FROM MISSION SCHOOL TO BANTU EDUCATION: A HISTORY OF ADAMS COLLEGE BY SUSAN MICHELLE DU RAND Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in the Department of History, University of Natal, Durban, 1990. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Page i ABSTRACT Page ii ABBREVIATIONS Page iii INTRODUCTION Page 1 PART I Page 12 "ARISE AND SHINE" The Founders of Adams College The Goals, Beliefs and Strategies of the Missionaries Official Educational Policy Adams College in the 19th Century PART II Pase 49 o^ EDUCATION FOR ASSIMILATION Teaching and Curriculum The Student Body PART III Page 118 TENSIONS. TRANSmON AND CLOSURE The Failure of Mission Education Restructuring African Education The Closure of Adams College CONCLUSION Page 165 APPENDICES Page 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY Page 187 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Paul Maylam for his guidance, advice and dedicated supervision. I would also like to thank Michael Spencer, my co-supervisor, who assisted me with the development of certain ideas and in supplying constructive encouragement. I am also grateful to Iain Edwards and Robert Morrell for their comments and critical reading of this thesis. Special thanks must be given to Chantelle Wyley for her hard work and assistance with my Bibliography. Appreciation is also due to the staff of the University of Natal Library, the Killie Campbell Africana Library, the Natal Archives Depot, the William Cullen Library at the University of the Witwatersrand, the Central Archives Depot in Pretoria, the Borthwick Institute at the University of York and the School of Oriental and African Studies Library at the University of London. I am also thankful for the financial assistance rendered by the Human Science Research Council, the Emma Smith Postgraduate Bursary Fund, the Killie Campbell Bursary Fund and the University of Natal Postgraduate Scholarship. Finally I wish to acknowledge the valuable assistance from my mother, Barbara du Rand, for proof-reading and for her continuous moral support. I am especially grateful to my husband, Robert Bell, for his patience and understanding throughout the period of writing this thesis. ABSTRACT In 1835 the first American Board missionaries arrived in South Africa and a mission station was built at Amanzimtoti. Adams College, then known as Amanzimtoti Institute \$e& established in 1853 by the American Board with the expressed ingestion of opening up a school on the mission station originally founded by Dr Newton Adams. Adams College consisted of a number of institutions; a high school, a teacher training college and an industrial school. It was one of the first African schools to introduce co-education, to teach mathematics and science to Africans, to provide matriculation and post-matriculation courses, and to give responsible posts to Africans. This thesis examines the goals, beliefs and strategies of early missionaries and the founders of Adams College in the nineteenth century. It goes on to illustrate the.influence of segregation and incorporationist ideals of those involved in missionary education in the early 1900s. Mission schools such as Adams College aimed at promoting a type of education based on European curriculum and models. Edgar Brookes and Jack Grant, prominant principals at Adams College, were well-intentioned and aimed at offering the students opportunity for advancement. In 1956 Adams College was closed by the government, as a consequence of the Bantu Education Act. This study interprets the transition from missionary to Bantu Education in light of the difficulties faced by Mission schools in the late 1940s. ABBREVATIONS ABM American Board of Missions ABCFM American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions AZM American Zulu Mission ANC African National Congress CPSA Communist Party of South Africa C.P.S.A. Church of the Province of South Africa CNE Christian National Education CYL Congress Youth League ICU Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union PAC Pan-Africanist Congress SAIRR South African Institute of Race Relations 1 INTRODUCTION Any attempt to plan or revise education for the South African future cannot overlook an examination of present, but also past education endeavours. Therefore a study of an episode in the history of black education, in this case mission education in a particular mission institution, is relevant. The intentionypf this thesis is to examine the history of Adams College from 1835 whentfre American Board missionaries first arrived in Natal, to 1956 the date the school was closed as a result of the Bantu Education Act. An attempt will be made to locate Adams College in a wider educational context by exploring mission education and thinking as well as referring to what was called 'Native Education' by governing bodies and later the Natal Education Department. 1 The history of this institution will be examined in the context of the transition from a missionary to a Bantu education system. In examining this educational change an attempt will be made to avoid "glorifying" the mission system, yet at the same time not belittle the importance of the transition to Bantu Education. Instead the transformation of Adams College from a mission school to a state-run school will be explained by assessing why mission education started to collapse in the 1940s and by examining the pressures for change. 1. In 1839 a Department of Education was established and mission schools came under the charge of this department. In 1884 education in this province was placed under the Natal Council of Education. Advisory committees were formed with whom a Superintendent of Education could consult. In 1894 the Natal Education Department was created. 2. Hyslop explains that some liberal accounts have glorified and romanticised the mission system, while some Marxist authors have de-empasized the importance of the transition to Bantu Education. J. Hyslop, "The concepts of reproduction and resistance in the sociology of education: The case of the transition from 'Missionary' to 'Bantu' education 1940-1955 ", Perspectives in Education 9, 1 (1987), pp. p.ll 2 During the 1800s almost all of the formal education for Africans was provided by mission schools.-* By the end of the nineteenth century, South Africa was to have a missionary population greater than almost anywhere else in the world.^ The missionaries had two main goals: Firstly to spread Christianity and a Western way of life among 'heathen' Africans and secondly to establish schools so that people would be educated enough tojj^nderstand and appreciate church activities. Several mission schools, besides Adams College, were established in Natal in the 19th century.^ However, mission schools did not serve the masses and the majority of African children did not attend school^ State participation in the education of Africans was slow to develop. Initially there was a lack of interest on the part of the Natal government in African education. In fact one can argue that throughout "South Africa, in the early 19th century, the state was almost absent from the field of African education. It was only in 1894 that the Natal Education Department was created and it has been criticised for having policies which responded to the demands of a white colonial public and reflected the belief that educational needs of African and Indian children differed from those of whites/ In 1894 the Natal Education Department assumed the duties 3. The extent of missionary participation in African education can be gauged by the following statistics. By the first quarter of the twentieth century there were 2702 mission schools with an enrolment of 215 956 pupils as against 68 state schools with an enrolment of 7 710 pupils. AX. Behr, New Perspectives in South African Education (Durgban, 1978) p. 159. 4. P. Christie. The Right to Learn (Braamfontein. 1987). p.65. 5. Inanda Seminary for girls, established at the American Board in 1869; St. Francis College at Mariannhill, established in 1882 by the Catholic Trappist order. 6. By the 1880s 149 African boys and 83 girls were enrolled in missionary high schools in Natal. N. Etherington, Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa. 1835-1880 (London, 1978), p.130. 7. A.L. Behr & R.G. MacMillan, Education in South Africa (Pretoria, 1966), pp.112-118, pp.333-336. 3 of the Council of Education which in turn ceased to exist, and this system continued until 1910 when further changes were brought about by the Act of Union.° From the time of Union to the 1940s the state played an increasing role in education for Africans, and this became more and more its concern from the 1950s when the state took control. J: The sjtartirf|-point of the thesis is 1835, the date which marks the first organised a'ttempt by the American Board at establishing itself in Natal. The first section traces the goals, beliefs and assumptions of the founders of Adams and attempts to evaluate how far these were implemented. By the end of the nineteenth century South Africa was changing. African chiefdoms were defeated, there was a steady movement .of people to the towns to look for work as most of the land was colonized; and the discovery of minerals and the expansion of economic activities meant that more black people were drawn into wage labour. In these changed conditions peoples' attitudes to education began to change too. Education was seen more and more as a way into the dominant economic and social system, and people began to demand education. By 1896 many Africans began to realise the value of education especially as far as the earning of money was concerned, mainly because of the success of their 'educated brethren'.^ Part 11 examines the period from 1900 to the 1940s and illustrates the influence of liberal incorporationist and segregationist ideals in missionary education. Students at Adams College, especially from the late 1920s, were taught to believe in the possibility of gradual assimilation into white society.