EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
By E. B. SARGANT
In the history of South African education the dates which mark the beginning and end of the period under consideration have a special significance. On the conclusion of the first British occupation of the Cape Peninsula in 1803 the Batavian Republic sent out as Commissioner-General a man of remarkable individuality, who endeavoured to put into practice ideas much in advance of his time in all that relates to schools and their organization. Whether regard be had to the training of teachers, the education of girls, local school-rates, or freedom in the matter of religious instruction, De Mist's ordinance aimed at creating completely new school conditions. The Dutch farmers opposed these innovations; the new English administrators of 1806 preferred to leave the new to grow out of the old, rather than to complete an educational reform which perhaps seemed to them to smack too much of French revolutionary ideas. Thus many of De Mist's regulations are only now in course of practical fulfilment. No less important is the date at the end of this period, when, owing to the inclusion of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State within the pale of the King's dominions, modern English conceptions of the duty of the State in regard to education are gradually transforming the school systems of the new Colonies, and are even reacting upon the systems of Cape Colony and Natal. The few years which form
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