Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎488v] (101/238)

314 The Prince of Wales Professorship of History
form in which a rich man could secure himself immortality
than by offering the ^8,000 or .£10,000 which would be
sufficient, with the co-operation of the Government, to
establish any one of these chairs.
None of them is it more important to create than the Pro
fessorship of History, nor is it possible to conceive a time
when it would be more desirable to create it than the present.
A Professor of Philosophy or of Languages may, no doubt,
exercise a political influence by his lectures and writings,
but a Professor of History alone is definitely called upon
to do so, and his influence will be one which it would be
most desirable to have exerted as soon as possible, and by
all means before the people of South Africa begin to settle
down after the close of the present war. This is felt, and
has been openly expressed, by all the responsible states
men, by the chief educationists, and by the general public
at the Cape. Their judgment has been approved by the
Prince of Wales, looking from the commanding standpoint
which he has learnt to adorn, and by such men as Mr.
Chamberlain, Mr. Asquith, and Mr. Lecky. It will not,
therefore, be necessary to repeat what the present writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping.
has already said elsewhere with regard to the scientific, the
educational, and the political advantages to be expected
from the institution of the professorship. He may, how
ever, be allowed to call attention to two special points. In
the first place, it is already well known that there is much
to do with regard to the collection and co-ordination of
facts bearing on the various native questions in South
Africa. But it is not so well known that there now exists
at the Cape an office specially dealing with native affairs,
controlled by the Prime Minister of the Colony. Nor is it
generally known that the late Sir Bartle Frere sketched out
a system for the careful and exact study of native affairs
throughout the country, emphasizing the scientific and
political importance of the questions involved. In the second
place, it can hardly be altogether realized in England how
& ready certain ideals, such as that of Republicanism, have