This direction of practical work seems to be the best which such an Institution can take. I asked what became of these apprentices and was told that many among them established themselves in their own country as master tradesmen in a small way, and could make a good living among their Kafir neighbours. But I was told also that they could not often find employment in the workshops of the country unless the employers used nothing but Kafir labour. The white man will not work along with the Kafir on equal terms. When he is placed with Kafirs he expects to be “boss,” or master, and gradually learns to think that it is his duty to look on and superintend, while it is the Kafir’s duty to work under his dictation. The white bricklayer may continue to lay his bricks while they are carried for him by a black hodsman, but he will not lay a brick at one end of the wall while a Kafir is laying an equal brick at the other.
But in this matter of trades the skill when once acquired will of course make itself available to the general comfort and improvement of the Kafir world around. I was at first inclined to doubt the wisdom of the printing and bookbinding, as being premature; but the numbers engaged in these exceptional trades are not greater perhaps than Lovedale itself can use. I do not imagine that a Kafir printing press will for many years be set up by Kafir capital and conducted by Kafir enterprise. It will come probably, but the Kafir tables and chairs and the Kafir waggons should come first. At present there is a “Lovedale News,” published about twice a month. “It is issued,” says the Lovedale printed Report, “for circulation at Lovedale and chiefly about Lovedale matters. The design of this publication was to create a taste for reading among the native pupils.” It has been carried on through twelve numbers, says the report, “with a fair prospect of success and rather more than a fair share of difficulties.” The difficulties I can well imagine, which generally amount to this in the establishment of a newspaper,—that the ambitious attempt so often costs more than it produces. Mr. Theal is one of the masters of Lovedale, and his History of South Africa was here printed;—but not perhaps with so good a pecuniary result as if it had been printed elsewhere. I was told by the European foreman in the printing establishment that the Kafirs learned the art of composition very readily, but that they could not be got to pull off the sheets fairly and straightly. As to the bookbinding, I am in possession of one specimen which is fair enough. The work is in two volumes and it was given to me at Capetown;—but unfortunately the two volumes are of different colours.
In the younger classes among the scholars the Kafirs were very efficient. None of them, I think, had reached the dignity of Greek or Natural Philosophy, but some few had ascended to algebra and geometry. When I asked what became of all this in after life there was a doubt. Even at Lovedale it was acknowledged that after a time it “fell off,”—or in other words that much that was taught was afterwards lost. Out in the world, as I have said before, among the Europeans who regard the Kafir simply as a Savage to whom pigeon-English has to be talked, it is asserted broadly that all this education leads to no good results,—that the Kafir who has sung hymns and learned to do sums is a savage to whose natural and native savagery additional iniquities have been added by the ingenuity of the white philanthropist. To this opinion I will not accede. That such a place as Lovedale should do evil rather than good is to my thinking impossible.
To see a lot of Kafir lads and lasses at school is of course more interesting than to inspect a seminary of white pupils. It is something as though one should visit a lion tamer with a group of young lions around him. The Kafir has been regarded at home as a bitter and almost terrible enemy who, since we first became acquainted with him in South Africa, has worked us infinite woe. I remember when a Kafir was regarded as a dusky demon and there was a doubt whether he could ever be got under and made subject to British rule;—whether in fact he would not in the long run be too much for the Britons. The Kafir warrior with his assegai and his red clay, and his courageous hatred, was a terrible fellow to see. And he is still much more of a Savage than the ordinary negro to whom we have become accustomed in other parts of the world. It was very interesting to see him with a slate and pencil, wearing his coarse clothing with a jaunty happy air, and doing a sum in subtraction. I do not know whether an appearance of good humour and self-satisfaction combined does not strike the European more than any other Kafir characteristic. He never seems to assert that he is as good as a white man,—as the usual negro will do whenever the opportunity is given to him,—but that though he be inferior there is no reason why he should not be as jolly as circumstances will admit. The Kafir girl is the same when seen in the schools. Her aspect no doubt will be much altered for the worse when she follows the steps of her Kafir husband as his wife and slave. But at Lovedale she is comparatively smart, and gay-looking. Many of these pupils while still at school reach the age at which young people fall in love with each other. I was told that the young men and young women were kept strictly apart; but nevertheless, marriages between them on their leaving school are not uncommon,—nor unpopular with the authorities. It is probable that a young man who has been some years at Lovedale will treat his wife with something of Christian forbearance.
I find from the printed report of the seminary that the four following young ladies got the prizes in 1877 at Lovedale for the different virtues appended to their names. I insert the short list here not only that due honour may be given to the ladies themselves, but also that my readers may see something of Kafir female nomenclature.
| GIRLS. | |
| GENERAL PRIZES. | |
| Bible. | Good Conduct. |
| Victoria Kwankwa. | Ntame Magazi. |
| Tidiness in Dress. | For best kept room. |
| Ntombenthle Njikelana. | Sarah Ann Bobi. |
Miss Kwankwa and Miss Bobi had I suppose Christian names given to them early in life. The other two are in possession of thoroughly Kafir appellations,—especially the young lady who has excelled in tidiness, and who no doubt will have become a bride before these lines are read in England.
I was taken out from King Williamstown to Peeltown to see another educational Kafir establishment. At Peeltown the Rev. Mr. Birt presides over a large Kafir congregation, and has an excellent church capable of holding 500, which has been built almost exclusively by Kafir contributions. The boys’ school was empty, but I was taken to see the girls who lived together under the charge of an English lady. I wished that I might have been introduced to the presence of the girls at once, so as to find how they occupied themselves when not in school. But this was not to be. I was kept waiting for a few moments, and then was ushered into a room where I found about twenty of them sitting in a row hemming linen. They were silent, well behaved and very demure while I saw them,—and then before I left they sang a hymn.
If I had an Institution of my own to exhibit I feel sure that I should want to put my best foot forward,—and the best foot among Kafir female pupils is perhaps the singing of hymns and the hemming of linen.