in private schools, opened either in competition with the Government, or in the absence of provision by Government. The remainder, he added, are going without education. Thus, in the rural areas of the Transvaal alone, 15,000 children are running about wild and untaught; and to these we have to add the untaught children of the towns and villages.

The Director of Education in the Orange River Colony, in his last Annual Report for the year ending June 30th, 1904, states: "As the population of the Colony is about 150,000 whites, there should. be about 25,000 children of school age, if we take the proportion as 1 in 6. It is somewhat difficult to know how many pupils attend the private schools which are conducted by the Dutch Reformed Church, or by teachers for private profit; but if we assume the number to be, roughly, 2,000, it means that about 10,000 children are still unprovided with education--a somewhat gloomy prospect to contemplate."

From the 1904 Statistical Year Book for Natal, it appears that out of a total white population of 97,109 there were 16,080 children between the ages of six and fifteen, whilst only 11,338 were enrolled in Government or Government-aided schools, which latter total includes several hundred children above the age of fifteen. In the Natal Report for 1899 (volume 5, page 201, of the Special Reports on Educational Subjects published by the Board of Education, London, in 1901), "it is estimated that about 1,600 children of European parentage are being taught privately or at schools not in receipt of Government aid." Assuming that the increase of privately taught children in the last five years is balanced by the children over fifteen in the above school totals, it would appear that not more than 13,000 children between the ages of six and fifteen are at school, out of a total of 16,000, and that therefore 3,000 white children in Natal of a school-going age are not being taught at all.

The Director of Education in Rhodesia states that, according to the 1904 census, out of a total white population in Southern Rhodesia of 12,623, there were only 1,406 children between the ages of five and fifteen, of whom only one-half were receiving any education, either in Government or private schools.

In the Cape Colony at the last census of 17th April, 1904, out of a total European population of 579,741, there were 120,849 white children of school-going age—that is, between the ages of six and fourteen; but according to the last Annual Report of the Superintendent-General of Education for the year ending 30th June, 1904, there were only 63,434 children on the roll. this connection, Dr. Muir says:-"In speaking of administration mention must also be made of an extraneous aid which the year has given us, viz., the Census. Its value, of course, does not lie in the weight which it lends to the argument for compulsory school attend

In

ance; every inspector, every rural clergyman, every school manager knows and feels poignantly the need for such compulsion without having the figures of a census officer before him. The real value of it lies in definitely localising the need, in showing the exact spots where children are running about untaught and uncared forwhere school sites and school buildings are wanted-where Government and people have unconsciously conspired to neglect their duty." No accurate figures are available of the number of children being privately taught, but even placing these at the improbable figure of 17,500, it will still leave 40,000 white children in the Cape Colony as yet unprovided with any kind of education.

These figures are further corroborated by official utterances during the recent debate in the Cape Parliament. The Colonial Secretary, who is the Minister charged with the Department of Public Education in the Cape Colony, in moving the second reading of the Compulsory Education Bill on the 15th March, 1905, stated "that there were uneducated-not receiving any instruction at all -between the ages of five and fourteen, 41,334 European children out of a total number of children between these ages of 128,397. One-third of the children who ought to be in school were not in school. Of these 41,334 children 9,792 were engaged in occupations. These were children who were supposed to be necessary to assist in the farming of the country, so that 31,000 were neither employed nor receiving education. Again, of the children who were receiving education, a large number, probably 10,000, were only receiving instruction at home or at Sunday school."

Summarising the above detailed evidence, it would appear that in the Transvaal there are between 15,000 and 25,000 children receiving no sort of instruction whatever; in the Orange River Colony, 10,000; in Natal, 3,000; and in Cape Colony anything from 20,000 to 40,000; which more than confirms the statement that the first rough estimate of 50,000 is rather under than over the mark.

It is unnecessary before such an audience as I am addressing to base any special plea on the facts disclosed by these figures. They are almost too sad for words. That a total of over 50,000 children, who ought to be at school, are going without any kind of education is matter for the gravest national concern. It means, in other words, that not less than twenty-five per cent. of the youth of South Africa are being so heavily handicapped in the race of life that the great majority of them will never have any chance of winning any of its prizes. It also means that many of them will be a permanent embarrassment to the country, and will go to swell the ranks of the unemployed and the shiftless, and to add fresh evidence, if such were needed, of the natural connection that exists between ignorance, pauperism, and crime. It will be said, probably, that the Governments, and especially the Education Departments of the country, are to blame for allowing such a state of things to exist and

continue; but it has to be remembered that governments and departments can only spend the money that is voted them; unless there happens to be a benevolent despotism which pushes on the clock with a firm hand, as was the case in Prussia a hundred years ago under the wise direction of Wilhelm von Humboldt. It is not the Government, but the whole people, who are to blame if they allow one of the very first duties of a civilised community, namely, the providing of elementary education for every boy and girl in the State, to be so imperfectly discharged.

But the shortcomings of our educational system are unhappily not confined to leaving fifty thousand children totally unprovided for. Of the three-fourths of the children of South Africa who are nominally at school, a large number are attending school so irregularly that only a very partial benefit can be derived from such education as they are receiving. Anything like normal regular attendance only exists in the higher-class Government schools, and it is probably near the truth to say that at least one day in every week is missed by more than one-half of the children attending schools. Such a result can, of course, not be due in any great measure to unavoidable causes such as illness, but is mainly accounted for by the lax and casual manner in which school work is invariably carried on in countries where attendance is not made compulsory by law. (As an illustration in point, I may mention that a Johannesburg headmistress told me she was frequently asked to excuse her girls their home lessons, because they had been to the " Empire" the night before.)

It would naturally be expected that the large number of children not attending any school is due to the scattered population in the remoter country districts; but this is not the whole explanation by any means. The two largest towns, one the oldest, and the other one of the youngest, towns in South Africa, are almost equally behindhand in point of primary school attendance, about one-third of the children in both receiving no education at present. Thus Capetown, with 8,015 European children of schoolgoing age, had last year only 4,850 on the rolls; and out of the 12,000 or 15,000 white children in Johannesburg there are still 5,000 unprovided with seats in any kind of school. Wherever we take any fairly large body of children, whether in town or country districts, we find the same state of things; from a third to a fourth of them are receiving no education. This will cause no surprise to those who have looked into the past history of education in other countries. Indeed, that so high a proportion as three-fourths of the children are going to school without compulsion is evidence of exceptional intelligence and keenness for education in the country at large; but it is certainly no reason for neglecting the duty of bringing the remaining fourth within the operation of a school law with as little delay as possible. During the thirty-five years that have elapsed since the passing of the Elementary Education Bill which made primary education compulsory in England, the

percentage of children attending school in Great Britain has more than doubled. It is a pleasant coincidence that the year which witnessed the visit of the British Association should have seen the first successful attempt to introduce the system of compulsory education in South Africa. It was only natural that the Cape Colony, which has always been the pioneer in educational progress in South Africa, should have been the first to take this great step forward. The experiment that is being made. there will be watched with the greatest interest and sympathy by all the other Colonies, and it is to be hoped the time is not far distant when it will be possible to have a uniform compulsory education law for the whole country. Of course, there are great difficulties in the way of the universal application of such a law, though the Cape Act removes most of the reasonable objections to it.

By this Act, which was assented to on the 6th June, 1905, provision has been made for the creation of School Boards within every fiscal division of the Cape Colony, two-thirds of the members of such boards being elected by the ratepayers, and the remaining third being appointed by the Governor; a wise reservation which enables representation to be given to the minority in any school district. It is interesting to note that women are not disqualified from being elected members of the school board; and as there are 100,000 girls to educate in South Africa, and 4,000 women teachers in our schools, it is not unreasonable that women should be eligible to sit on school boards.

By Section 51 of the Act it is made the duty of every school board within six months of its constitution to prepare a return of all children of European extraction within its district," who, being between the ages of six and fourteen, are credibly reported as not attending any public, private, or other school, and as not receiving adequate instruction in their own homes." These returns, when available, will be a most important contribution to the educational statistics of South Africa; and it is ardently to be desired that as soon as possible similar machinery will be devised for collecting equally reliable data in every part of the country.

By Section 60 of the Act it is lawful for any school board, at any time after the expiry of its first year in office, to resolve to make school attendance compulsory for all children of European parentage or extraction within its district who have completed their seventh, but not their fourteenth, year," and by Section 66

any person employing a child of European parentage or extraction during school hours who is under fourteen years of age and has not passed the fourth standard," is guilty of an offence against the Act, rendering him liable to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings for each such offence.

By Section 67 it is provided that within "three years after the promulgation of the Act it shall be lawful for the Governor to proclaim in any school district regulations in

regard to compulsory attendance even if no application has been made by the Board for such a proclamation," and by Section 68, "in view of the provision of the preceding section it shall be the duty of the first school board of the district to provide school accommodation before the expiry of its term of office for all such children in its district as may be required in accordance with this Act to be attending school; and it shall be lawful for a school board to incur expenditure for the conveyance to school of children who reside at a greater distance than three miles from the school."

By Section 69 powers are given to a school board under certain conditions to make school attendance compulsory for other than children of European extraction-that is, natives and coloured children.

By Section 72 it is provided that any excess of expenditure over income shall be divided equally between the Education Department out of funds for that purpose voted by Parliament, and the other half shall be met by a special rate, which may be either an owner's rate or an owner's and tenant's rate combined.

Now, as half the white population of South Africa reside at present within the Cape Colony, the working of this first school board Act is bound to exercise a profound influence on the future educational policy of the whole country, and the next four or five years are likely to determine what course it will take, whether it is to be a policy of progress, or one of retrogression. A policy of progress, of course, will aim at keeping children at school much longer than is the average rule at present, and at providing facilities for every promising child continuing his or her education up to the doors of the university, and beyond. Even without knowing anything about the statistics, everyone must have been struck by the early age at which boys and girls leave school in South Africa. In many cases this is presumably done in order that the children may begin to earn wages as soon as possible; in other cases probably owing to sheer ignorance or indifference on the part of their parents. In any case it is a very short-sighted proceeding, even from the lowest economical point of view; for it is almost certain that a boy of 12 or 13 leaving school at that early age in order to go into an office or store, or to work on a farm, will have earned a smaller total sum by the time he is 20, than if he had remained at school a few years longer; whilst for the whole of his subsequent career he is almost inevitably doomed to the least remunerative forms of employment.

It would be a useful work if the South African Association for. the Advancement of Science were to compile statistics, as far as obtainable, of the comparative wages earned during successive age periods by different classes of white labour in this country, and to reduce these figures to curves on a diagram (similar to that presented to the American Society of