33G Rkpokt S.A.A. Advaxcemknt of Scienx'e. 



The elementuiy school course drawn up for nati\es is the same as. 

 tliat followed in European schools, the standards being taken in 

 English or in J^utch, and includes arithmetic, English (or Dutch) 

 reading and writing, English and Cape history, geography, drawing 

 and singing, and for girls, needlewoik. 



In the institutions for the training of teachers the three-years' 

 course for pupil-teachers is carried through, with its examination at 

 the end of each year. This coui-se, which in its first and second years 

 is a revision of the work of standards V and VI, with the addition 

 of lessons on the practice of teaching, and in its third year is slightly 

 moi"e advanced^ differs from that given in European schools in two 

 minor respects : woodwork is compulsory for the natives, and in the 

 examination at the end of the third year of the course Kafir may be 

 taken as one of the optional subjects. Otherwise the courses are 

 identical. 



Government supervision of the schools consists mainly of an annual 

 formal visit by the inspector, when an individual examination of each 

 pupil takes place, in which a certain number of arithmetic sums worked 

 correctly, a piece of dictation written with less than the prescribed 

 number of mistakes, together with a certain proficiency in reading and 

 ess-ay writing, constitute a pass. 



8uch, then, is the system of education in the native .schools of 

 Cape Colony. And in all that has been said in its defence, and it has 

 many able champions, I do not know that any one has ever claimed 

 that it is the result of a well-thought-out policy, slowlj' evolved and 

 tentatively applied to suit the special needs of the native. Rather has 

 it been generally admitted that, as might be seen from the brief 

 sketch of its history already given, the policy of the Government 

 towards the educational work of the missionaries has been one of non- 

 interference; the two main principles regulating it being that it should 

 be controlled b}- the missionaries, and should follow the code drawn 

 up for European schools, no instruction being given, except to intend- 

 ing teachers, to any class above standard V. 



Now the native races in British South Africa outnumber the 

 white by five to one," and at the present rate of increase this ratio 

 will certainly not be lowered to the numerical advantage of the latter. 

 The desire for education among them is spreading, and despite set- 

 backs from time to time, it has grown at a rate which, I believe, few 

 of us have fully realised. A curve kindly prepared for me by Dr. 

 Roberts, the result of a least squares reduction of certain values repre- 

 senting the numbei- of native children attending school in South 

 Africa, was exhibited at the meeting. (The data, I ma}^ mention, on 

 which this calculation is based, were obtained from official statistics, 

 and, where these were not a\ailable, from mission reports.) It shows, 

 I think, in a striking way the growth in the number of nuti\o pupils 



* Census of 1904 ;,'ave the Avhito population a> I,lS-2,17a and native and 

 colonred as 5,183,(»'21. 



