A Good Education Sets up a Divine Discontent': the Contribution of St Peter's School to Black South African Autobiography
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Wits Institutional Repository on DSPACE `A GOOD EDUCATION SETS UP A DIVINE DISCONTENT': THE CONTRIBUTION OF ST PETER'S SCHOOL TO BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Catherine Anne Woeber A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Potchefstroom, 2000 ii Abstract This thesis explores in empirical fashion the contribution made by St Peter's Secondary School to South African literary history. It takes as its starting point the phenomenon of the first black autobiographies having been published within a ten-year period from 1954 to 1963, with all but one of the male writers receiving at least part of their post-primary schooling at St Peter's School in Johannesburg. Among the texts, repositioned here within their educational context, are Tell Freedom by Peter Abrahams, Down Second Avenue by Es'kia Mphahlele, Road to Ghana by Alfred Hutchinson, and Chocolates for My Wife by Todd Matshikiza. The thesis examines the educational milieu of the inter-war years in the Transvaal over and against education in the other provinces of the Union, the Anglo-Catholic ethos of the Community of the Resurrection who established and ran the school, the pedagogical environment of St Peter's School, and the autobiographical texts themselves, in order to plot the course which the autobiographers' subsequent lives took as they wrote back to the education which had both liberated and shackled them. It equipped them far in advance of the opportunities available to them under the colour bar, necessitating exile, even as it colonised their minds in a way perhaps spared those who never attended school, requiring a continual reassessment of their identity over time. The thesis argues that their Western education was crucial in the development of their hybrid identity, what Es'kia Mphahlele has termed `the dialogue of two selves', which was in each case worked out through an autobiography. The typical, if simplified, trajectory is an enthusiastic espousal of the culture of the West encountered in their schooling at St Peter's, and then a rejection out of a sense of betrayal in favour of Africa, eventually leading to a synthesis of the two. The thesis concludes that it was the emphasis on all-round education and character formation, in the British boarding school tradition, with its thrust of sacrifice and service, which helped to fashion the strong belief systems of iii Abrahams and Mphahlele's later years, namely Christian socialism and African humanism, which inform their mature writings. Keywords: Urban Transvaal mission education Community of the Resurrection St Peter's Secondary School Black South African autobiography Subjectivity and identity formation iv Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own unaided work. It is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination in any other university. ____________________________________ ________ day of ________________ , 2000. v Dedication To those men who had sung, with such beauty that their songs had pierced the heart of a white woman, a world away, and in another time. vi Note In the last stages of this thesis, Peter Abrahams notified me that his latest work, The Coyaba Chronicles: Reflections on the Black Experience in the Twentieth Century would be published jointly by Ian Randle in Kingston and David Philip in Cape Town towards the end of 2000. Although too late for serious consideration in this thesis, I obtained a copy of the uncorrected proofs from the publishers and read them before final editing in order to ascertain whether they contained any material which might either significantly strengthen my argument or subvert it in any way. On a single reading, it seems that Abrahams's reflections in no way undermine the line I have adopted, other than, rather surprisingly, give Marcus Garvey a larger role in his life than has hitherto been acknowledged. The book fills many gaps not chronicled in Abrahams's life to date, particularly his years in London and Paris onwards, but offers little more on his childhood in South Africa, other than to foreground his family which he obviously feels were not given the measure they deserved in Tell Freedom. The Coyaba Chronicles, while uneven in their quality and sometimes questionable in their interest, for perhaps the first time show us Abrahams the man – as opposed to the writer, journalist and respected spokesperson for the black experience – and, should they prove his last work, leave us in no doubt as to his stature and humanity. vii Acknowledgements This thesis grew out of my research into black South African autobiographical writing begun at the National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown and continued alongside my teaching commitments at Potchefstroom University for CHE. I am grateful to the University for its grant towards completion of this project of a Committee of University Principals National Bursary and a Staff Bursary, and for allowing me generous leave in order to consult archival papers and conduct interviews in South Africa and the United Kingdom. The financial assistance of the Centre for Science Development of the Human Sciences Research Council (now the National Research Foundation) is also gratefully acknowledged, for its grant of a part-time Doctoral bursary in the initial stages of this project. Opinions expressed in this thesis and conclusions arrived at are entirely mine and are not necessarily to be attributed to the National Research Foundation. Among those who have assisted throughout this research, I would like to thank in particular Michelle Pickover and Carol Archibald of the Historical Papers, William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Andrew Martin of the National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown, and Heidi Winterbach for generously sharing her research material with me. Thanks are also due in large measure to Fr George Guiver and the CR brethren at the House of the Resurrection, Mirfield for opening both their personal and College library to me and John Read and hosting us so hospitably during Holy Week 1996. It was a watershed experience. Most especially I would like to record my gratitude to the late Fr Benjamin Baynham and Archbishop Trevor Huddleston for the privilege of spending time with them in Mirfield and for some deeply moving - and often quite scurrilous - conversations. They sadly passed on during the writing of this thesis and I regret that Fr Baynham in particular never got to see it. I am especially indebted to Br Edwin Ainscow CGA, last English master at St Peter's School, and to those former pupils of St Peter's who all enthusiastically shared their memories with me, and consistently helped me viii to keep faith with this project: Rev. Canon Bertram Moloi, the Ven. Meshack Ntsangani, Fr Richard Kgoleng, Mr Arthur Maimane, and Mr Zakes Mokae. I value particularly the correspondence I had in the latter stages of this thesis with Mr Peter Abrahams, and record my deep gratitude to Professor Es'kia Mphahlele who, for over a decade, and particularly since our last meeting, has been a constant source of inspiration. It is my hope that this thesis does justice to how much the lives and work of these two men have meant to me over the years, indeed, how irrevocably their writing has changed the course of my life. I appreciate very much the comments and advice offered by Professor Jonathan Hyslop on an earlier draft of chapters of this thesis. Most especially I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my thesis supervisors, Professor Tim Couzens and Professor Isabel Hofmeyr, who generously read through an entire draft of this manuscript and gave me invaluable assistance based on their own extensive and acknowledged research in related areas of our literary history. Their encouragement and ready discussion went way beyond the academic obligations of supervisors, and any shortcomings in this thesis are entirely my own. Finally, I owe its completion to John Read, the keeper of my Coyaba, for loving, caring for and believing in me all the way through, and to the constant companionship of Daisy, playing her canine role to my Mrs Plum. ix Contents Title page i Abstract ii Declaration iv Dedication v Note vi Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 The ripple effect of education 1 The double-edged sword of mission education 10 The significance of the educational matrix 23 Chapter One: The Educational Context 32 The educational background at the fin-de-siècle 32 The late Victorian age 32 The inter-war years 37 Educational debates during the 1920s and 1930s 47 Industrial training vs academic education 47 Sharing Western civilisation 53 Secondary schooling in the 1930s and 1940s 59 Proportion of pupils at high school 59 Black education at the crossroads 62 The Dalton Plan 67 The humanist approach to education 71 The mid-century JC and SC syllabus for English 76 The hegemony of English within the curriculum 76 Setworks for the Junior Certificate 83 Setworks for the Senior Certificate 98 The emphasis on reading across the curriculum 103 x Chapter Two: The Community of the Resurrection 107 The Anglo-Catholic ethos 107 Liberals in theology and radicals in politics 109 An incarnational theology 113 The Christian socialist foundation 124 The CR's involvement in African education 134 Inter-war writings