The “Civilizing Mission”

Abstract

Nothing in the whole imperial effort had as great an impact on the world as the introduction of Western education. All of Africa and half of Asia are now ruled by élite groups who use Western languages for business and administration. However firm individual imperialists may have been in their belief that subject peoples could not and should not be converted to the Western way of life, it was essential in all empires to develop cadres of local people to carry out subordinate tasks of administration. This called for at least some education—enough to produce a literate class capable of staffing the lower ranks of the bureaucracy.