While Islamic education started from the Northern parts of Nigeria, Christian missionary education system started from the Southern parts of Nigeria and spread into the hinterland and gradually northwards. It form of education was traditional. The dual responsibility of bringing to Nigeria the Christian religion and Western education fell upon the Christian missionaries from Europe, America and Sierra Leone.
By 1515 missionary activities had started
in Benin when some catholic missionaries set up a school in the Oba’s palace to
serve the Oba’s children and the sons of his palace chiefs in 1485, the first
Portuguese traders landed at Benin and these schools were short- lived for the
slave trade wiped them off.
The second missionary journey
yielded better result in the 1840’s some of the rescued slaves from their new
homes in Sierra Leone found their way back to Egbaland their ancestral home.
Some moved up to the new capital Abeokuta and met some of their kith and kin
and told the baffling stores about their experiences as slaves, their
miraculous freedom, the white man’s religion, his schools and culture. After
hearing these moving stores some Egba people became eager to experience some of
the white man’s way of life. The freed slaves who came back to their home felt
that they had come back to a place of darkness. They therefore sent frantic
messages to the missionary headquarters in Freetown, Sierra Leone to said their
men to bring light to them.
In response to these appeals and
calls from Egbaland, the Methodist missionary sent, Rev. Thomas B. Freeman to
Badagry in 1842. With the help of the local people, he built a mission house
and started prayer meetings on Sundays. The missionaries had discovered that
they would not successfully carry on their work of Christian evangelism without
the help of western-type of education. So, wherever the missionaries opened a
mission, that centre or house was used both as school and as a church. Other
missionaries that contributed in spreading this education include. Henry
Townsend of the church missionary society (CMS) land in Badagry in 1845. Mr.
and Mrs. Samuel Ajayi Crowther. The Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) based in
Jamaica in the west indices, sent Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell to Calabar for
missionary work. He established a mission school called Hop Waddell Training
Institute, Calabar. Thomas Bowen of the American Baptist mission in 1850
arrived Badagry. He opened mission schools at Lagos, Oyo, Shaki, Igboho and
Ilorin.
Brazilian ex-slaves who had settled
in Lagos also wanted a catholic mission school in Lagos. In 1868 the Roman
Catholic Mission (RCM) granted the requests of the ex-slaves and a mission
school was opened in Lagos.
OBJECTIVES OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY
EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
The aim of the Christian missionary
education was to convert the heathen and win souls for Christ. The converts
were to be literate in order to be able to read the bible.
The main purpose of the Christian
missionaries was to convert the heathen to the Christian faith. Another was to
“civilize” them. They sooner or later found out that they could accomplish
these through the establishment of schools so, they set out to lure people into
accepting their Christian doctrines. These centred on the belief in one God
though his son Jesus Christ as well as what to them amounted to good living
habits. Their philosophy was “the Bible and the plough or the church and the
school”. In some areas, particularly at the early stages, they encouraged
plantation farms alongside with Christianity. In the majority of places, the
school went hand-in-hand with the church.
To be able to communicate with the
local inhabitants the missionaries had to teach the natives their English
language. Nigerians had to learn how to read and write the white man’s language.
Since not all would benefit by the knowledge of the English language
missionaries also undertook the study of local languages which were taught in
local schools. Thus, many adherents learned how to read the Bible and sing the
church hymns in their languages. The missionaries were therefore forced by
circumstances to establish schools including Sunday Schools.
An underlying philosophy of
Christian education was that salvation came through understanding and accepting
the word of God. this understanding is facilitated by the ability to read the
Bible, hence to read was a basic feature of Christian missionary
education.