Legal and Economic Bases of Colonial Tcacliiug Universities. 97 



purpose of securing for the country what they desire. Our own 

 view as to the best of all courses w^ould be for the University 

 authorities or the Government to promote a Commission which 

 should be representative of the whole of South Africa, to inquire into 

 the whole question with the express object, not of amiably appeasing 

 those who feel earnestly on this matter, but of accepting and 

 promoting the best scheme found to be available and practicable. 



Were this done, it is not improbable that arrangements could and 

 would be made whereby schools of mines and other technical 

 institutions, situate in different parts of the country, would be given 

 the University upon their work, and possibly if some colleges were 

 perforce left outside the actual University scheme an advanced 

 status would be granted to other educational establishments already 

 in existence. In any decision arrived at with regard to existing 

 institutions, possibly resulting in the survival of the fittest, it must 

 be borne in mind that that education does not exist for the colleges, 

 but the colleges for education, and the nation cannot afford to 

 •sacrifice the larger purpose for the sake of a local or personal feeling. 

 But we are persuaded that difficulties of that kind are not insur- 

 mountable if we are really in earnest. 



Possibly any or all these courses are too much to hope for, or to 

 •expect, at the present time, and we may have to remain content to 

 hope and long and labour for our object through yet unnumbered 

 years, but still it is not too much to observe that every well-wisher 

 of South Africa anticipates with high expectation and gladness the 

 time when the intellectual currency of the country shall bear worthy 

 mark in the shape of degrees which represent not merely a narrow 

 study under cramped local conditions, or a cram preparation for an 

 examination, but a distinctive University life, and the discipline of 

 daily contact w^ith the noblest minds of this land, and many 

 attracted from other lands beyond the seas. 



