South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
Of the Institution the Revd. Mr. Esselin is the Head, but was not the
founder. There were I think two gentlemen in charge of a native mission
before he came to Worcester;--but the church and schools have obtained
their great success under his care. He is a German clergyman who came
to the place in 1848, and has had charge of the Institution since that
date. That he has done more than any one else as a teacher and preacher
among the coloured races, at any rate in the Western Province, I think
will hardly be denied. But for Lovedale in the East of which I shall
speak further on, I should have claimed this pre-eminence for him as to
all South Africa. This I believe is owing to the fact that under his
guidance the coloured people have been treated as might any poor
community in England or elsewhere in Europe which required instruction
either secular or religious. There has been a distinct absence of the
general missionary idea that coloured people want special protection,
that they should be kept separate, and that they should have provided
for them locations,--with houses and grounds. The ordinary missionary
treatment has I think tended to create a severance between the natives
and the white people who are certainly destined to be their masters and
employers,--at any rate for many years to come; whereas M. Esselin has
from the first striven to send them out into the world to earn their
bread, giving them such education as they have been able to receive up
to the age of fifteen. Beyond that they have not, except on rare
occasions, been kept in his schools.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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