Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 1).djvu/234

This page needs to be proofread.

difficulties." The difficulties I can well imagine, which generally amount to this in the establishment of a news-*paper,—that the ambitious attempt so often costs more than it produces. Mr. Theal is one of the masters of Lovedale, and his History of South Africa was here printed;—but not perhaps with so good a pecuniary result as if it had been printed elsewhere. I was told by the European foreman in the printing establishment that the Kafirs learned the art of composition very readily, but that they could not be got to pull off the sheets fairly and straightly. As to the bookbinding, I am in possession of one specimen which is fair enough. The work is in two volumes and it was given to me at Capetown;—but unfortunately the two volumes are of different colours.

In the younger classes among the scholars the Kafirs were very efficient. None of them, I think, had reached the dignity of Greek or Natural Philosophy, but some few had ascended to algebra and geometry. When I asked what became of all this in after life there was a doubt. Even at Lovedale it was acknowledged that after a time it "fell off,"—or in other words that much that was taught was afterwards lost. Out in the world, as I have said before, among the Europeans who regard the Kafir simply as a Savage to whom pigeon-English has to be talked, it is asserted broadly that all this education leads to no good results,—that the Kafir who has sung hymns and learned to do sums is a savage to whose natural and native savagery additional iniquities have been added by the ingenuity of the white philanthropist. To this opinion I will not accede. That