THi<: .\i()\i-:MJL\ r j-owarus a national s^'S'^EM 

 OF technical edccation. 



I'.v \\'iLLiAM Lames Horne. A.M.LC-E.. A.ALLEJ^ 



A system of technical education for South Africa should 

 be considered in relation to tive outstaiulin"' features i)eculiar 

 to this country: — (?) The i)roximity of an overwhelming native 

 pO])ulation ; (//) the existence of larg-e and industrious coloured 

 communities; (i-ii) the fact that the bulk (^f the white jxjpula- 

 tion are nc^n-industrial from a manufacturing and a mining 

 \)oint of \ie\v, l)eing, in the rural areas, mainly breeders of ^hee]) 

 and of h-ansport cattle with a limited agriculture; and, in the 

 urban areas, largely importers and st<ire-keeping merchants ; 

 {k') the existence of a large and growing ]30or white group, 

 composed, for its greater part, of the descendants of the original 

 pasture-farm holders; and (i') that there is observable in the 

 30uth of this country an early adolescence coui^ded with a lesser 

 educational attainment at a higher age as compared with the 

 )outh of Europe. 



'idle ]>resence of the native ])rovides a kind of perjietual 

 bo\-. or juvenile, of adult physi((ue who, by his numbers and 

 ])h\sical strength, occupies those o]ienings in industry through 

 which the white youth would enter as a learner. .\n(»ther 



effect of native laljour is that it has set up what has been called 

 the " kaffir standard '" ; one result of this being that the South 

 African in charge of a group of native workers is. unless he 

 has been under LAiropean standards, limited at his best t(~» the 

 best which, in his experience, natives are capable of floing: this 

 result h reflected in the reports of the Lligh Commissioner in 

 our exports in fruit and meat to the London market. An- 

 other result is an unwitting' self-sufficiency on the part of the 

 South African overseer; we have had to be content with the 

 native standard of efficient performance as sufficient, until we 

 ha\e come to the ifalse conclusion that what is good enough for 

 lis, tile masters in this country, shoidd be good enough for tlie 

 inhabitants in any other. 



The fact that the great bulk of the ])eople are non-industrial 

 as a type is traceable, hut is not wholly due. to a readv and 

 inexhaustiljle reserve of native labour of a certain low standard 

 of efficiencv. Lulustrialism. whether it be rural or vu-han in 

 nature, demands a mode of life greatly diff'ering from that 

 experienced by a people wdiose forebears merely administered a 

 pasture stock-farm, orchards, or \ineyards with a plentiful sttji- 

 plv of coloured labour; the change inxoKed is that from the 

 freedom of an overseer of semi-//;;skilled labour to that of a 

 directed skilled worker contimiously applying himself between 

 definite hours for the greater and best part of the day. _ Such 

 regulation of action as this new industrialism demands for its 

 efficient ])erformance. implies a large amount of restriction tipon 



