For several reasons, the topic of my lecture, ‘A bridge across time’, may sound to many in this audience as strange, bizarre and out of place except to those who are in my area of specialization. The sub-title was therefore quickly supplied to assure my academic and other colleagues that I have not changed my profession or academic discipline. In the first place, this institution of ours, now the University of Benin, was originally conceived, initially nurtured as a Mid-west Institute of Technology where the liberal arts had no place. Perhaps while many were not looking, the humanities and the social sciences crept into the system to dilute the purity of a science and technology institution. The building of bridges is the preserve of engineers who rightly belong to the science and technology fold.