64 STATE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE BOORS. 
manner of education there. Asking for the principal 
school, he was conducted to a miserable hovel, where 
there were a number of children crowded together 
without any occupation, and in so wild and noisy a 
state, that it was with some difficulty he could obtain 
a reply to his inquiry for the master. “ There he is,” 
said one of them, as soon as silence could be obtained, 
pointing to a withered old man, who lay on a 
little bed in one corner of the apartment: ‘* Are you 
the school-master, my good friend ?” inquired Stou- 
bert; ‘‘ Yes, Sir’ ‘ And what do you teach the 
children?’ “ Nothing, Sir, nothing.” ‘ How is 
that?” Because,” replied the old man, with cha- 
racteric simplicity, “ I know nothing myself.” 
“Why, then, were you appointed schoolmaster?” 
« Why, Sir, I had been taking care of the Wald- 
bach pigs for a great number of years, and when I 
got too old and infirm for that employment, they sent 
me here to take care of the children.” 
Such, alas, is but too apt an illustration of the 
state of education amongst the Boors in the more 
remote districts of this Colony ; and I cannot but 
think, that, while there has been a laudable zeal 
manifested on behalf of the native tribes beyond the 
borders, the solitary condition of the Boors scattered 
along the frontiers—shut out from all intercourse 
with society—has been sadly neglected, if not alto- 
gether overlooked. Within the last few years, how- 
ever, the attention of the government has been 
. 
