272 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



For girls, the convent schools in several of the larger 

 towns are undoubtedly the best, both as regards the 

 good, sensible education imparted, and the refined, lady- 

 like manners which are invariably acquired by all v/ho 

 have been brought up under the tutelage of the nuns. 

 Throughout the whole country, the convent-bred girls 

 can always be recognised at a glance, and the contrast 

 is very striking between them and the less fortunate 

 ones who possess but the superficial education and 

 second-rate manners of the average colonial boarding- 

 school. Even the daugl iters of the roughest Boers, if 

 sent to a convent school, are turned out perfect ladies, 

 and return to their up-country homes with gentle and 

 gracious manners strangely out of keeping with their 

 uncouth surroundings. But there are many parents, of 

 course, to whom all the advantages of convent educa- 

 tion could not compensate for that insuperable objection, 

 the risk of Romanizing influence ; and intending settlers 

 in the colony who do not wish to expose their daughters 

 to that risk will do well to bring out a good governess 

 with them, and keep the girls at home. 



The Boer's great desire, like that of his English- 

 speaking neighbour, is to get his boys educated in 

 Europe; but, instead of the medical profession, the 

 pastorate is the object of his ambition. For these 

 Cape Dutch, although Protestants, are quite as priest- 

 ridden as any Roman Catholic nation ; the predilcant 

 is a great man indeed throughout the widespread circle 

 of his parishioners, and to offend him, or even to fail in 

 paying him the exact amount of deference he considers 

 his due, means to be bo3^cotted. 



