Sir Eric Ashby, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and Master of Clare College, Cambridge University, will deliver the annual Godkin Lectures today, Wednesday, and Thursday, at 8 p.m. in Sanders Theater.

Robert C. Weaver '29, Administrator of the U.S. Housing and Home Finance Administration, will give the lectures next year.

The Godkin Lectures on "The Essentials of Free Government and the Duties of the Citizen" are given annually by a leader in public life, under the auspices of the Graduate School of Public Administration. The Lectures were founded in 1903 to honor E.L. Godkin, a British-American journalist of the 19th century.

Speaking on the subject "African Universities and Western Tradition," Ashby will talk tonight on "The European Tradition Exported;" his lecture Wednesday is entitled "Balance Sheet for Universitie in West Africa," and the Thursday speech will be "African Nationalism Confronts the University."

Weaver is the author of "Negro Labor, A National Problem" and the "Negro Ghetto." He was Vice Chairman of the Housing and Redevelopment Board of New York City and Chairman of the Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, before entering the Kennedy Administration in 1961. Earlier, he served as Rent Administrator for New York State.

Weaver was Director of the Opportunity Fellowships for the J.H. Whitney Foundation from 1949 to 1954. He has been a consultant to the Ford Foundation and Visiting Professor at Columbia Teachers College and at New York University School of Education.

Recent lecturers have included President Clark Kerr of the University of California, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York State, Gov. Luis Munoz Marin of Puerto Rico, James B. Conant '14, and C.P. Snow.