Outside the Walls

Abstract

ion, but a clamourous necessity for decent self-respecting living. It is true that many West Indians have studied at Universities in the Old and New Worlds, but their training has been carried out in situations quite remote from West Indian of life and on their return they have seldom found institutions in which the scholarly outlook has been embodied. They have therefore contributed little more than technical and professional skill to the community in which they have frequently felt themselves aliens. Our University has therefore unique obligations, which no other institution can be expected to fulfil: that of fostering and propagating free enquiry, objective discussion of ideas, and not merely the right of the individual to his opinions, but his duty, his obligation to make judgments. Extra-murally we can spread these habits by bringing University trained men and women into association with one another in an atmosphere where the objective discussion of live issues is not regarded as a betrayal of the cherished prejudices of one's caste and where criticism will not be taken as personal affront. A milieu can be nurtured in which thoughtful individuals can meet on common ground. This might counterbalance the present centrifugal force which drives many of the most gifted abroad, never to return; it would also ensure a welcome to scholars from outside. But we must go further than this. We must make demands on graduates so that they circulate among the people not only as people doing specialised jobs, with high social prestige, but as University trained individuals, carrying into classes, lectures, discussions and committees the spirit of their learning. In attempting to apply the principle outlined above, we encounter one most formidable obstacle, the conquest of which established a second task of great dimension. We have little reliable accessible knowledge of the West Indies. With certain exceptions the few studies which have been made are hidden away in journals, or else they have been made as touching some larger issue outside the scope of West Indian affairs. It is important that the University and its extramural arm should mobilise not only scholars, but curious laymen, collectors, writers, social workers, teachers, photographers, artists and technicians to document and study the West Indian world. The process of searching out and studying facts about the region* and disseminating knowledge so gained is not merely an invaluable service, but it involves those who do it in a career of eager self -education and creates a disinterested love of study far removed from the struggle for certificates. It reveals values and gives real content to political and cultural aspirations. As for the Extra-Mural Department, our problem consists first in bringing together in the several territories those who grasp the purpose and meaning of a University, on the common ground of devotion to it and realisation of the vital and unique nature of its contribution to the West Indies today. Secondly it consists in thinking out, after a careful scrutiny of the social process, ways in which the influence of the University can flow out from these men and women to others, and work like yeast in the community. The methods may be those of the lecture or •In Europe, great contributions have been made to knowledge and scholarship by laymen, especially in the fields of Natural History, Archaeology, Local History and Folklore.