers All believers in battle, all strollers through fire, Who feel a heavy future in their eyes, Limbs, tongue, tired, but not willing to sit still. I praise those who see a world among these islands Where we shall try to live in peace and fail, The failure nothing. I also fold a prayer For who climbed ladders to see the wide world stretched Ringed with eternity and its own terrible power, Nor shouted down false bulletins of hope, not return giddy From clouds and the rung of their star circled genius But returned to live near in humility. And from the chapels of my cupped hands I ring

54 55 The little men, reciters at parties, quadroon bohemians, The fisherman. trailing the sun in his darkening net, And the working man in overalls putting up the ladder of the sun, All those who dream against reason, who will make us More powerful than stones in the Atlantic tributary, But powerless, permanent, lovely and human, Proud not of overcoming complexion, But climbing poet and labourer nearer the tireless sun.”

56 UWI MISSION

To advance education and create knowledge through excellence in teaching, research, innovation, public service, intellectual leadership and outreach in order to support the inclusive (social, economic, political, cultural, environmental) development of the Caribbean region and beyond.

UWI VISION

By 2017, the University will be globally recognised as a regionally integrated, innovative, internationally competitive university, deeply rooted in all aspects of Caribbean development and committed to serving the diverse people of the region and beyond.

56 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

CAVE HILL CAMPUS

OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL 2013

SELECT DOCUMENTS UWI in Barbados, 1963-1968 Compiled, Edited and with a Foreword by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles  H.R.H

SELECT DOCUMENTS UWI in Barbados, 1963-1968 Compiled, Edited and with a Foreword by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles H.R.H