Lack of Education
Ignorance is universal and pronounced. It is more than a mere lack of education. Such as there is amongst the wealthier portion of the rural population consists in the occasional visit of some travelling schoolmaster—generally a broken-down Englishman, or drunken Hollander who has failed in every other pursuit. Even this measure of instruction is not supported by the poorer farmers. Schools in the Transvaal are very rare, though more frequently found in the Free State. Distances are, of course, considerable, and for this reason alone organized education would be difficult. In late years the well-to-do frequently engage tutors—usually of rather doubtful qualifications—for six months and in order to teach the children to read and write. But of anything more than this they do not dream, and the great majority of the adults can do neither. The Old Testament they are taught until they know it by heart, and do not really require to read it. Of literature, history, astronomy, the sciences, political economy, the nations of the world, nothing is known to the average Boer of the veldt. He believes the earth to be a flat and solid surface around which the sun revolves. A member of the Transvaal Volksraad is on record as having jeered at the English view of the matter. He declared that the earth couldn't move because he had often for hours at a time watched upon the veldt to see if a certain kopje gave any sign of motion. As to the sun, didn't Joshua bid it stand still, and how could he have done that if it was already stationary and the world went round it? No native Dutchman of South Africa has shown literary ability. Its only poet is Pringle—a Scotchman. Its only writer is Mrs. Cornwright-Schreiner—the daughter of a German. Its only historian is Dr. Theal—a Canadian. New ideas are to the Boer a source of dread; improvements are spurned as either impious or unnecessary. Cures for infectious sheep disease or for rinderpest amongst the cattle are opposed as contravening the intentions of Providence. Compulsory education is as heartily and vigorously denounced in Cape Colony, where the most intelligent members of the race are to be found, as is compulsory vaccination.
THE LAST CARTRIDGE.
An incident in the battle of Glencoe.
QUEEN VICTORIA AT BALMORAL, OCTOBER 22, 1899.
Writing letters of sympathy to the near relations
of the killed and wounded at the battle of Glencoe.
Primitiveness
Taxation in the republics of to-day is as strongly and sincerely disliked as it was in the days of the Great Trek, or of the little republics in the time of Pretorius. Had the Government of the Transvaal depended upon its ordinary revenues, or upon the taxation of its own people for munitions of war and for the great armament of the present day, it would have long since been overthrown by the Boers themselves. Like the Chinaman, the Dutch farmer reveres the practices and precepts of his equally ignorant father or grandfathers. They did not endure taxation, neither will he. His method of cultivating the soil affords another illustration of this quality. It is that of Syria and Palestine. Corn is still trodden under the foot of the ox, and the little agricultural work carried on is done by native servants. There is, of course, a better class of South African Dutchmen than the Boer of the veldt. But it is limited in number, outside of Cape Colony, and the latter constitutes the really important subject for consideration. For some of his qualities the Boer cannot be seriously blamed. Surliness of manner, uncouthness in appearance, aversion to strangers, ignorance of the outer world, religious superstition, are all matters in which he does not stand alone, and which are the natural products of an isolated life. So also is the fact of his being stupid and lazy in ordinary life, and only keen, alert and quick when he stands on the veldt with gun in hand and his horse by his side intent upon the game of sport or the greater game of war. But there is no adequate excuse for his continued hatred of the Englishman, for his tyranny toward inferiors and colored people, for his personal immorality, or for the phenomenal arrogance of his conduct and character. The higher class Boer of the towns in the Free State, and of Pretoria itself, may eliminate some of the more evident barbarisms of his veldt brother, but there remains the same extraordinary ignorance of external conditions, the same monumental conceit, the same absence of truthfulness and honor, the same arrogance and hatred of British power and progress. Added to this is the political corruption arising, in the Transvaal, out of conditions in which poor and ignorant farmers have obtained and held, through designing adventurers from Holland, the entire government and control of a State in which gold is being produced in immense quantities, and lavished, as opportunity offers, for the purchase of privileges or powers not obtainable through the usual channels of popular government.