SOUTH AFRICA— AND THE UNDERGRADUATE. 



By A. E. Griffiths, M.A. 



Proem. — In the following paper an attempt has been made 

 to maintain that there exists some correlation between the Educa- 

 tion of the Undergraduate and the " Political " problems of 

 South Africa. By the term political we mean those things that 

 appertain to the welfare of the State, as distinguished from those 

 that concern " party politics." 



We are well aware that there are many who will strongly 

 deprecate any such attempt on our part, and who will aver that 

 the Undergraduate's studies should be completely detached from 

 the affairs of the State. They will claim that our Undergraduate 

 should be left unmolested to pursue a purely intellectual life 

 during those years he may call his own. 



The urgency of our National problems is the only excuse we 

 would offer. 



The Undergraduate is the hope of South Africa. To the 

 idle and flippant this sounds a merry jest; but never did merry 

 jest veil a deeper or a more solemn truth. We who have left 

 behind us our light-hearted, irresponsible days — when not even 

 the youngest of us could make a mistake, are arrested by the 

 grave, yet fascinating, problems which no longer loom in the 

 South African mists, but which in our very midst are assuming 

 a definite and an aggressive form. Such problems only those 

 who are wrapped in a complete self-complacency and busied in 

 furthering selfish ends, either cannot, or will not, see ; those who 

 do see are utterly astonished at their magnitude and increasing 

 complexity. 



Now did we not know that forces are at work which seri- 

 ously affect the existence of the white races of South Africa, we 

 would admit that it were wise to leave our Undergraduate to enjoy 

 his halcyon days in Arcadia, before the Fates rudely fling him 

 into the arena of a prosaic world. Et ego in Arcadia vixi. But 

 since our National problerns aire so insistent, so gravely menac- 

 ing, it were wiser to awaken him to the facts of his changing 

 environment that he may brace his sinews for the great work in 

 front of him. The White Man's Burden is a trite saying — but 

 the South African Undergraduate's share is herculean. But he 

 docs not know it. 



A By-gone South Africa. 



Those of us who have some knowledge of South African 

 history, who have talked with the still-surviving links of a golden 

 age. can readily conjure up the Arcadia of the Myths. The 

 idyllic life of these people, their flocks, their herds, their cellars 

 or rich Falerian " with beaded bubbles winking at the brim," 

 their homely interchange of hospitalitv. the glories of the chase. 



