392 EVOLUTION OF MENTAL CHARACTEES 



of the natives of Portuguese East Africa, Maugham refers to 

 the great brightness and promise early displayed ; as regards the 

 later stages says that he has ' over and over again been the 

 witness of the sudden and astounding change which takes place 

 among the young male house servants as youth approaches 

 manhood. Brightness and initiative disappear ; they go about 

 their duties in a most casual manner ; they are unable to remember 

 the clearest and simplest instructions, and are constantly away 

 without permission.' ^ Referring to this subject so far as the 

 natives of the Congo are concerned, Weeks states that ' for 

 generations boys on arriving at the age of 14 or 15 had learnt 

 all their father had to teach respecting fishing, hunting, wood- 

 craft, building, paddling, &c. . . . Thus their intelligence had 

 attained for generations the fullest development by the above 

 age ; now we have to help them over that crucial stage ; in some 

 cases it is very difficult ; but in other cases we can do so ; and 

 in such there is no limit to the intellectual progress they can 

 make. Jn many cases they have mastered a good working 

 knowledge of French, Portuguese or English, both spoken and 

 written, and as larger opportunities are given, a larger number 

 of youths will make such mental progress as will encourage their 

 friends and teachers.' ^ Bryant, who has had a wide experience 

 of South African natives, sums up his impressions by confirming 

 the common opinion that the native boy is, at an early age, if 

 anything, superior to the European boy of the same age, and 

 that at puberty his mental development is arrested. He thinks 

 that Boer boys living in the backwoods and receiving practically 

 no training are, if anything, inferior to the African boys. He 

 adds— what is of particular interest — the fact that the African 

 boys, whose education begins early, do not show the same arrest 

 of development as those whose education begins later. Never- 

 theless the African boy educated from an early age is surpassed 

 by the European boy later on. We find also, he says, that ' in 

 practically every case where a South African native has had the 

 opportunity of receiving an education in one of the universities 

 of Europe or America, that that native has invariably been able to 

 hold his own against all white rivals and to pass as successfully 

 as they the same examinations in Law, Medicine, or Arts.' 



' Maugham, Portuguese East Africa, p. 268. * Weeks, Among Congo 



Cannibals, p. 76. 



