THE FUTURE OF THE BANTU PEOPLE. 



By William Hay, J.P. 



When the Rev. Wilham Shaw, then Superintendent of Wes- 

 leyan Missions, about the year 1846, proposed to start from 

 Grahamstown and visit the missionaries in Kaffirland. he asked 

 the Governor, who then happened to be in that town, if he had 

 any message for any of the chiefs who would be met on the 

 journey. Sir Harry Smith repHed : " No, Mr. Shaw, no message ; 

 but civihze those people, Mr. Shaw; civilize them." Mr. Shaw 

 enquired. "Your Excellency, what is your idea of civilization?" 

 and the Governor answered, " Oh, I don't know, Mr. Shaw — 

 teach them to sit on chairs. 



We use the word " civilization " so freely now that we fail 

 to appreciate the Governor's difficulty. 



We understand what civilization is when we do not discuss 

 its derivation, or seek its meaning where exact definitions are 

 required. It is the condition under which we live ; under which 

 the best of us live and move. It is the environment of European 

 life in its best cities : the manners and moods of people who have 

 had visions of the highest and strive to attain an unexpressable 

 ideal. It has been generally held that it is the life that now 

 results from centuries of strenuous effort-a mysterious something 

 which has moulded father and son, for many generations, and 

 which cannot be attained by any race except by such slow growth 

 as is illustrated in the oak in one of our streets, the stalactite in 

 the Cango cave. Until a few years ago a European would have 

 scorned the idea that any worthy to bear that name could be other 

 than perfect men and women. He may have occasionally sung. 



Where is one that, born of woman, altogether can escape 

 From the lower world within him. moods of tiger, or of ape? 



but he would also have claimed to be the best of his race; and 

 worthy, because of his virtues — of his civilization, to occupy 

 the highest places in the world. 



There has to be some modification of these claims in these 

 modern days : — 



Tf dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise : 



When was age so crammed witli menace, madness? written, spoken lies? 



We cannot help asking anywhere, everywhere, are we really 

 ■civilized? 



Have we grown at last beyond the passions of llie primal clan? 



We may ask by the light of burning cities and the orgies of 

 war if what we regard as our attainments — inherited and accjuired 

 — did require a thousand years to grow to perfection, and hesitate 

 to say these can never be acquired by tribes who do not devote 

 ages to their cultivation. 



The position is of special interest to us, the white people of 

 South Africa, where a comparatively small number of. very 

 slowly increasing men and women of European descent are living 

 among millions of virile, and more rapidly increasing, natives. 



