South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
It may be as well to say a few words here as elsewhere as to the state
of education in our new Colony. The law on this matter as it stood under
the Republic is the law still. Now, as I write, it is hardly more than
six months since the annexation and there has not been time for changes.
On no subject was the late President with his Cabinet more alive to the
necessity of care and energy, on no subject were there more precise
enactments, and on no subject were the legislative enactments more
pretentious and inefficacious. There are three classes of schools,--the
High Schools, the District Schools, and the Ward Schools, the whole
being under the inspection of a Superintendent General of Education. The
curriculum at the High Schools is very high indeed, including Dutch,
English, French, German, Latin, Greek, geometry, algebra, and all the
ologies, together with logic, music, drawing, and astronomy. The law
enacts that the principal master at a High School shall receive £400 a
year, and the Assistant Masters £250 each;--but even at these salaries
teachers sufficiently instructed could not be found, and when the
Superintendent made his last return there was but one High School in the
Transvaal, and at that school there were but five pupils. At the High
School, the pupils paid 30s. a month, which, presuming there to be two
months of holydays in the year, would give £15 per annum. There would be
therefore £75 towards maintaining a school of which the Head Master
received £400. But the reality of the failure was worse even than this.
The law required that all boys and girls should pay the regular fees,
but in order to keep up the number of pupils gratuitous instruction was
offered. Three months after annexation the five High School pupils had
dwindled down to two, and then the school was closed by order of the
British Governor. The education no doubt was far too advanced for the
public wants; and as it was given by means of the Dutch language only it
did not meet the needs of those who were most likely to make use of it.
For, even while the Transvaal was a Dutch Republic, the English language
was contending for ascendancy with that of the people. In this
contention the President with his Government did his best to make Dutch,
and Dutch only, the language of the country. For this we cannot blame
him. It was naturally his object to maintain the declining nationality
of his country. But the parents and pupils who were likely to profit by
such a school as I have described were chiefly English.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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