Education is a subject which should engage our keenest interest, our most careful provision, our deepest thoughts. Yet one of the most depressing aspects of education in Britain at the present time is that it is not doing so.

Professor Castle writes about education in East Africa. As he is concerned with education in its widest sense – clearly formulated in ancient Greece as that which makes a man – his enquiry is not only into existing educational institutions but also into the whole nature of the societies in which African children are growing up in East Africa today.

He is uniquely well-qualified for his task. After spending most of his life in education in Britain – as teacher, headmaster, and Professor – he went in 1961 to Makerere in Uganda, as Visiting Professor of Education. From 1961-65 he was in East Africa travelling widely, visiting all types of schools and colleges. In 1963 he was chairman of the Uganda Education Commission, whose Report is likely to form the basis for educational planning in Uganda for the foreseeable future. Here is no fly-by-night ‘expert’, but a man whose knowledge about educational institutions in East Africa is probably unparalleled at the present time. To these highly professional qualifications one must add that extra quality of an author who has a deep personal sympathy and concern for his subject.

The result, in this book, is a picture of education as it is in East Africa today, clearly presented, acutely observed.

Such a wide and general subject is fraught with obvious complications.