Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎487v] (99/238)

312 The Prince of Wales Professorship of History
Ministry ; the Hon. W. P. Schreiner, late Prime Minister ;
the Hon. J. W. Sauer, Commissioner of Public Works in
Mr. Schreiner’s late Ministry ; and the Right Hon. Sir
Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of Cape Colony.
The College stands in a less satisfactory relation to the
professions of the Christian ministry, of teaching, of the
Civil Service, of commerce, and of farming. The great
majority of ministers in the English denominations are
educated in England, and the Dutch minister seldom com
pletes his University education. With regard to teachers,
it is no discredit to the College to say that it is not at present
able to compete with European universities in the training
of university professors ; on the other hand, the profession
of school-teaching in South Africa offers at present few
positions to attract University graduates. The case of the
Civil Service is different. It is no secret that the Civil
Service needs the best ability which the country can pro
duce, and that it gets at the present time nothing like the
best. It is to be hoped that the politicians and educationists
of South Africa may combine to suggest and institute
reforms which will give the country a Civil Service adequate
to its duties, such as the South African College is in an
eminent degree able to supply. Nor are there many
questions which more intimately affect both the welfare of
South Africa and the well-being of the home universities.
I cannot too urgently press it upon the attention of educated
men in all parts of the Empire. As regards commerce,
much remains to be done. It will be an advantage both to
the commercial and to the academical world of South Africa
when the co-operation between them is closer than it is at
present. At present the commercial men, like the ministers
of the Christian religion, are usually content with a half
education. Perhaps, too, the education at present offered
is not altogether suitable to commercial men. The same is
true, in an even greater degree, of the farmers. In all
these professions exceptional men are to' be found with a
college education, but much yet remains to be done to adjust