From a Teacher's Window. 303 



pitclies on wliich he plays and the fact that a temperate climate is 

 more conducive to cricket. In Rugby football few could have a 

 doubt which is the better, boy for boy. No proof is needed to assert 

 the superiority of the South African boy. In my opinion a team of 

 small boys in this country would simply "crumple up" a team of the 

 same age in the mother country, and the success of the "Springboks" 

 and of the Rhodes scholars at Oxford shows what maturer years can 

 do. Jn athletics, too, the records of some South African schools would 

 compare favourably with those of any public school in England. But 

 this is not all. The South African boy is " born in the saddle " ; 

 riding comes as natural to him as walking ; it is born in him to be a 

 liunter and to shoot birds or game ; while as to rifle shooting and cadet 

 corps work, it goes without saying that here too he leads the way. The 

 country is his foster-mother, and the secrets of nature are an open 

 book to him. I have never seen such fine swimmers or divers as I 

 have seen out liere among boys. In every department of sport and 

 healthy outdoor life the young South African excels, and in point of 

 physique he need fear no I'ival. 



We have now dealt, in general terms, with the South African boy, 

 as compared with his counterpart at home, with regard to intellectual 

 and physical qualifications, and the conclusion seems to be that if 

 the fonner is behind his rival in intellectual qualities, in the field 

 of sport and outdoor life the balance is easily redressed. Now let us 

 briefly consider the question of character and general bearing. There 

 is no finer or more attractive thing on God's earth than the typical 

 English public school boy. In England w^e get the real article and the 

 best type, at once the envy and despair of the foreigner. He has his 

 faults, but his virtues are many. There are exceptions, as in any 

 system, but these only serve as a foil to show off the genuine type, 

 the product of many generations of a system which produces the Mens 

 Sana in corpore sauo. For real manliness and straightness, for gentle- 

 manliness and a keen, nice sense of honour, for an utter abhorrence 

 of cant and snobbery, combined with the real sportmau's instinct, 

 there can be no better training ground found than the English public 

 school. I yield to none in my admiration for the English boy ; but, 

 given anj'thing like the same conditions, I unhesitatingly affirm that 

 we have his counterpart in the South African boy. I may be speaking 

 from an exceptionally happy experience, but I own that I have found 

 in the boy out here the same good tone, the same gentlemanly instinct, 

 the same manliness and good breeding, the same instinct of sport, the 

 same indescribable attraction and individuality, which is one's experi- 

 ence in England. I have heard people, who know nothing about it, 

 say that the South African boy must be rough and uncouth. I, on the 

 contrary, have found him the pink of true politeness and good manners 

 — inyeiiuiis puer, htyenuique pudoris — a clean minded, clean limbed 

 lad ; and the little dash of independence, which is apparent at the 

 outset, adds to rather than detracts from his charm and worth. I 

 have been thrown largely in the company of boys for six years out 

 here, and my judgment on this point, f<jrmed almost at first acquaint- 



