Abstract
PUBLIC discussion, extending over many years, in the Press and in Parliament, on higher education in South Africa has at length resulted in legislation. The old University of the Cape of Good Hope, with its offices at Capetown, was merely an “examining” institution, founded on the model of the University of London. The constituent colleges were (the figures give distances in miles from Capetown):—The South African College at Capetown, the Victoria College at Stellenbosch (31), the Huguenot Ladies' College at Wellington (45), the Rhodes University College at Grahamstown (757), the Grey University College at Bloemfontein (750), the Natal University College at Pietermaritzburg (1182), the Transvaal University College at Pretoria (1001), and the South African School of Mines and Technology at Johannesburg (956). There are many objections to a university which is a mere examining body; there are many objections to a university the constituent colleges of which are separated even by such short distances as are Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds; it has long been felt that all such objections are greatly magnified when a meeting of Senate- cannot be held unless many of its members spend six or eight days in travel. It scarcely needs the words of the report of the University Commission (p. 138) to let us know that, in spite of having distinguished, well-paid professors, the only work done by the colleges hitherto has been mere cramming for examinations, and that there is an almost total absence of the university spirit in South Africa.
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South African University Legislation . Nature 97, 480–481 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097480a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097480a0