were: revenue, including railway profits, £799,000; expenditure, including outlay on new railways, £956,000. Omitting the figures during the war period, the figures for the year ending June 1903 were; revenue, £956,000; expenditure, £839,000. The depression in trade which followed caused a reduction in revenue, the average for the years 1904–1909 being: revenue, £820,000; expenditure, £819,000. These figures are exclusive of railway receipts and expenditure (see Transvaal: Finance).
Religion.—The vast majority (over 95%) of the white inhabitants are Protestants, and over 70% belong to the Dutch Reformed Church, while another 3% are adherents of the very similar organization, the Gereformeerde Kerk. Anglicans are the next numerous body, forming 12·53% of the white population. The Wesleyans number nearly 4% of the inhabitants. The Roman Catholics number 2·30% of the whites, the head of their church in the province being a vicar apostolic. At the head of the Anglican community, which is in full communion with the Church of England, is the bishop of Bloemfontein, whose diocese, founded in 1863, includes not only the Orange Free State, but Basutoland, Griqualand West and British Bechuanaland. All the churches named have missions to the natives, and in 1904, 104,389 aboriginals and 10,909 persons of mixed race were returned as Protestants, and 1093 aboriginals and 117 of mixed race as Roman Catholics. The total number of persons in the country professing Christianity was 251,904 or 65%. The Dutch Reformed Church had the largest number (21,272) of converts among the natives, the Wesleyans coming next. The African Methodist Episcopal (Ethiopian) Church had 4110 members, of whom only two were whites. The Jewish community numbered 1616. Nearly 33% of the population, 127,637 persons, were returned officially at the census of 1904 as of “no religion,” under which head are classed the natives who retain their primitive forms of belief, for which see Kaffirs, Bechuanas, &c.
Education.—At the census of 1904, 32·57% of the total population could read and write; of the whites over fifteen years old 82·63% could read and write. Of the aboriginals, 8·15% could read and write; of the mixed and other races, 12·28%. In the urban areas the proportion of persons, of all races, able to read and write was 50·67%; in the rural areas the proportion was 26·43%. By sexes, 35% of males and 29·63% of females could read and write.
Elementary education is administered by the provincial council, assisted by a permanent director of education. From 1900 to 1905 the schools were managed, teachers selected and appointed and all expenses borne by the government. They were of an undenominational character and English was the medium of instruction. The teaching of Dutch was optional. In 1904 the Dutch Reformed Church started Christian National (i.e. Denominational) Schools, but in March 1905 an agreement was come to whereby these schools were amalgamated with the government schools, and in June 1905 a further agreement was arrived at between the government and the leading religious denominations. By this arrangement “religious instruction of a purely historical character” was given in all government schools for two hours every week, and might be given in Dutch. Further, ministers of the various denominations might give, on the special request of the parents, instruction to the children of their own congregations for one hour on one day in each week. The attendance at government schools reached in 1908 a total of nearly 20,000, as against 8000 in 1898, the highest attendance recorded under republican government. On the attainment of self-government the colonial legislature passed an act (1908) which in respect to primary and secondary education made attendance compulsory on all white children, the fee system being maintained. English and Dutch were, nominally, placed on an equal footing as media of instruction. Every school was under the supervision of a committee elected by the parents of the children. Schools were grouped in districts, and for each district there was a controlling board of nine members, of whom five were elected by the committees of the separate schools and four appointed by the government. Religious instruction could only be given by members of the school staff. Dogmatic teaching was prohibited during school hours, except in rural schools when parents required such teaching to be given. The application of the provision as to the media of instruction gave rise to much friction, the English-speaking community complaining that instruction in Dutch was forced upon their children (see further, § History). Primary- education for natives is provided in private schools, many of which receive government grants. In 1908 over 10,000 natives were in attendance at schools.
Provision is made for secondary education in all the leading town schools, which prepare pupils for matriculation. At Bloemfontein is a high school for girls, the Grey College school for bovs, and a normal school for the training of teachers. The Grey University College is a state institution providing university education for the whole province. It is affiliated to the university of the Cape of Good Hope.
History.
The country north of the Orange river was first visited by
Europeans towards the close of the 18th century. At that time
it was somewhat thinly peopled. The majority of the inhabitants
appear to have been members of the Bechuana
division of the Bantus, but in the valleys of the
Orange and Vaal were Korannas and other Hottentots,
Establishment of
a Boer republic.
and in the Drakensberg and on the western border lived
numbers of Bushmen. Early in the 19th century
Griquas established themselves north of the Orange. Between
1817 and 1831 the country was devastated by the chief Mosilikatze
and his Zulus, and large areas were depopulated. Up to this
time the few white men who had crossed the Orange had been
chiefly hunters or missionaries. In 1824 Dutch farmers from
Cape Colony seeking pasture for their flocks settled in the country.
They were followed in 1836 by the first parties of the Great Trek.
These emigrants left Cape Colony from various motives, but
all were animated by the desire to escape from British sovereignty.
(See South Africa, History; and Cape Colony, History.)
The leader of the first large party of emigrants was A. H. Potgieter,
who concluded an agreement with Makwana, the chief of the
Bataung tribe of Bechuanas, ceding to the farmers the country
between the Vet and Vaal rivers. The emigrants soon came
into collision with Mosilikatze, raiding parties of Zulus attacking
Boer hunters who had crossed the Vaal without seeking
permission from that chieftain. Reprisals followed, and in
November 1837 Mosilikatze was decisively defeated by the Boers
and thereupon fled northward. In the meantime another
party of emigrants had settled at Thaba'nchu, where the
Wesleyans had a mission station for the Barolong. The emigrants
were treated with great kindness by Moroko, the chief of that
tribe, and with the Barolong the Boers maintained uniformly
friendly relations. In December 1836 the emigrants beyond
the Orange drew up in general assembly an elementary republican
form of government. After the defeat of Mosilikatze the town
of Winburg (so named by the Boers in commemoration of their
victory) was founded, a volksraad elected, and Piet Relief,
one of the ablest of the voortrekkers, chosen “governor and
commandant-general.” The emigrants already numbered some
500 men, besides women and children and many coloured servants.
Dissensions speedily arose among the emigrants, whose numbers
were constantly added to, and Retief, Potgieter and other
leaders crossed the Drakensberg and entered Natal. Those that
remained were divided into several parties intensely jealous
of one another.
Meantime a new power had arisen along the upper Orange
and in the valley of the Caledon. Moshesh, a Bechuana chief of
high descent, had welded together a number of scattered
and broken clans which had sought refuge in that
mountainous region, and had formed of them the
Basuto nation. In 1833 he had welcomed as workers
Early relations with British, Basutos
and Griquas.
among his people a band of French Protestant missionaries,
and as the Boer immigrants began to settle
in his neighbourhood he decided to seek support
from the British at the Cape. At that time the British government
was not prepared to exercise effective control over the
emigrants. Acting upon the advice of Dr John Philip, the
superintendent of the London Missionary Society’s stations
in South Africa, a treaty was concluded in 1843 with Moshesh,
placing him under British protection. A similar treaty was
made with the Griqua chief, Adam Kok III. (See Basutoland
and Griqualand.) By these treaties, which recognized native
sovereignty over large areas on which Boer farmers were settled,
it was sought to keep a check on the emigrants and to protect
both the natives and Cape Colony. Their effect was to precipitate
collisions between all three parties. The year in which the
treaty with Moshesh was made several large parties of Boers
recrossed the Drakensberg into the country north of the Orange,
refusing to remain in Natal when it became a British colony.
During their stay there they had inflicted a severe defeat on the
Zulus under Dingaan (December 1838), an event which, following
on the flight of Mosilikatze, greatly strengthened the position
of Moshesh, whose power became a menace to that of the emigrant
farmers. Trouble first arose, however, between the Boers and
the Griquas in the Philippolis district. Many of the white
