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BY K. A. HOBART HOUGHTON, B.A.

The subject of native higher education has been brought prominently before the public of South Africa through the movement to convince the Governments of the various Colonies that the natives of this country are anxious for the establishment of an inter-State Native College upon the lines of the recommendation of the interColonial Native Affairs Commission.

The need for some action on the part of Government to assist what, after all, is merely the natural development of a century's educational work is receiving recognition in most quarters.

Once the duty of the State to foster higher education, and the principle of giving educational facilities to all who are able to take advantage of them-whatever their race or colour may beis admitted, it only remains to establish the necessity for an immediate advance, and the present proposals are fully justified.

The argument in their favour is based upon the pressing needs of the natives themselves and the welfare-intellectual, social, political and economic of the whole country, both of which call for action in the not too distant future.

The better to realise how deep and widespread are the natives' actual wants in the direction of better or higher instruction, a brief outline of the progress and present position of native education may help.

The early years of last century saw the beginning of a school system for native children. It was the work of Christian missionaries, and has ever since been carried on by them. For fifty years the Church alone bore its cost before the Government assumed a share of the responsibility, and during the last thirty years the natives, the Governments and the Churches have contributed to its upkeep.

The initial difficulty of creating a demand for so unsubstantial a commodity as education gradually lessened and the number of schools grew beyond the control of the European teachers; so that in 1841 the first school for the training of native teachers was established at Lovedale, and was soon followed by others belonging to the various religious bodies.

The object of these institutions was to further the more directly evangelistic efforts of the Church, and this intention, while perfectly natural and understandable in the circumstances, carried out in all native educational work, with its consequent tendency to subserve the interests of education to those of the Church's work, has had an effect not altogether beneficial to intellectual advance.

To Sir George Grey is due the honour of recognising the value of industrial training in the civilization of the Bantu-a discovery which the Moravian Missionaries had made years before and utilised in their work among the Hottentots. At his suggestion and with the help of his Government several of the missionary institutions opened industrial departments. Partly owing to lack of continuity in the Government policy towards this kind of work, partly to the disfavour with which the home supporters of missions regarded what

seemingly had so little connection with spiritual work, but chiefly owing to the costly character of the work itself, many of these schools had to be abandoned. But in the one or two instances where the work has passed through its experimental stages and has established itself in the favour of natives and Europeans, its economic and educative value has been so fully demonstrated as to justify, in the opinion of those who have studied its results, the heavy expenditure it entails.

Thus it will be seen that there are three classes of mission school supported by Government, the elementary, the industrial and that for the training of pupil teachers.

But one of the natural results of all these years of labour has been the creation of a small and steadily increasing class of native students who aspire to, and are capable of, higher courses of instruction than these schools afford. Out of the hundred and fifty thousand pupils in school, one might expect that at least one in every thousand who start on the path of knowledge might like to pursue it past the sign-post known in this country as Standard VI. And Government makes no provision for them. One or two of the older institutions may attempt to meet the demand. Under present conditions, however, neither arrangements nor results can be called satisfactory; teacher and pupil labour under difficulties which only a re-modelling of the whole system can remove. Besides this, the expense of such classes -no Government grant being obtainable—is out of proportion to the income of the institution, and were it not that their existence keeps open to natives the door to the higher branches of education, seems hardly justified by the results. To take one instance: In the College Department at Lovedale about fifty students are being prepared for the Matriculation and School Higher Examinations of the Cape University, at a cost of something like £750 a year, very little of which is covered by native fees.

That the desire on the part of a few for better education is more than a mere vague ambition to obtain something which they do not possess, is evidenced by the fact that a considerable number have already gone to Europe and to the Negro Colleges of America for that type of education they are unable to get here. No doubt many go to these Colleges who cannot possibly benefit from a genuine College course, and there may be a political significance attached to the movement. But the exodus to America is a fact, and, viewed from whatever point, can hardly be called desirable.

There is also a pressing need for better trained teachers to take charge of native schools. It is undoubtedly true that a difficulty is experienced in trying to keep pace with the rapid growth in the number of schools, with any kind of teacher, trained or untrained. But the best type of native youth is at present being lost to the teaching profession, though he may be trained for it. sufficiently attractive. Interpreters and Clerks-even policemen and miners are paid better than teachers. Nor are the majority turned out by the training institutions worth more than they get. The most pressing need of native education is not more teachers of the

present type, but a few really educated and specially trained men. By attempting to meet it the status of the whole body of teachers would be raised, their career made more attractive, and the general supply increased. There are many acting teachers who would gladly enter a higher grade course, were such opened to them.

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Behind all this there is the indefinite, but widespread, desire of the natives to obtain for the younger generation that knowledge" which they recognise has helped the white man to his present position of superiority. This leads one to point out briefly the intimate connection between the present movement in favour of a State-controlled Native College, and the future general welfare of the country.

A highly developed civilisation has come with the force and rapidity of an avalanche upon the Kafir living in his kraal. But it has not overwhelmed him. He is possessed of sufficient strength to assimilate it. But coming as it does, and finding him as he is, the period of assimilation is fraught with the greatest dangers. New forces have been released among the people. New hopes, new ambitions are stirring them. What the ultimate issue will be, it is difficult to say. The points at which friction between Europeans and natives is possible are rapidly increasing. The two races are drawing nearer to one another before a mutual sympathy and understanding are sufficiently assured. It is therefore all important that the leaders of the native van should be men of wide sympathies, understanding European modes of thought, and recognising that the interests of either race are inextricably bound up with those of the other. The natives in recent years have given abundant proof that they intend advancing under the leadership of men of their own race. It will be the highest work of the proposed College to train such men who, by force of character and intellectual attainment, will worthily lead. Even the most enthusiastic negrophilist has little to say on behalf of the semi-educated native, whose bumptiousness and self-assertiveness are so much in evidence in our towns, except that he is a necessary evil of the present phase in the evolution of the Bantu. But unless something is done, this class, which must rapidly increase as time goes on, will continue in the ascendancy and provide leaders of the type that has already worked so much mischief. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the proposed College will have opportunities of shaping the destinies of this country greater than were ever given to an educational institution. Dr. Booker T. Washington, after twenty-five years work at Tuskegee has, in the opinion of American statesmen, pointed to the solution of the negro problem there. It remains for an interState Native College to do the same for South Africa, though the problem is different and more complicated.

In view, therefore, of the possible establishment in the near future of a native college under the control of the several Colonial Governments, it is important that educational thought should be focussed upon questions affecting the policy of the Institution. This will be seen to be all the more necessary when one remembers the

influence that such a College will exercise on native education generally, and the opportunity thus afforded of arriving at some common basis of educational policy for the whole of South Africa. How much this is to be desired all students of the subject can testify. For while in most countries it is accepted as a guiding principle that education should be framed to meet the social and economic requirements of the people for whom it is intended, native education in some, at least, of the older South African Colonies has not been so dealt with. The same course of instruction, the same system of examination, is devised for both black and white. No account is taken of the difference of language, of environment, of future position in the country. With delightful frankness the Cape Education Department in an article appearing in the Education Gazette of April 1st last, alludes to its policy in the following terms: "The native population is the problem of Africa; and the crux of that problem, if it is rightly considered, is the question of the proper educational policy to pursue. In Cape Colony this question was never formally dealt with. The early missionaries, who of course were not educationists, felt first the need for teaching reading to the children of their converts, and having begun this added in time a little of the other R's. As for the State it may be said to have simply refrained from interfering. As a consequence of this policy of drift two general principles came to regulate, State action in this matter; first, that all native schools should be under the management of one of the missionary societies; second, that the instruction given should follow the lines of the elementary course prescribed for European schools, but that no assistance should be given in aid of work higher than the fourth standard, except in the case of candidates preparing for the teaching profession.'

While it is true to speak of the College as a natural development of the work carried on by existing institutions, in another sense it is a new venture, an experiment which must be conducted under the most favourable circumstances and by men unfettered by tradition. To this end the co-operation of all the States is desirable, who should nominate Governing Council independent of the control of their respective Education Departments.

All courses of higher work must at this stage in the development of Native education be tentative and so framed as to be capable of reconstruction again and again if necessary. At the same time some who have closely studied the subject, and have had unique opportunities of making experiments in it, have arrived at a few guiding principles which may be found to be of general application to all native education. They are briefly stated here in the hope of their being tested in a wider field of educational thought than they have yet entered; and with more confidence than would otherwise be justifiable, since they have been thought out independently, and applied with practical results in the native school system of Central Africa, which affords instruction to over sixty thousand children.

The first of these is, that a curriculum of native higher education should be framed, not only to meet the present needs of

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the people, but also with an eye to their future. This means that the ultimate standard and ultimate aim of native education must be the same as that for Europeans. In a country circumstanced as South Africa is, there cannot with any safety exist two ideals of civilization. Sooner or later they would be bound to clash. The European and Native child have different starting points and may require to travel for some distance by different routes. This will probably be the case with the majority for many years to come. But these roads must converge, they can never be parallel. framing therefore what would develop into a full "Arts" course one should remove the disabilities under which the native at present labours owing to his language. By having to work in English, which is to him a foreign tongue, and will continue to be so for centuries to come, and having to force his way through the medium of this foreign language into all the mysteries of Latin Syntax before he can establish himself upon the path of a College training, he is hopelessly handicapped. This alone accounts for the failure in the past of the majority who have attempted to attain to the status of a University Student. If this College is to aim at leading native students to the standard of attainment required by a University, there will have to be a widening of the existing approaches to the Degree examination in South Africa.

Nor is this necessary only because of the language difficulty. On account of his past, with its inheritance of grossness and superstition, and on account of his environment and lack of early training, there are certain lines of study which are of far greater importance in the education of the native than in that of the European. Indeed they may be said to be essential. Nothing but a constant appeal to nature and to the unvarying truths which determine the phenomena of nature will eradicate the native's deeply rooted belief in witchcraft, which is perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of his advancement, intellectual and moral. In other words, general science in all its more important branches-Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, Geology and Astronomy-would have to form part of any liberal course of education.

For the same reason, if we are to produce really educated men, that is, men fitted for the duties devolving upon them as leaders of a race emerging from barbarism, and if we are to develop their highest usefulness, a carefully planned and progressive course of manual instruction should be given side by side with the literary studies. As training for the hand and eye, from a health point of view, and in creating and strengthening moral character it would prove invaluable. But it is in the after life of the student when his example as a civilizing agent amongst his own people is needed, that its full benefits will be seen.

In one other direction native higher education may have to differ from that given in the average European University. It may not be the duty of the State to provide for the religious training of the young, but few will deny that it is the duty of those responsible for native education to make every provision for the moral

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