'These Difficult Days': Mission Church Reactions to Bantu Education in South Africa 1949-56

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'These Difficult Days': Mission Church Reactions to Bantu Education in South Africa 1949-56 ‘These Difficult Days’: Mission Church Reactions to Bantu Education in South Africa 1949-56 Neil Overy, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2002. ProQuest Number: 10731708 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731708 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract Mission education in South Africa became increasingly untenable in the 1940s because mission churches lacked the finances to be able to maintain a national system of educational provision and because Africans were questioning mission education which they increasingly considered institutionally racist. This crisis led the Nationalist Government to appoint an education commission to make recommendations leading to the reform o f ‘native education7. This commission argued that mission education was incompatible with the ordering of society envisaged by the government. It suggested that the state should wrestle control of ‘native education5 from missionaries, enabling it to fashion a policy more in sympathy with apartheid. In 1953 the Bantu Education Act was passed which withdrew state aid from mission schools and made their continued registration dependent on the approval of the Minister for Native Affairs. The Catholic Church, able to raise the necessary finance, decided to continue running all their schools privately. This decision was based purely on religious doctrine and meant that the Church taught Bantu Education in all of its schools. Of the remaining denominations only the American Board had the resources to maintain a single privately funded school. Aside from a few politicised figures in the Church of the Province of South Africa who refused to lease their schools, claiming that to do so was to compromise with apartheid, church leaders leased their schools to the government. This decision was made because Church leaders considered that Bantu Education, despite their abhorrence to its ultimate aims, provided better opportunities to children than an ‘education5 picked up on the streets. This decision was made with little, if any, consultation with Africans (parents, teachers or students) because church governing structures were undemocratic and racially exclusive, denying Africans any meaningful representation. Ironically, the decision to lease was in accord with the wishes of most Africans who reluctantly accepted the fact that Bantu Education, in the absence of any realistic alternative, was better than no education. Acknowledgements The writing of this thesis has taken a little longer than I anticipated because of a number of factors, some within my control, but the majority well beyond it. During the writing my supervisor Shula Marks has been an inspiration - she has consistently supported both me and my research during a period of my life which has been challenging both mentally and physically. At no stage did she loose faith in me, and always set me on the right course when I was having doubts. I offer my thanks to her for understanding well beyond that reasonably expected from a supervisor. Within the School of Oriental and African Studies I would also like to thank a number of staff members who have offered help and guidance - Debbie Gaitskell, Andrew Roberts and Dave Anderson. I would also like to thank all the librarians and archivists who have assisted me in my research, in particular, Sandy Rowoldt at the Cory Library (Rhodes University), Michele Pickover at the William Cullen Library (Wits) and Ian Edwards at the Killie Campbell Library. I would also like to thank Archbishop Hurley who granted me access to the Chancery records at Durban Cathedral and who always had time for my questions! In addition, I would like to thank all those who allowed me to interview them. My time in South Africa was made all the easier from the help I received from the Institute for Advanced Social Research at Wits and the History Department at Rhodes. In particular I would like to thank Paul Maylam at Rhodes for having a welcoming and friendly department! I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council which allowed me to undertake this research. Thanks also go to all the people I stayed with, however briefly, particular thanks go to Julie Wells and Mrs. T. My family and friends have assisted me greatly in this endeavour - both in patience and money! Mum and Dad have not stopped supporting me financially since the moment I became an undergraduate and continue to do so now, for which I am hugely grateful. I also greatly appreciate what they did for me during my recovery from my accident. Lastly, I wish to thank Carla Tsampiras who was my greatest discovery in South Africa and whose love has enchanted me, and whose patience with my grammar has astounded me! Contents Abbreviations 1. Introduction MO 2. ‘Idealism like Patriotism, is not Enough5; The Churches Face Apartheid 11-31 3. ‘Mealie Pap and Hope5: Mission Schools Before Bantu Education 32-63 4. Raising Schools to ‘Mighty Instruments5 ;The Commission on Native Education in the Union (Eiselen Report) and Apartheid 64-95 5. ‘The Emphasis is Clearly on “Bantu55 and Not on Education5: Mission Church Reactions to the Eiselen Report 96-118 6. ‘Liberation from the Burden of Maintaining Schools5: The Church of Scotland and the Bantu Education Act 119-146 7. Wearing ‘African Spectacles5; The Anglican Church and the Bantu Education Act 147-176 8. ‘There is no Place in Bantu Education for any Institution which does not bow its knee to the Apartheid Idol5: The American Board Mission and the Bantu Education Act 177-208 9. ‘Only History Will Tell Us How Tragic This Has Been5: The Catholic Church and the Bantu Education Act 209-235 10. ‘Awakening to the issues at stake5: African Responses to Bantu Education 236-260 11. Conclusion 261-268 Appendix 1 269-270 Appendix 2A 271-277 Appendix 2B 278-295 Appendix 3 296-302 Bibliography 303-326 Abbreviations AAC All African Convention ABM American Board Mission ANC African National Congress ANCYL African National Congress Youth League BCC British Council of Churches BPC Bantu Presbyterian Church CAPA Cape African Parents’ Association CATA Cape African Teachers5 Association CATF Catholic African Teachers5 Federation CATU Cape African Teachers5 Union CCSA Christian Council of South Africa CPSA Church of the Province of South Africa DRC Dutch Reformed Church FMC Foreign Mission Committee (Church of Scotland) IAMF Interdenominational African Ministers5 Federation LMS London Missionary Society MC Mission Council (Church of Scotland) NAD Native Affairs Department NRC Native Representative Council NEUM Non-European Unity Movement OFSATA Orange Free State African Teachers5 Association PBM Provincial Board of Missions (Church of the Province) SACBC South African Catholic Bishops5 Conference SAIRR South African Institute of Race Relations SPG Society for the Propagation of the Gospel TATA Transvaal African Teachers5 Association TATU Transvaal African Teachers5 Union TLSA Teachers5 League of South Africa I. Introduction The dramatic student uprising in Soweto in 1976, which stimulated all facets of the liberation movement and refocused world attention on South Africa, was an expression of the anger which Africans felt for the Bantu Education system.1 This explosion of resentment which ‘altered the history of the country irrevocably52 demonstrated the centrality of the Bantu Education policy to the wider plans of the government. According to the Anglican priest, Father Huddleston, of all the legislation passed in the early 1950s, the Bantu Education Act was cby far the most important and by far the most deadly.53 This Act guaranteed that missionaries would no longer be directly in control of African schools, ensuring that the education of Africans would be, for the first time, under the direct control of the apartheid architects. Given its importance to apartheid it is unsurprising that historians and educationalists have been much exercised by the policy. As Bram Fleisch has shown, early work suggested that ‘Bantu Education5 was the creation of a particular Afrikaner mentality which was ‘the outgrowth of some misunderstood anthropological concepts, German racial theory (attributed to Eiselen), and a peculiar insular Afrikaner “ethnic identity55.54 For such authors the Bantu Education Act was the injurious action of a government intent, for ideological reasons, on denying Africans the chance to ‘assimilate5 themselves into European society. They argued that a benevolent mission education system was destroyed because it offered an education equal to that offered to whites, threatening white supremacy through the creation of an increasingly articulate African elite.5 1 Throughout the course of this thesis I will describe black South Africans as Africans. This is because the terminology ‘black5 also refers to ‘coloureds’ and ‘Asians’. As a consequence of this white South Africans will not be tenned Africans, but simply whites. 2B. Hirson, YearofFire. Year of Ash; The Soweto Revolt: Roots of a Revolution?. (London, 1979), foreword p. 1. 3 T. Huddleston, Naught for Your Comfort. (London, 1956), p. 160. 4 B. Fleisch, ‘American Education and the Eiselen Commission Report’, paper presented to the History of South African Education Conference, Salt Rock, Kwa-Zulu Natal, 26-28 Oct. 1999. 5 In particular see E. Brookes, A South African Pilgrimage. (Johannesburg, 1977). 1 This analysis is problematic on at least two levels.
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