Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎484v] (93/238)

3°6
THE PRINCE OF WALES PROFESSORSHIP
OF HISTORY AT THE SOUTH AFRICAN
COLLEGE.
By Professor H. E. S. Fremantle, M.A.
Several causes contribute to render the proposal to establish
a Professorship of History at the South African College
interesting to thoughtful men beyond the limits of Cape
Colony and even of South Africa. In the first place, it is
surely a matter of interest to find that South Africa is in a
condition to need such a professorship, and that in such a
country a young nation is springing up which has already
advanced so far in the path of national development as to
feel the need of further advance in the way proposed. Nor
can it be without interest to those who watch the progress
of events in South Africa with an eye to the future to know
that it is possible at the present time not only to maintain
existing institutions in full working order, but even to make
such an effort as the present for this extension. In the
second place, men of the greatest prominence at the Cape
are supporting the movement, and thereby showing a sense
of the importance of education in a practical way, which it
would be difficult to induce men in a corresponding position
at home to pursue with anything like the same activity or
unanimity. In the third place, a proposal which promises
to induce the inhabitants of the whole of South Africa to
study history deals with men on so great a scale as to
appeal to the imagination and expand our conceptions
beyond the ordinary range. The special interest of South
African history, and the importance of establishing a
genuine school for its study must be obvious to all. And,
finally, all these reasons have been endorsed and strengthened
by the patronage which the Prince of Wales has given to
the scheme, adding to it, with that discrimination and
tact which is the property of the Royal Family, the dignity
which belongs to an Imperial enterprise.