In the technical school, the leather-workers were particularly interesting. The encouragement of this branch of native art should prove a great incentive to what is a national industry. There is no reason why in time the Hausa leather-workers should not only cut out the trade in Tripoli saddlery and boots, imported across the desert and sold at fabulous profits in the local markets, but supply, as the Hausa cotton manufacturer supplies, the needs of French and German territory. Indeed, there is no limit to the vistas which this national system of education opens up. A people of considerable intellect, of notable industrial aptitudes, having the sense of history, possessed of singular national vitality, guided on national lines of thought expansion, the old-time barriers of internecine strife wiped out—what a magnificent experiment, and how great the privilege of the initiators! I referred to the opportunity for true Empire-building which lies before us in Yorubaland, if we will but seize it. Here at Nassarawa is Empire-building of another kind in actual progress. One other fact needs chronicling in connection with these national schools. It is the intention of the Administration to insist that all pupils receive careful religious instruction from teachers of their own creed. When I visited the schools, lessons in reading and writing the Koran were being given by a Kano Mallam specially selected by the Emir of Kano, somewhat on the model of the Egyptian schools. It is earnestly to be hoped that the Colonial Office will resist any attempt at interference with this policy. Interference would be disastrous. It has been a prodigious labour of tact and careful steering, for which Mr. Hanns Vischer, the director of education and the founder of these schools, deserve the greatest credit, to secure the support of the Emirs for a truly national system of education. Many prejudices have had to be overcome. The older school of Mallams do not look with a favourable eye upon an innovation which must gradually displace their influence in favour of a younger generation, broader-minded and more tolerant because better educated than they. Attempts both internal and external have not been, and are not, wanting to warn the chiefs of the danger of permitting their sons to become contaminated by foreign doctrines inimical to Islam. Justification for the confidence which the chiefs repose in our good faith can alone enable us to defeat these influences. Were that confidence to be shaken, the effort to train the future rulers (under the British suzerainty) of the country with a view to making them mentally and physically better fitted to assist the Administration, and to bring them into closer contact with one another and with the Government official, would receive a fatal blow, and the prestige of the Government would be deeply shaken. Let us once more turn to the pages of Mr. Chirol’s weighty volume and note the consequences which have followed