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IN THE BEGINNING
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girls' school of 25 pupils, and 'the common Dutch schools' with a roll of about 800. Only the first two of these were aided financially by the Commission. To the foregoing list must be added the schools which the Dutch Reformed Church was accustomed to open whenever the number of its congregation in any district warranted its building a church, and there were doubtless other private uninspected schools. The medium of instruction was Dutch; nor was any radical change in this respect made until 1822, when English took its place as the official language of the Colony.

In 1859, when the first Superintendent-General of Education retired after twenty years' service, it appears that there were nearly 200 schools under inspection in Cape Colony, with an enrolment of 18,000. To these schools must be added a considerable number in Natal and in the recently created Republic of the Orange Free State; but all, or nearly all, of these ranked as private uninspected schools, since education outside Cape Colony was not yet thoroughly organized. The medium of instruction in the schools of the Republic was chiefly Dutch. No attempt to train teachers locally had been successful up to this time, but the quality of the instruction was gradually raised by the introduction of teachers from Scotland and elsewhere—men whose upbringing in Presbyterian beliefs made them acceptable to the Dutch inhabitants of South Africa.

In 1904 the number of inspected schools in all the British South African States and territories had risen to about 4,000, and the number of scholars to 220,000 or more. With few exceptions the medium of instruction is now English, but the Dutch language occurs as a subject of instruction. Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony make some provision for the training of teachers locally. Teaching of University standard has for many years been provided in the South African College, the Division College at Rondebosch, and the Victorian College at Stellenbosch; but