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THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS
RHODES made his first will in 1877, when he was twenty-four years old, and already a wealthy man, although by no means as rich as he was to become later. He made three other wills before he died, and they were all to reflect the theme of the first document, which, incidentally, he never destroyed. The project which obsessed Rhodes was the spread of Anglo-Saxon influence. His ideas were very crudely expressed in his first will, when he left his money for the establishment of British rule throughout the world. Even so, he had no desire to control his money from the grave. Once, when asked by the friends who were to be his trustees, just how exactly they should meet his wishes as expressed in his will, he said laconically: "You know what my ideas are; see that you carry them out. If you don't, fall come back and worry you." However as he grew older, wiser and richer, his wills became more precise; and the last one gave a detailed allocation of his estate.
The early theme as expressed in 1877 became much more practical in the last document, written in 1891. In this will, he set out his ideas for "colonial scholarships" as he was to refer to them, saying, ". . . now, therefore, I direct my trustees as soon as may be after my death. . . as they shall find convenient. . . to establish for male students scholarships. . . each of which shall be of the yearly value of £300 and be tenable at any College in the University of Oxford for three consecutive academic years." It was thus that the idea of Rhodes Scholarships was conceived.
Rhodes himself primarily intended that the scholarships should be for young 'colonials', by whom he meant in his time, Canadians, South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders. Their life, he once said, was made vigorous by the rougher conditions of new countries. But the open air life, free from conventionality, although it introduced admirable qualities of toughness and self reliance, needed in Rhodes' view to be balanced by the "finish" and breadth of view which the older sophisticated society of England and especially Oxford could offer. In his directions as to the qualities of the men he wished to be chosen for scholarships, he made it clear that they were not intended for what he would have called "swots", He placed special importance on literary and scholastic attainments, but he also looked for success in outdoor sports, leadership, courage, devotion to duty, and the desire to protect the weak. His scholars had to be men of action, leaders and opinion-makers, as the contemporary American sociologist would say, not dreamers in ivory towers. Later, he extended the scholarships himself to young Americans (whom he probably regarded as good colonials gone wrong!) and Germans. Germans were included among his eligible's mainly because of his liking for the Kaiser who had co-operated with him in his ideas for a Cape to Cairo railway, but he rationalized his decisions in these words: "The object is that an understanding between the three Great Powers (Britain, America and Germany) will render war impossible and educational relations make the strongest tie." In the eighteen nineties, those words had not the bitter taste they have to-day. But in a very changed world, and in circumstances even the visionary Rhodes never guessed at, his scholarships still provide one of the links which forge international understanding,
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THE NATIONAL MUSEUMS
To most people the word "museum" creates the image of something dead and dusty. But in Southern Rhodesia today, the three museums are among the liveliest and newest of any buildings in the territory and inside their brightly lit, gaily decorated interiors, the story of our country, and its peoples and animals are (although the phrase is
inappropriate I can think of none better), vividly brought to life. The three museums, in Bulawayo, Salisbury and Umtali, are largely supported by Government grants, although in all three cases the municipalities make annual contributions, and there are a number of generous individual donors and subscribers. They are administered by a Board of Trustees, and the Chief Executive Officer, the Director of Museums. is Mr. Reay Smithers.
Like so many of our institutions, our museums owe their origin to Cecil Rhodes. When he visited Bulawayo for the last time in 1901, he was confronted with two requestS: that his company should provide a geologist to assist the many prospectors and small workers and the Rhodesia Scientific Association asked him to provide accommodation for their growing collection of geological, archaeological, 2DC natural history objects. So Rhodes set up a museum with a geologist as curator. In 1902, a year later, a museum W2S established in Salisbury, together with ;: library, as a memorial to the late Queen Victoria. Later a group of enthusiasts in Umta1:i formed a Museum Society.
One by one the three museums were absorbed into an organization set up as a result of the National Museums Act of 1936, passed following the recommendation of a Commission set up by the Carnegie Corporation of New York which recommended that all Southern Rhodesian museums should be nationalized. The first to be taken over was the National Museum in Bulawayo, which still remains by far the largest and most comprehensive of the museums in the country. Not until 1952 did the Salisbury Queen Victoria Museum become primarily a Government responsibility, and the last to be taken over was the Umtali Museum in 1959.
Besides being centers of display to the public the National Museums carry on research and educative programs, in both of which they work in close collaboration with the University College. Although modest, even in their new edifices, in comparison with, for example, the American Museum of Natural History in New York which covers 14 acres five stories high, in certain fields our museums are acquiring a reputation disproportionate to their size for the work they are doing both in discovering and displaying the ever-growing knowledge which is being acquired about this part of Africa.
I heard the thunder the other morning, and it made me homesick for Africa, so this came out.
Best wishes, Liz Davies, ManilaMorning Thunder
In this Asian half light we float between sleep and day,
And the cumulus clouds swing sultry and low.
The deep distant rolls of thunder beat around us,
And the teal blue skies come flooding in.
I feel it now, half awake, half across the world,
Falling in on that first dense curtain of rain,
The first rising smell of wet earth and grass,
The first sunlight fanning through still bare branches,
And the early murmurs of wet jostling birds.
Morning thunder awakens African memories,
Of lean longhorn oxen ploughing, leaning
Against the yoke, the ploughman whistling,
Wielding his whip as the red earth turns up in furrows,
As the white birds follow, dipping for worms in their wake,
And the aching harmonies of throaty songs
Float up from the sowers of seeds behind.
Across the drenched land, the vast savannahs,
Bronze butterfly leaves open, shimmer with light,
A chorus of shrilling cicadas shocks the ears,
And falls silent as we pass. Great millipedes
Undulate majestic in antediluvian splendour,
In shining patent leather black on smooth sand –
Chongololos, the Africans say - Oh say that O
With a sound as in short, as in chortle and snort –
And children follow barefoot down impromptu streams,
Meander through rain-carved cliffs of Kalahari sand.
Small worlds spring up, perfect clumps of moss and velvet violets,
Seeming dead plants on rocks sprout green, catch fire and bloom,
Newly pushed calves and kids fall, waver and then gambol,
And the day that starts with thunder will shake the bones,
Stir the soul, bring things to life, and last forever.
Liz Davies
Manila, The Philippines
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This month's Memory Book of the Month: THE GREAT BETRAYAL. Ships from our US office.
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