Native Education

NATIVE EDUCATION. In order to ascertain the work done by Europeans, the Government and the Missionary Societies in schools for the natives of their various African possessions, the German Colonial Institute in 1911 sent out to the colonies over 2,000 printed _questionnaires_, with a request to the authorities to return answers according to the state of the schools on June 1st in that year. From the information filled in and returned, Herr Missions-Inspector Schlunk, of Hamburg, was able to publish a voluminous report on the subject, and the state of affairs thus revealed is illustrative of the best and worst features of the Teutonic colonising system. The facts in themselves concerning the educational work accomplished in the way of providing the natives with schools and teachers are remarkable. In Cameroon the first educational work among the natives was begun by the London Baptist Mission in 1845, and in 1885, the year in which the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America entered the field, the London Baptists resigned their organisation to the Missions Gesellschaft, of Basel. Two years later the first Government School was opened in Duala, and in the following four years the Apostolic Vicariat Kamerun, of Limburg on the Lahn, and the German Baptists, of Steglitz, established schools in the colony. In Cameroon, as in Togo, the Government were behind the missions in the number of schools and scholars, having, in 1911, only eight elementary schools, as against the nine of the American Presbyterians, thirty-eight of the German Baptists, eighty-six of the Roman Catholic, and 275 of the Basel Mission. Altogether there were in the colony 499 elementary schools, with forty-two European and 611 native teachers, and 32,056 pupils; twenty-one higher schools, with thirty-three European and thirty native teachers, and 1,802 pupils; eleven industrial schools, with twenty-two European and five native teachers, and 259 pupils; or a total of 531 schools, with ninety-seven European and 646 native teachers, and 34,117 pupils. Of the teachers 3·3 per cent. and of the pupils 8·1 per cent. were females. THE SCHOOL COURSE. In both Togo and Cameroon, the course of the elementary schools began with an infant class and lasted four or five years, the objects of the schools in both colonies having been to provide Christian instruction to natives and to train pupils for the higher schools with a view to their entering the service of Europeans. Instruction in German began in the first year, and in the third year pupils were required to read and write German fluently in both characters. The curriculum for the last year included the history of the German Empire since the Franco-German War of 1870-71, the history of the German Emperors since January 18th, 1871, the Geography of Germany, and the singing of German patriotic songs. In the higher schools, the object of the teachers was to “impart such knowledge as is required in the service of Europeans,” and all instruction was given in the German language. The schools for practical work trained girls for domestic work, laundry work and farming, while boys received instruction in carpentering, cabinet-making, smiths’ work, boot-making and tailoring, printing and book-binding. At the completion of their course, all pupils were obliged to remain in the service of the Government for two or more years. In both Togoland and Cameroon, the Government had a school of agriculture, where pupils were instructed in farming, especially cotton-growing and the use of the plough, and at some of the mission schools in the latter colony the pupils were trained in brick-making and cocoa-planting, and the work connected with water-supply and bridge-making. In both colonies the schools generally were open on five or six days a week, with from twenty to thirty-five hours’ instruction per week, according to the grade of the several schools. The average length of holidays for Mission and Government schools was from two to three months per annum. Unfortunately, no statement of revenue or expenditure is included in the case of Togoland beyond the fact that the Government made a yearly grant of £750, distributed among the various schools for the encouragement of German language-study. In Cameroon, in 1910, the Basel Mission spent £5,386 on teachers’ salaries, and the Roman Catholics £1,626. The cost of the Government schools in that year was £1,963. Generally no school fees were paid except in some of the higher schools in Togo, where pupils paid 50s. per annum, and at Garna, in Cameroon, the Government pupils paid 30s. per annum in kind. THE RESULTS OF GERMAN METHODS. In Cameroon a Government Proclamation of April 25th, 1910, made school attendance obligatory for all native children, instruction in German from the first class was made law, and the punishment for a child who left school before completing the whole course was fixed at a fine of £2 10s. or a flogging. Although children generally were anxious to attend school in order to qualify for service with Europeans, truantry appears to have become more popular after obligatory attendance was introduced, and the native police were kept busy in bringing back absentees. School children, who were distinguished by the wearing of brass-buttons and cockades, showed a tendency to become denationalised: few of them returned to the family farms when they completed their school course, which had the effect of causing them to lose touch with their own tribe and families. It is impossible, after reading Herr Missions-Inspector Schlunk’s report, to refuse admiration to the thoroughness of the German system of instituting these inquiries, or to the care with which the Germans lay themselves out to Teutonise their native subjects. Their organising ability, as revealed in their methods of imparting instruction to the natives and preparing their minds for the reception of _kultur_, is amazing, but as Hanns Vischer shows in his analysis of this informative publication, contributed to the _Journal of the African Society_, their method has its disadvantages. “Little love and scarcely any respect for the native,” he comments, “are to be found among the various reports. No mention is ever made of the natives’ national feeling. Natives are taught German history and the names of the German Emperors, and they can sing German patriotic songs. From every colony we hear that the boys who have been to school seldom or never return to their own surroundings, and although this is regretted, as being detrimental to the interests of a peasant community, no mention is made of the breaking-up of the native family and the inevitable harm which must follow. The importance of practical instruction is everywhere recommended to teach the native to work, but no mention is made of the natives’ own industry and love for work which might be developed.”