Educational Aim in South Africa. 195 



general improvement, but in the direction of a return to the 

 distinctive features of the past. But what of the effect of the bare, 

 featureless, hastily-erected structures that jar upon the sense in so 

 many of the up-country districts, totally out of keeping with the 

 scenerw in which theyare set, and, suggesting only a careless and 

 temporary purpose, and no stability or permanence ? 



What, therefore, has to be created in the young, is a taste and 

 a regard for beauty of form in the home and in its setting. In order 

 to develop this, to some extent, I would appeal for more worthy 

 buildings for our schools in the first place. Many of us know the 

 slight care that has been bestowed on these until quite recently. 

 Even where there has been no stint of money, the grim and forbid- 

 ding structures that have been erected, — the rigid conceptions of the 

 conscientious educationist about his window and floor space, with 

 the medical officer's ventilating appliances writ large over them 

 inside and out — are not such as to attract the young learner, or to 

 stir in him any feeling of respect for great buildings. The reverence 

 due to traditional association cannot be built up except with the 

 lapse of generations, until we feel that in certain precincts.r-we are 

 " treading on history " ; but a nation is bound to suffer, if this 

 appreciation of artisitc structure is not cultivated in her children ; 

 and fit objects must be created, where they have not come down 

 from the past. Elaborate expenditure on Town Halls and churches 

 is no doubt good, so far as it goes, but it is better that the buildings 

 in which a great part of the children's life is spent, should be of the 

 noblest and the best. So much may have birth given to it there ; 

 the learning imparted bears its share, but the whole surroundings 

 impress their effect unconsciously on the young minds, implanting 

 gradually a respect for what is grand and beautiful in form, and a 

 " divine discontent " with what is unsightlv and unworthy, a 

 discontent that will w'ork its result later in the homes they create 

 for themselves. 



And it is not only great buildings that I would plead for- 

 no work can be worthier of a stately setting than the training of 

 the young — ; but I would appeal as well for spacious grounds, not 

 only room for recreation and sport on the physical side, but space 

 without sense of stint, that may be made beautiful and attractive 

 with trees and flowers. ''A nation is only worthy of the soil and 

 the scenes it has inherited, when bv all its acts and arts it is making 

 them more lovely for its children." 



I am compelled to leave untouched the whole question of music 

 and pass to my next head. 



(3) The Ideal. 



By this term I do not mean to convey the sense of any counsel- 

 of- perfection, but rather the cultivation of a practical standard of 

 corporate life. It is a commonplace that a sense of corporare 

 responsibility raises the level of action of the average individual 



