The Task of Today and Other Seminal Essays

Part II. Random Leaves from My Diary

7 Part II Random Leaves from My Diary 8 9 Random Leaves from My Diary A Foreword Bonitas, Disciplina, Scientia Back in 1945, at the close of my course as a junior seminarian in Christ-theKing College, Onitsha, where I had done my secondary school studies; an idea got into my head to keep a diary. The first entry in it is dated Thursday, the 13th of December, 1945, the very day I quit the school, after finishing the Senior Cambridge exams. Under its celebrated Principal, the Reverend Father Michael Flanagan, C.S.Sp. (R.I.P.), Christ-the-King College was bent on instilling and inculcating, to the letter, its motto of Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge. And the Disciplina was what got the greatest and sternest emphasis in practice. Caning was the order of the day. And woe betides you if your name got into the weekly black book for low marks or for misbehaviour. Then, it did not save you from the birch that you were a sixth-former nearing the end of your teens, or already in your early twenties! All this discipline plus the Spartan life that the Seminary entail, as a matter of course, was not calculated to create a soft spot for the’ College, in our hearts. Yet, according to that first entry, as the mammy-wagon, in which I rode, sped past the school, I felt a pang of regret for going. Ever since then, none of the institutes of learning, that have shared in my reading and in the shaping of my mind, evokes so much affection in me as Christ-the-King College; and this precisely because, determined to live up to its motto of Bonitas., Disciplina, Scientia, it made us live the Spartan life .that discipline entails. For, as after years came and went, it was born in upon me, deeper and ‘deeper, how indispensable discipline is, in the life of man; that is, discipline of mind and’ heart and will; discipline which is not -imposed, from without, by external forces striking fear, but wells from within, that is, from firmly instilled convictions and principles. Without this discipline, there can be no Goodness; and Science (even in its original sense of Knowledge at large), is rendered worthless, if not positively pernicious and dangerous to human society. Today, when I think of the term Alma Mater, it is Christ-theKing College which springs up foremost in my mind, and stirs, within me, sentiments of deep affection and gratitude. 10 I have no inside knowledge of secondary schools in Cameroon; for, the last time I taught in one, in this country, was back in 1946 and 47. That was in Sasse. There too, at that time, the discipline was triply Spartan, because the natural conditions on the bleak mountain side were very severe, and students were poor in the extreme. Their life made our Christ-the-King College brand of discipline, for all its harshness and birching, look like Sunday School. For, in addition to preparing for the Senior Cambridge, the boys, in Sasse, did daily manual labour, (cutting the grass, cleaning the classes) built their own kitchens (the founding students, under the late Father Aloys Schgoer, had even built their own dormitories!), cooked their own food; and, on that stony, flinty, chilly mountain side, few of them had shoes; and these were worn only on special occasions. Some of the finest Cameroonians I know — for academic achievements, for a keen sense of responsibility, for integrity, for a high spirit of public service — are from among those who went through the Sasse of those days. As I said above, I have no first hand knowledge of the inside of our secondary schools today. Obviously, I would be looked upon as queer and crazy, if I sounded the clarion call for a complete return to the former Sasse Spartanism. Still, what I do say and stress is this; that it is categorically imperative that other ways should be found for instilling and inculcating Discipline of mind, and heart and will, in the students of today; else, this country is headed for chaos and catastrophe, However, let me go back to my diary. The Showdown For seven years, I limited myself merely to recording passing .events that struck, or shook me, like the tragic death of my intimate friend of long years, Chrysantus Yange, who was murdered between Mbalmayo and Ebolowa, in...