Native Higher Education. 489 



seemingly had so little connection with spiritual work, but chiefly 

 owing to the costly character of the work itself, many of these 

 schools had to be abandoned. But in the one or two instances where 

 the work has passed through its experimental stages and has estab- 

 lished itself in the favour of natives and Europeans, its economic and 

 educative value has been so fully demonstrated as to justify, in the 

 opinion of those who have studied its results, the heavy expenditure 

 it entails. 



Thus it will be seen that there are three classes of mission 

 school supported by Government, the elementary, the industrial and 

 that for the training of pupil teachers. 



But one of the natural results of all these years of labour has 

 been the creation of a small and steadily increasing class of native 

 students who aspire to, and are capable of, higher courses of instruc- 

 tion than these schools afford. Out of the hundred and fifty 

 thousand pupils in school, one might expect that at least one in every 

 thousand who start on the path of knowledge might like to pursue it 

 past the sign-post known in this country as Standard VI. And Govern- 

 ment makes no provision for them. One or two of the older institutions 

 may attempt to meet the demand. Under present conditions, however, 

 neither arrangements nor results can be called satisfactory ; teacher 

 and pupil labour under difficulties which only a re-modelling of the 

 whole system can remove. Besides this, the expense of such classes 

 — no Government grant being obtainable — is out of proportion to the 

 income of the institution, and were it not that their existence keeps 

 open to natives the door to the higher branches of education, seems 

 hardly justified by the results. To take one instance : In the College 

 Department at Lovedale about fifty students are being prepared 

 for the Matriculation and School Higher Examinations of the Cape 

 University, at a cost of something like ;^75o a year, very little of 

 which is covered by native fees. 



That the desire on the part of a few for better education is 

 more than a mere vague ambition to obtain something which they 

 do not possess, is evidenced by the fact that a considerable number 

 have already gone to Europe and to the Negro Colleges of America 

 for that type of education they are unable to get here. No doubt 

 many go to these Colleges who cannot possibly benefit from a genuine 

 College course, and there may be a political significance attached 

 to the movement. But the exodus to America is a fact, and, viewed 

 from whatever point, can hardly be called desirable. 



There is also a pressing need for better trained teachers to 

 take charge of native schools. It is undoubtedly true that a difficulty 

 is experienced in trying to keep pace with the rapid growth in the 

 number of schools, with any kind of teacher, trained or untrained. 

 But the best type of native youth is at present being lost to the 

 teaching profession, though he may be trained for it. It is not 

 sufficiently attractive. Interpreters and Clerks — even policemen and 

 miners — are paid better than teachers. Nor are the majority turned 

 out by the training institutions worth more than they get. The 

 most pressing need of native education is not more teachers of the 



