51— NATIVE EDUCATION IN ITS HIGHER BRANCHES. 



By K. a. Hobart Houghton, B.A. 



The subject of native higher education has been brought prom- 

 inently before the public of South Africa through the movement to 

 convince the Governments of the various Colonies that the natives 

 of this country are anxious for the establishment of an inter-State 

 Native College upon the lines of the recommendation of the inter- 

 Colonial Native Affairs Commission. 



The need for some action on the part of Government to 

 assist what, after all, is merely the natural development of a 

 century's educational work is receiving recognition in most quarters. 



Once the duty of the State to foster higher education, and 

 the principle of giving educational facilities to all who are able to 

 take advantage of them — whatever their race or colour may be — 

 is admitted, it only remains to establish the necessity for an imme- 

 diate advance, and the present proposals are fully justified. 



The argument in their favour is based upon the pressing needs 

 of the natives themselves and the welfare — intellectual, social, 

 political and economic — of the whole country, both of which call 

 for action in the not too distant future. 



The better to realise how deep and widespread are the natives' 

 actual wants in the direction of better or higher instruction, a brief 

 outline of the progress and present position of native education 

 may help. 



The early years of last century saw the beginning of a school 

 system for native children. It was the work of Christian missionaries, 

 and has ever since been carried on by them. For fifty years the 

 Church alone bore its cost before the Government assumed a share 

 of the responsibility, and during the last thirty years the natives, 

 the Governments and the Churches have contributed to its upkeep. 



The initial difficulty of creating a demand for so unsubstantial 

 a commodity as education gradually lessened and the number of 

 schools grew beyond the control of the European teachers ; so that 

 in 1 84 1 the first school for the training of native teachers was 

 established at Lovedale, and was soon follow^ed by others belonging 

 to the various religious bodies. 



The object of these institutions was to further the more directly 

 evangelistic efforts of the Church, and this intention, while perfectly 

 natural and understandable in the circumstances, carried out in all 

 native educational work, with its consequent tendency to subserve the 

 interests of education to those of the Church's work, has had an 

 effect not altogether beneficial to intellectual advance. 



To Sir George Grey is due the honour of recognising the value 

 of industrial training in the civilization of the Bantu — a discovery 

 which the Moravian Missionaries had made years before and utilised 

 in their work among the Hottentots. At his suggestion and with 

 the help of his Government several of the missionary institutions 

 opened industrial departments. Partly owing to lack of continuity 

 in the Government policy towards this kind of work, partly to the 

 disfavour with which the home supporters of missions regarded what 



