STUDY OF NATIVE PHILOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. I95 



lishments with which South Africa is blessed, we have nothing, 

 practically, in the way of endowment of research into matters 

 native ; and while a certain number of men are vaguely known as 

 successful with groups of natives, there are very few serious 

 students in South Africa adequately equi])ped philologically and 

 ethnologically, who can guide us to anything like a wide view of 

 the Bantu races, notwithstanding the fact that their 

 coherence in the main invites workable generalisations. I 

 see that now.* after being talked about for 70 years, a 

 chair of Bantu Philology is being advertised in connection with 

 the new Cape University. This is a healthy sign of change in this 

 respect. 



Unfortunately, it is not alone the State which is to blame 

 in this neglect of research into native matters — a study which in 

 the past { and possibly in the future ) would have amply repaid us 

 for any outlay it had cost by the avoidance of misunderstandings 

 and outbreaks. 



But missions as well, though in their poverty they 

 may rightly look for aid. on the academic side, to South 

 African Universities ; have not done, and are not doing, 

 what they might. It is not necessary that every mis- 

 sionary should be a linguist, but it is necessary that he should 

 study the tongue of his people, because it is the best index to their 

 psychology. At present I fear that a large number of us mis- 

 sionary clergy cannot even read intelligibly in the native tongues. 

 Boards of Missions have recommended examination in them, but 

 this seems often to be a dead letter. 



As an example of the ill-effect of this neglect of language 

 study, I may mention that in some of our books the third article 

 of the Creed is still translated as though the Holy Spirit were the 

 Mother of Christ, while the most extraordinary mistakes are 

 made through interpreters, of which T could give, startling 

 examples. Let me illustrate these remarks from my own expe- 

 rience. I listened to a dignitary of the Church deliver an excellent 

 sermon on the married state, which was interpreted into Sesuio. 

 The text was " Bear ye one another's burdens " ; the interpreter 

 said, "Preserve one another (bolokana)." "It is the duty of 

 the man to bear the burden of the wife" — interpreted " to pre- 

 serve the wife (boloka)." "And it is the duty of the wife to 

 bear the burden of the husband."' Now, the interpreter could not 

 think it the duty of the wife to keep an eye on her husband, and 

 his mistake dawned upon him: "It is the duty of the wife to 

 carry the parcel of her man on her head " (ho roala liphahlo tsa 

 monna oa hae!). Here you had. not the Christian mutuality 

 which was the point of the sermon, but the age-long relation of 

 the native man and wife: the man keeping his eye on the women- 

 folk behind, toiling along with his impedimenta. I mentioned 

 this to the preacher afterwards, and it seemed to cause him some 

 of that " agony of mind "' of which Dr. Moffat speaks when he 



* This was in Tul\ . A new _\tar ha? come, and no appointment lias 

 yet be-"'! made. 



