4-— OUR PLACE IX HISTORY. 



By C. D. Hope, M.A. 



Introduction. 



What course of South African history will satisfy the intelligence 

 of senior pupils, deepen their understanding of South African affairs, 

 and lead them on to a more general interest in the progress of 

 mankind? The answer is that we must cease to interpret South 

 African history as the mere record of events within this country 

 itself. These events must be known and appreciated ; but, taken 

 by themselves, they will never be thoroughly understood. 



If we desire to understand South African history we must apply 

 the comparative method, we must examine events in connection with 

 the forces which produced them, we must abandon the task of 

 chroniclers, and make an effort to realise our place in general history. 



Many events in South African history are merely the counterpart 

 of precisely similar occurrences in other new^ lands peopled by 

 European settlers. Other events, however, are emphatically peculiar 

 to this country alone. In neither case can a just understanding be 

 obtained when the comparative method is neglected ; and yet no 

 consistent attempt has hitherto been made to treat our history other- 

 wise than as the self-contained record of an isolated collection of 

 human beings. 



In 1902 it was the privilege of the present writer to draw the 

 attention of the University Council of the Cape of Good Hope to 

 this most serious question ; the matter was taken up by the Hon. 

 J. X. Merriman, and a Committee issued a svllabus of comparative 

 studies in Colonial history for the B.A. degree, which came into 

 force for the first time in 1906. The existence of this excellent 

 syllabus must in itself break down the baneful barriers w-hich have 

 hitherto surrounded historical work in South Africa, and the follow- 

 ing pages are merely an anticipation of the methods which must in 

 future prevail. 



South African history opens with the great burst of enterprise 

 by which the white races re-asserted the position that they had won 

 in the days of Alexander the Great and of the Romans. In affairs 

 of intellect this movement is spoken of as the Renaissance; and as 

 literature and art, like Narcissus of old, have ever been too much 

 delighted with the reflection of their own charms, waiters have 

 allowed themselves to speak of this period as if nothing better had 

 been produced than some paintings in Florence or some sculptures 

 in Rome. 



In realty this period saw the delivery of the white race, on 

 whom all progress depends, from actual bondage and ever present 

 fear of the brown and yellow men of Africa and Asia. When .Spain 

 lay under the rule of the merciless Moor, when Tartar horsemen 

 possessed themselves of the Steppes of Russia and threatened 

 Germany from the East, when the Turk conquered the Capital of 

 the first Christian Emperor, overran the Balkan Peninsula, invaded 



