490 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



present type, but a few really educated and specially trained men. 

 By attempting to meet it the status of the whole body of teachers 

 would be raised, their career made more attractive, and the general 

 supply increased. There are many acting teachers who would gladly 

 enter a higher grade course, were such opened to them. 



Behind all this there is the indefinite, but widespread, desire 

 of the natives to obtain for the younger generation that " know- 

 ledge " which they recognise has helped the white man to his present 

 position of superiority. This leads one to point out briefly the 

 intimate connection between the present movement in favour of a 

 State-controlled Native College, and the future general welfare of 

 the country. 



A highly developed civilisation has come with the force and 

 rapidity of an avalanche upon the Kafir living in his kraal. But 

 it has not overwhelmed him. He is possessed of sufficient strength 

 to assimilate it. But coming as it does, and finding him as he is, 

 the period of assimilation is fraught with the greatest dangers. New 

 forces have been released among the people. New hopes, new 

 ambitions are stirring them. What the ultimate issue will be, it is 

 difficult to say. The points at which friction between Europeans 

 and natives is possible are rapidly increasing. The two races are 

 drawing nearer to one another before a mutual sympathy and under- 

 standing are sufficiently assured. It is therefore all important that 

 the leaders of the native van should be men of wide sympathies, 

 understanding European modes of thought, and recognising that 

 the interests of either race are inextricably bound up with those 

 of the other. The natives in recent years have given abundant proof 

 that they intend advancing under the leadership of men of their 

 own race. It will be the highest work of the proposed College to 

 train such men who, by force of character and intellectual attain- 

 ment, will worthily lead. Even the most enthusiastic negrophilist 

 has little to say on behalf of the semi-educated native, whose 

 bumptiousness and self-assertiveness are so much in evidence in our 

 towns, except that he is a necessary evil of the present phase in 

 the evolution of the Bantu. But unless something is done, this class, 

 which must rapidly increase as time goes on, will continue in the 

 ascendancy and provide leaders of the type that has already worked 

 so much mischief. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the 

 proposed College will have opportunities of shaping the destinies 

 of this country greater than were ever given to an educational insti- 

 tution. Dr. Booker T. Washington, after twenty-five years work 

 at Tuskegee has, in the opinion of American statesmen, pointed 

 to the solution of the negro problem there. It remains for an inter- 

 State Native College to do the same for South Africa, though the 

 problem is different and more complicated. 



In view, therefore, of the possible establishment in the near 

 future of a native college under the control of the several Colonial 

 Governments, it is important that educational thought should be 

 focussed upon questions affecting the policy of the Institution. This 

 will be seen to be all the more necessary when one remembers the 



