Africa Praise

Africa Praise. This book, published in 1969 by the United Society for Christian Literature, is a good example of an early attempt to provide hymns for African schools that would recognise the importance of local cultures and the needs of independent African nations. It was edited by David G. Temple (words) and Arthur Morris Jones* (music). It was intended for schools in which English was the medium of instruction, and one of its aims was ‘to discover as many African hymns as possible’ (Preface, p. v). The compilers admitted that they had had problems, because ‘the combination of African music and English words is difficult to find’ and they hoped to find more African hymns for future...