ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN SOUTH AFRK A. I5Q 



believe) kept the standard in Dutch below that in English right up to 

 and inclusive of the Intermediate Examination. In Wales this re- 

 spect paid to the national language reacts favourably upon English, 

 for the better Welsh is studied the less danger there is of con- 

 tamination. I should very much like to see the standard of Dutch 

 raised in all our examinations for the same reasons, and personally 

 I should like to see more English-speaking new-comers study 

 Dutch thoroughly and be able to say as Queen Katherine said 

 to Wolsey : — 



" I am not such a truant since my coming, 

 As not to know the language I have Uv'd in." 



Now in both Wales and Sou-th Africa, for the most part, in 

 all schools other than elementary, English is taken as the medium 

 of instruction in the higher standards, and in both cases I con- 

 sider this to be, from the strictly lingitistic point of view, a national 

 grievance. The pupils naturally get a much wider English vo- 

 cabulary than Welsh or Dutch, and therefore they find it easier 

 to read English books for their amusement or instruction out of 

 school. But in Wales there is such love for yr hen iaeth (the old 

 language) as well as for yr hen wlad (the old land) and vr hen 

 genedl (the old nation) that they give Welsh literature also con- 

 siderable attention. Of course, in both cases there are other 

 considerations of a practical nature, which make it desirable 

 from self interest to accept English as a medium. All the same 

 I believe that this countr\' would progress more in education 

 if in Dutch districts Dutch were the medium up to and inclusive 

 of the Fourth Standard, and after that the medium for one or 

 two subjects. Let the Dutch first get a thoroughly sound know- 

 ledge of their own language, and not try to get a smattering of 

 both English and Dutch in the early years of school life. 



I now leave the Language and turn to the special difficulties 

 we have to face in teaching English Literature in South Africa. 

 It must be realized that while the Home English Language is a 

 foreign language to more than half the Europeans in the country, 

 it iSj even to the English colonial-born, a semi-ioxeign language, 

 and therefore in the same way and to a greater extent English 

 Literature is a foreign literature in South Africa. 



The whole setting of life and thought in South Africa is different 

 from what it is in the Homeland, and this is the more important 

 as our English literature is so very largely insular in character, 

 that is to say. saturated through and through with English insular 

 conditions, climatic, social, aesthetic, emotional, and religious. 

 The colonial mind, especially as it is not particularly imaginative, 

 cannot realise the conditions of life in the Homeland, which have 

 produced our Literature. 



I will try to illustrate these special features of the Homeland 

 atmosphere. 



{a) Firstly, as regards climate and scenery ; — the English 

 seasons are very different from those here, and our scenery is 

 still more unlike English scenery. 



" Oh, to be in England 

 Now that April's there ! " 



