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http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography/history_JamesOliverCutteridge_lateAsstDirE ducation.htm Captain James Oliver Cutteridge has probably suffered Trini criticism longer than anyone else in history. As early as 1923, two years after arriving here, he was promoted to Assistant Director of Education and his vilification began. Ex-teacher Howard Bishop, a Garveyite and editor of the Trinidad Workingmen's Association Journal, Labour Leader, began the attack, which he sustained for many years. Cutteridge, wrote bishop, was not qualified for the post. He retired in 1942 and left Trinidad. Still, the editor of the Clarion, organ of the Trinidad Labour Party, consoled himself in 1948 with the thought that Cutteridge was "spending his last days in a wheeled chair and wearing a bib." His death on August 2, 1952 in the Isle of Man brought no respite. In 1963, 40 years after the vilification began, Sparrow sang "Dan is the Man", pouring scorn on the folk tales and parables Cutteridge put in his West Indian Readers. http://www.trinicenter.com/Cudjoe/2004/0710.htm Dr. Williams would have welcomed the rise of the ramlelas; the hosay and the carnival arts as counter-discourses to the dominant discourse of the colonial-capitalist order that strove to impose their values on a colonized people. No wonder, he was so contemptuous of J. O. Cutteridge, the author of several of our early school texts, whom Dr. Williams acknowledged as having "a negative rather than a positive" impact on his life. In 1901, Joseph de Suze, a local school master wrote Little Folks Trinidad to tell us about the wonders of our world. Trinbagonians may remember Cutteridge who Sparrow made infamous in his biting satire of our educational system in his calypso, "Dan is the Man in the Van." Few of us know who de Suze is. In elevating Inniss and decentering Cutteridge, Dr. Williams suggests that we need to honor those who went before and to acquaint ourselves with the intellectual culture that make us who we are. Hence his emphasis on the ennobling dimensions of his enterprise. "[In my lectures] I sought always to instill pride, to give a new sense of dignity to the people. Our history was the politics of the past, made for us by others. It was a necessary guide to the politics of the future, made for us by ourselves." Marcus Day, DSc Director Caribbean Drug Abuse Research Institute Box 1419 Castries SAINT LUCIA VOICE 1-758-458-2795 FAX 1-758-458-2796 CELL 1-758-485-9100 -----Original Message----- From: Members of the Society for Caribbean Studies based in UK [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sandra Courtman Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 7:31 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Who is/was Dan Cutteridge? Dear Members, I am using The Mighty Sparrow's 'Dan the Man' with students this week and wondered if anyone could tell me who Dan Cutteridge was and why he was made famous in Sparrow's song? Yours in ignorance, and many thanks Sandra