Abstract
HIGHER education in Cape Colony is at the present time in a very interesting and perhaps critical condition. It is indeed characteristic of the tardiness of progress in that colony (the eternal motto is “Wacht een beetje”) that the crisis should not have arrived until nearly eighty years after the foundation of the first institution designed to promote advanced studies—the South African College in Cape Town. The causes of this retardation are to be found partly in dissipation of effort, partly in the mischievous influence of an iron system of external examinations. The South African College was started on a small scale in 1829 through the liberality of a number of citizens of Cape Town, who became “shareholders” in the venture; but though after a few years it was recognised as a public institution and received support from the public treasury, it did not at first develop with much rapidity; and in 1849 Bishop Gray, after an Unsuccessful attempt to buy out the majority of the “shareholders,” founded the Diocesan College as a rival institution in the suburbs, thus inaugurating the unhappy policy of multiplying colleges from which the colony still suffers. Four years later Sir George Grey's administration instituted a public board of examiners with power to grant certificates in various subjects, another fateful step, for from that board there sprang in 1873 the University of the Cape of Good Hope, the only body in South Africa which has the right to confer degrees. The character of this so-called university deserves notice. It was modelled on the old University of London, the example of which it follows only too faithfully. It is managed by a council, half the members of which are appointed by Government, the other half elected by the convocation of graduates. It exercises the two functions of examining and granting degrees, but it does not teach. So abhorrent to it, indeed,. is any connection with teaching that it does not allow teachers of candidates to take part in the examinations, a most deleterious prohibition, since in many subjects the only experts belong to the staffs of the colleges. Dissatisfaction with this examining university is the chief cause of the present crisis. Meantime the multiplication of colleges and the wasteful reiteration of similar work in a number of centres has gone on apace. Some of the smaller colleges have, it is true, died out; but there still remain, in addition to the two already mentioned, the Victoria College at Stellenbosch, which was incorporated. in 1881, the Huguenot College for Women at Wellington (1898), and the Rhodes University College, which in io took the place of St. Andrew's College at Grahamstown. The western province, therefore, has four colleges, all. within forty miles of Cape Town, and the eastern province has one. They are bound hand and foot by the syllabuses and regulations of the university, for the examinations of which they prepare. Alike in strength and in character, however, they vary greatly. The South African College has in recent years developed with wonderful rapidity. It now supports seventeen chairs and has about 60 students, whom it draws in approximately equal numbers from the British and from the Dutch, and in thus bringing the two races together exercises a most beneficent influence, which it rightly regards as one of its chief claims to support. Its arts buildings are old and need reconstruction, but blocks of science buildings have lately been erected which would do credit to any unversity in the Empire, and the intention is to house the arts also on a similar scale. The only other college approaching it in strength is that of Stellenbosch, which has also developed recently, though it remains somewhat smaller and is less well equipped for the teaching of science. That the two strongest colleges should be in such close proximity is a particularly unfortunate result of the short-sighted policy (or lack of policy) which has been characteristic of the educational administratiod of the colony in the past. On purely educational grounds this duplication cannot be justified. But it is to be feared that racial rather than properly educational motives have led to the development of a second large college so near to Cape Town, and this may be said without any reflection upon the instruction given at it. For the Victoria College is almost completely under the influence of the neighbouring theological seminary of the tutch Reformed Church; its students are almost entirely Dutch; it is in sentiment and in popular estimation the Dutch College. Even were the instruction provided the best in the world, it would be still altogether deplorable that this tendency to racial separatism in education should have gained recognition and support. Of the remaining colleges, that at Grahamstown has a fairly large staff, but as yet few students and no buildings, and in view of the backward state of education in the east its position seems a little precarious, but if it can encourage the schools in that part to improve it should prosper. The Diocesan College and the Huguenot College are both small, and probably they will in the end have to unite with their more powerful neighbours.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Higher Education at the Cape . Nature 73, 110–111 (1905). https://doi.org/10.1038/073110a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/073110a0