Genuine Intellectuals. Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa

Chapter Two - Conservation and Reorganisation

15 Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa Chapter Two Conservation and Reorganisation T he history of the advance of higher Education, unfortunately, was not destined to be so smooth. For it suffered reverses at the hands of the northern hodes that laid the Roman Empire low – the Goth, the Hun, the Lombard. The progress of letters and science would have been halted for ever but for this that another power came to the rescue and sheltered the treasures of ancient intellect during the convulsions; and bridged the abyss, and linked the old world to the new. This new protector of learning was the Church. The barbarian invaders came in waves and their work of devastation went on, with moments of respite, now and again, from about the third to the sixth century. They spread all over the Empire like flights of locusts, and did their best to destroy every fragment of the old civilization and every promise of revival; for they directed their fury against the ancient culture, against the institutions in which it was embodied. It had become the fashion and the luxury, not only for every city in the Empire, but also for every colony and municipium, every temple and praetorium, even private villas, to have their own collection of books; Rome alone counted twenty-nine public libraries. But in their savage ignorance the invaders destroyed them wherever they found them. Thus they appropriated to themselves the territory of the Empire but not its civilization. From Germany and the north eastern territories outside the sway of Rome, they swept into Gaul, Spain, Italy; they crossed over into Africa. 16 Bernard Nsokika Fonlon For some time, Alexandria was spared, and it seemed that its Museum would survive as a hope for the revival of learning. But a century later Alexandria was taken and its library burned by the Seracens, an invader whose fury was even fiercer than that of the western barbarians. As I have said above, these savage hordes could have succeeded in wiping out learning, completely, from the face of Europe, were it not for one power that withstood and survived them – the Church. And the Church preserved learning, thanks to two things – her monasteries, and the conversion of the Irish. The Germanic peoples, that laid the Roman Empire and civilization low, swept mainly southward. A branch of them, however, the Angles and the Saxons, turned westward and crossed the Channel into Britain, and settled in that part of the country that is now present-day England. Thereafter, this island received no more of the dreaded visitations. But her sister island farther to the west, then Hibernia, now Ireland, was spared the fury of the barbarian invader. Ireland was converted to Christianity, thanks to the labours of St. Patrick, in the first half of the fifth century. It was a country with nothing of that urban organisation that characterised the Roman Empire. There were no cities in which to place its bishops. Thus it was that the seat of the primitive Irish See was a kind of clerical village, founded for that purpose, where dwelt together bishops and clergy, monks and nuns. Because of this community life, these clerical settlements became monasteries, and, thus, the early Irish Church developed a marked monastic character. And in these monasteries two main pursuits formed the exclusive ambition of its inmates – sanctity and learning. Thus the Ireland of that era became the seat of a flourishing Church abounding in Saints and Scholars. Owing to the fact that, after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, Britannia was not visited by the scourge of another barbaric host, the Christian Church was able to take a new birth, 17 Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa thanks to the zeal of Pope-Gregory the Great, who, having seen some Angle slaves in the market of Rome, determined, as he put it himself, ‘to make the Angles Angels’; and sent St. Augustine, the first Bishop of Canterbury, to carry out this task. Thus, when the old world passed away, with its wealth and wisdom, these two isles of the North became the storehouse of the past and the birth place of the future; the Celt and the Anglo-Saxon became the preservers, the cultivators, the custodians, and the propagators of learning, sacred and secular. It was thence, that, when the surges of the barbarian invasions had subsided, learning...