PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, — SECTION III. 43 



and to what extent, without imposing any insuperable financial 

 burden on the community- 

 There are two ways in which this might be done. One would 

 be by the provision of boarding facilities of a simple kind at central 

 schools, and this solution has been successfully adopted in a con- 

 siderable number of instances in this Colony, the children as a rule 

 bringing their own provisions and remaining at school from Monday 

 to Friday. While much may be done in this way, I do not think 

 that this solution can be widely adopted, as the expense alone 

 forms a serious difficulty if there is to be adequate accommodation 

 and effective supervision. Hostels, however, under the control of 

 the Principals or conducted under the supervision of Churches or 

 Committees will always form an important factor in connection 

 with certain schools, and the children of well-to-do farmers in the 

 neighbourhood will doubtless be able to attend in this way without 

 expense to the State. 



The other alternative is the provision of daily transport, and it is 

 to the possibilities of consolidating country schools by this means 

 that I desire more particularly to draw attention. 



In an excellent climate like that of South Africa there is no 

 reason why children within a radius of six or even nine miles of 

 a school could not be got to attend daily if an effective and in- 

 expensive system of transport were devised. There are many 

 centres in this Colony, and no doubt also in other parts of South 

 Africa, where by this means an attendance of fifty to a hundred 

 children could be obtained, with the result that a permanent 

 school with several teachers would replace several small ill-housed 

 and ill-equipped schools each with a single teacher. 



That a system of transporting pupils to central or consolidated 

 schools is practicable, both educationally and financially, in South 

 Africa, does not require to be argued on theoretical grounds. In 

 several districts in this Colony experiments have already been 

 made, largely on the initiative of the School Boards and Com- 

 mittees. In every case the railway has been used when convenient 

 for bringing children to school, and I shall refer only to parts of 

 the country where such means are not available. At one centre 

 in the Ficksburg district about thirty children from distances 

 varying from four to six miles are transported by two wagons 

 daily to school, and in Smithfield twenty-four children are trans- 

 ported by one wagon. The cost is about £5 per month per wagon, 

 and in these cases at least four additional small schools would be 

 required if this scheme had not been adopted. We have not been 

 able for financial reasons to grant all the requests for transport 

 that have been made, and the arrangements have accordingly 

 been somewhat unsystematic. Considerable improvement can 

 therefore be effected, but there is ample evidence to show that if 

 a definite policy of establishing consolidated or central schools 

 were adopted, it would meet with great success and would have 

 a far-reaching eft'ect on the type of education which could be 

 provided. 



If, however, we wish to see such a scheme carried out on a large 

 scale, and in a systematic way, we must turn to the United States 



