TUK pKOIil.KM OK BaVTU EDUCATION' IN SOUTII AfhIOA. 337 



during the last fifty years and the rate at vvhicli we may expect it, 

 under normal conditions, to continue in the future. 



It has often been stated, however, not t)nly by popular writers, 

 but even in scientific circles, tliat the piesent demand for native educa- 

 tion in St)uth Africa is an artificial one, created and sustained by 

 the missionaries for the sake of their more religious work. That mis- 

 sionaries created the demand in the first instance is undoubtedly true, 

 but to say that the demand does not now exist apart from stimuli 

 applied by those meeting it, to deny the existence of that intense long- 

 ing for education that has laid hold of the more advanced sections of 

 the Bantu people, is to confess one's ignorance of the real facts of the 

 case. 



The reality of this educational awakening is brought home to us 

 at Lo\edale in man}- ways, but perhaps in none so forcibly as when 

 we see the distance travelled by the pupils to reach the institution and 

 the sacrifices made by themselves and their parents to pay the school 

 fees. 



The question to be faced is, What attitude should be adopted 

 towards this e\er-increasing demand for education on the part of the 

 natives '. To attempt its suppression would be as futile as the general 

 indifference Mitli whicli it has been regarded in the past is foolish. 

 And while at a meeting of this kind it is only natural that the 

 question should be apprt)ached mainly from an educational point of 

 view, one cannot overlook its importance on other grounds. The 

 character of the education we are giving to the native is largely 

 determining his future political position in the country. It is doing 

 more. It is contributing its share towards solving the social problem 

 connected Avith the native population, tending towards either their 

 absorption in, or fusion with, the white races, oi- their development 

 on distinct lines with equal rights and privileges, or their gradual 

 degradation to a condition of serfdom. Nor is this all. For in South 

 Africa, where 90 per cent, of the children of white parentage are 

 entrusted to the care of native nurses, and where the social life of 

 the country population includes dail}^ intimate relations between white 

 and black at the most susceptible time of life, the moral and intel- 

 lectual progress of the dominant race will ever be powerfully influenced 

 by that of the other. 



The ({uestion, therefore, of what education to give the natives is 

 c>ne of more than pedagogic and more than academic interest. 



Now, European and native public opinion, missionary opinion and 

 educational opinion is sharph' divided upon the question of our present 

 methods in native education. 



The public judge the system by its products, and it is superfluous 

 here to dilate upon the unenviable notoriety which the average "school 

 Kafir" iias, through no fault of his own, earned for himself in the 

 country. T say through no fault of his own, for he has only accepted 

 — and at first he accepted with diffidence — what the white man urged 

 upon him. 



But the nati\e himself is not satisfied. "Why," he asks, "should 



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