492 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



the people, but also with an eye to their future. This means that 

 the ultimate standard and ultimate aim of native education must 

 be the same as that for Europeans. In a country circumstanced as 

 South Africa is, there cannot with any safety exist two ideals of 

 civilization. Sooner or later they would be bound to clash. The 

 European and Native child have different starting points and may 

 require to travel for some distance by different routes. This will 

 probably be the case with the majority for many years to come. 

 But these roads must converge, they can never be parallel. In 

 framing therefore what would develop into a full " Arts " course 

 one should remove the disabilities under which the native at present 

 labours owing to his language. By having to work in English, which 

 is to him a foreign tongue, and will continue to be so for centuries 

 to come, and having to force his way through the medium of this 

 foreign language into all the mysteries of Latin Syntax before he 

 can establish himself upon the path of a College training, he is 

 hopelessly handicapped. This alone accounts for the failure in the 

 past of the majority who have attempted to attain to the status of 

 a University Student. If this College is to aim at leading native 

 students to the standard of attainment required by a University, 

 there will have to be a widening of the existing approaches to the 

 Degree examination in South Africa. 



Nor is this necessary only because of the language difficulty. 

 On account of his past, with its inheritance of grossness and super- 

 stition, and on account of his environment and lack of early training, 

 there are certain lines of study which are of far greater importance 

 in the education of the native than in that of the European. Indeed 

 they may be said to be essential. Nothing but a constant appeal to 

 nature and to the unvarying truths which determine the phenomena 

 of nature will eradicate the native's deeply rooted belief in witch- 

 craft, which is perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of his 

 advancement, intellectual and moral. In other words, general science 

 in all its more important branches — Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, 

 Botany, Zoology, Geology and Astronomy — would have to form part 

 of any liberal course of education. 



For the same reason, if we are to produce really educated men, 

 that is, men fitted for the duties devolving upon them as leaders of a 

 race emerging from barbarism, and if we are to develop their highest 

 usefulness, a carefully planned and progressive course of manual 

 instruction should be given side by side with the literary studies. 

 As training for the hand and eye, from a health point of view, and 

 in creating and strengthening moral character it would prove 

 invaluable. But it is in the after life of the student when his 

 example as a civilizing agent amongst his own people is needed, that 

 its full benefits will be seen. 



In one other direction native higher education may have to 

 differ from that given in the average European University. It may 

 not be the duty of the State to provide for the religious training 

 of the young, but few will deny that it is the duty of those respon- 

 sible for native education to make every provision for the moral 



