ADDRESS BY THEODORE REUNERT. IX. 



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 for — 

 where school sites and school buildings are wanted — where Govern- 

 ment and people have unconsciously consjDired to neglect their 

 duty." No accurate figures are available of the number of children 

 being privately taught, iDut 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, 41,33-i 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 occupa- 

 tions. These were children who were supi30sed 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 1 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 chil- 

 dren, 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 tbings to exist and 



