< Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu
This page needs to be proofread.

ORIQUALAND WEST. 147

religious world, distributing the faithful in separate congregations according to their complexions, have bt^en extondtd also to the cilucational Hystem, and legisla- tion has taken care to keep the children of the dominant races entirely al<Kjf from those of the Malays and Hottentot«. The public schools in the towns and villages attended by Eurojx'an children are adminiHtered by local conimissionerH ; those intended for half-eaMtCM in the urban and industrial districts are placed under the superintendence of the religious communities ; lastly, the schools oix?ned for the use of the alK)rigines have remained in charge of the missionary societies, by whom they were originally founded. These are, for the most part, technical institutions, where are taught especially such crafts as carjKMitry, cartwright's work, joinery, bookbinding, and printing. For these establishments a large number of teachers are drawn from the native population itself. The colony also jx)s.se88e8 high schools or colleges which prepare young men for the liberal professions. These are under the control of the University, which was incorporated in 1873, and which is an examining body emjx)wered to grant degrees, without any machinery for imparting instruction. There are altogether five colleges aided by Government grants under the Higher Education Act, each with full staff of professors and lecturers in classics, muth(>matics, and the physical sciences. But despite all the facilities offered for public instruction, the proportion of attendance is far below the average amongst the civilised peoples of Europe, the rat« being scarcely more than one in thirty of the population. The Colonial Government has already its public debt, which about e(juals six years of revenue. The latter is derived for the most part from customs, excise, btamps, and legacy dues. The rest is made up from the profits on the railways post-office, telegraph service, tolls, and rent or side of public lands and mines. The colony is divided for administrative purposes into seven provinces with sixty-six fiscal divisions and sixty-nine judicial districts, which will be found tubu- lated in the Appendix. Griqiai.ani) "West. The province, which was definitely annexed to Cape Colony in 1877, and which became an integral part of the same political system in 1880, would pmbably have been still left to its aboriginal populations and to the squatters of Boer or mixed descent, had not the discovery of the diamond fields made it a valuable uccpiisition for the Colonial Government. In 1871, that is one year after the report of the won- derful finds had been spread abroad, the Cape authorities invited the chief of the Griquas, a Bushman named Waterboer, to accept the British suzerainty, and then hastened to comply with the wish which ho was stated to have expres.«;ed on the subject. The conduct of the Colonial Government in count <rti(n with this affair was certainly somewhat high-handed, although it could scarcely be expected that much regard could be paid to the fact that the miners attracted to the district had already set up the inde|)endent republic of Adamanta. The Orange Free State also put in a claim for the possession of this territory ; but the right of the

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.