Eldred Jones's illuminating memoir, The FreetownBond, reveals a lot more about him as a man than wecould have gleaned from his literary or scholarly writing. This workdemonstrates that Jones is a symbol of education and humanism. To besure, his memoir is not only about himself, but is also a book oftributes to all those that he had come into contact with who touchedor enriched his life in a certain way.

Jones is a humanist who has always demonstrated the virtues ofpatriotism, altruism, refinement, humility and love oflearning. No one will deny that these positives areslowly approaching their sell-by dates in present-day Sierra Leone.In this light, I have chosen to celebrate him and the institution heepitomises in order to inspire others to emulate a dying breed.

I have attempted to examine the humanism of Jones from the standpointof A.C. Grayling thus:

Jones, Emeritus Professor of English and a national monument, is oneof ten children born to Eldred P.W. Jones and Ethline M. Jones inFreetown on 6 January 1925. He is a bonafide member of the Freetownsociety in which he lives and spends almost his entire life. Intheir own rights his parents were also humanists, though I do notbelieve that they labelled themselves thus. Note how Jones describeshis childhood family home: