South Africa, vol. II.

by Anthony Trollope

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.

At the District and Ward schools the nature of the instruction proposed to be given is lower. The District schools are held in the chief towns,—such as they are,—and the Ward schools in sub-divisions of the Districts. They too have failed for the same reasons. They are too expensive and pretentious. The Salaries,—i.e. the lowest salaries permitted by law,—are £200 and £100 for head masters at the two classes of schools, and £125 and £30 for assistant masters. According to the last return there were 236 pupils at the District schools, and 65 at the Ward schools. The pupils pay varying fees, averaging 7s. a month or about £3 10s. per annum each. There are six District schools and two Ward schools, at which the masters’ salaries alone would amount to £1,700 per annum,—presuming there to be no assistant masters,—while the total of fees would be about £1,050 per annum. As the Government had been for many months penniless, it need hardly be explained further that the schools must have been in a poor condition. The nominal cost to the State during the last years of the Republic was about £3,500, being more than £11 per year for each pupil over and above the fees. What was still due under the head had of course to be paid out of British taxes when the country was annexed.

But all this does not show the extent of the evil. The white population of the country is supposed to be 45,000, of which about a tenth or 4,500 ought to be at school. The public schools at present show 300. There are some private schools as to which I could obtain no trustworthy information; but the pupils educated at them are few in number.

The average Boer is generally satisfied in regard to education if his children can be made to read the Bible. To this must be added such a knowledge of the ritual of the religion of the Dutch Reformed Church as will enable the children to pass the examination necessary for confirmation. Until this ceremony has been completed they cannot marry. So much, by hook or by crook, is attained, and thus the outermost darkness of ignorance is avoided. But the present law as to education does not provide for even this moderate amount of religious instruction, and is therefore, and has been, most unpopular with the Boers. It must be understood that on all religious matters the late Government was at loggerheads with the bulk of the population, the President being an advocate of free-thinking and absolute secularism,—of an education from which religion should be as far as possible removed; whereas the Boer is as fanatic, as conservative, and as firmly wedded to the creed of his fathers as an Irish Roman Catholic Coadjutor. It may, on this account, be the easier for the Colonial Government to reconcile the population to some change in the law.

A few of the better class of farmers, in the difficulty which at present exists, maintain a schoolmaster in their houses for a year or two, paying a small salary and entertaining the teachers at their tables. I have met more than one such a schoolmaster in a Boer’s house. In the course of my travels I found an Englishman in the family of a Dutchman who could not speak a word of English,—and was astonished to find so much instructed intelligence in such a position. Formerly there existed a class of itinerant schoolmasters in the Transvaal, who went from house to house carrying with them some rudiments of education, and returning now and again on their tract to see how the seed had prospered. These were supported by the Government of the day, but the late Government in its ambitious desire to effect great things, discontinued this allowance. It is not improbable that the renewal of some such scheme may be suggested.

It will be imperative on the Colonial Government to do something as the law now existing has certainly failed altogether. But there are great difficulties. It is not so much that education has to be provided for the children of a people numbering 45,000;—but that it has to be done for children dispersed over an area as big as Great Britain and Ireland. The families live so far apart, owing to the absurdly large size of the farms, that it is impossible to congregate them in schools.

When I was at Pretoria I rode out with four companions to see a wonderful spot called the “Zoutpan” or saltpan. It is 28 miles from the town and the journey required that we should take out a tent and food, and that we should sleep in the veld. I was mounted on an excellent horse who was always trying to run away with me. This tired me much, and the ground was very hard. While turning myself about upon the ground I could not but think how comfortable the beds are in London. The saltpan, however, was worth the visit. That it had been a volcanic crater there could be no doubt, but unlike all other volcanic craters that I have seen it was not an aperture on the apex of a mountain. We went north from Pretoria and crossing through the spurs of the Magaliesberg range of hills found ourselves upon a plain which after a while became studded with scrub or thorn bushes. Close to the saltpan, and still on the plain, we came to the residence of a Boer who gave us water,—the dirtiest that ever was given me to drink,—with a stable for our horses and sold us mealies for our animals. As one of our party was a doctor and as the Boer’s wife was ill, his hospitality was not ill repaid. A gentle rise of about 200 feet from the house took us to the edge of the pan, which then lay about 300 feet below us,—so as to look as though the earthwork around the valley had been merely thrown out of it as earth might be thrown from any other hole. And this no doubt had been done,—by the operation of nature.

The high outside rim of the cup was about 2¼ miles round, with a diameter of 1,500 yards; and the circle was nearly as perfect as that of a cup. Down thence to the salt lake at the bottom the inside of the bowl fell steeply but gradually, and was thickly covered with bush. The perfect regularity of shape was, to the eye, the most wonderful feature of the phenomenon. At the bottom to which we descended lay the shallow salt lake, which at the time of our visit was about half full,—or half covered, I might better say, in describing the gently shelving bottom of which not more than a moiety was under water. In very dry weather there is no water at all,—and then no salt. When full the lake is about 400 yards across.

Some enterprising Englishman had put up a large iron pan 36 feet by 20, and 18 inches deep, with a furnace under it, which, as everything had been brought out from England at a great cost for land transit, must have been an expensive operation. But it had been deserted because the late Government had been unable to protect him in the rights which he attempted to hire from them. The farmers of the neighbourhood would not allow themselves to be debarred from taking the salt,—and cared nothing for the facts that the Government claimed the privilege of disposing of the salt and that the Englishman had bought the privilege. The Englishman therefore withdrew, leaving behind him his iron pan and his furnace, no doubt with some bitter feelings.

It is probable, I believe, that another Englishman,—or a Scotchman,—will now commence proceedings there, expecting that Downing Street will give better security than a Republican President. In the meantime our friend the Boer pays £50 per annum to the Government, and charges all comers some small fine per load for what they take. Baskets are inserted into the water and are pulled up full of slush. This is deposited on the shore and allowed to drain itself. On the residuum carbonate of soda rises, with a thick layer, as solid cream on standing milk;—and below this there is the salt more or less pure,—very nasty, tasting to me as though it were putrid,—but sufficing without other operation for the curing of meat and for the use of cattle. I was told by one of our party that the friable stone which we found all around is soda-feldspar from which, as it melts in the rain, the salt is brought down. Here, at this place, there is but one crater;—whereas at other places of a like nature, as in New Zealand and Central America, I have seen various mouths crowded together, like disjected fragments of a great aperture down into the earth. Here there is but the one circle, and that is as regular as though it had been the work of men’s hands.