PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION D. 47 



one experienced in administering education realised at once that 

 it gave to the Provinces by far the larger share of control. The 

 less bureaucratic control of college education there is, the better 

 it will thrive. It needs almost complete freedom for its develop- 

 ment. Its various departments or faculties are more or less 

 fixed by experience and tradition ; in its methods it should be 

 entirely free; and in the administration of funds, each 

 institution should be gi\en a very large measure of autonomy. 

 thus the share of direct control over education, which the 

 Union Parliament obtained under the South Africa Act, is very 

 small. It may be observed, too, that the division is one which 

 it has not been easy to maintain, obvious and definitive as the 

 line of demarcation seems to be. For example, the training 

 of teachers and technical education cross it in an embarrassing 

 way, and the development of these vitally important branches 

 of education has not been furthered by it. 



Instead of the artificial and arbitrary division of education 

 into higher and lower by means of what I have just referred to as 

 a horizontal cut, a vertical line of cleavage passing from top to 

 bottom of the educational ])yramid is suggested, leaving legisla- 

 tion, embodying general ])rinciples and policy, to the central 

 authority and administrative detail to local authorities. This 

 suggested division, so far as it concerns the colleges, is to be 

 understood to be subject to the limitation of bureaucratic control 

 already urged. 



The first reason for such a proposal is, so to say, a dictate 

 of the national conscience, and may be reached by means of a 

 question. Will a national assembly be content to divest itself 

 permanently of effective control over, and final responsibility 

 for. a national function? And ought it to be content to do so? 

 It seems to me that the answer, both as regards fact and obliga- 

 tion, is in the negative. The experience of practically all other 

 countries corroborates this, and there has been plenty of evidence 

 (luring the last five years to show that the Union Parliament is 

 restive under the restrictions which the South Africa Act im- 

 poses. There seem to be at least three fundamental reasons 

 why this should be so. In the first place, education touches men 

 more nearly than any other state function. It concerns the 

 well-being of their sons and daughters. For this reason alone 

 the members of the Union Parliament will inevitably desire to 

 have a share in the direction of national policy in education. In 

 the second place, the Union Parliament will demand control just 

 liecause national education is a vital factor of national progress, 

 whether we are thinking of material progress in the area of 

 commerce and industry, of progress in a cultural as distinct 

 from a vocational sense, or of moral progress. The close rela- 

 non of the schools to national prosperity and morality is a truth 

 wliich has at last found almost universal recognition : and this 

 being so, the national voice will insist on being heard on matters 

 of educational policy. In the third place, national schools should, 



