HEAD, HEART, AND HAND The Huguenot Seminary and College and the Construction of Middle Class Afrikaner Femininity, 1873-1910 Sarah Emily Duff THESIS PRESENTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH. Supervisor: Dr Sandra Swart April 2006 Declaration I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis is my own original work and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it at any university for a degree. _____________________________ _____________________________ Signature Date ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the production of different forms of Afrikaner ‘femininity’ at the Huguenot Seminary and College in Wellington, between 1873 and 1910. Founded by Andrew Murray, the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), specifically to train Dutch-Afrikaner girls as teachers and missionaries, the school was based on a model of women’s education developed at the Mount Holyoke Seminary in Connecticut and the majority of the teachers who worked at Huguenot until the 1920s were thus American- born and trained. The Huguenot Seminary proved to be an enormous success: it was constantly in need of extra room to house its overflow of pupils, the girls came near the top of the Colony’s teaching examinations from 1875 onwards, and its associated College – founded in 1898 – was one of the first institutions in South Africa where young women could study for university degrees. It had a profound impact on the lives of a considerable proportion of white, bourgeois Dutch-Afrikaner – and English-speaking – women during this period of rapid and wide-ranging transformation in South African society and politics. This thesis evaluates the extent to and manner in which Huguenot created particular Afrikaner ‘femininities’. The discussion begins with an exploration of the relationship between the Seminary, the Mount Holyoke system of girls’ education, and the DRC’s evangelicalism during the religious ‘revivals’ sweeping the Cape Colony in 1874-1875 and 1884-1885, paying particular attention to the teachers’ attempts to foster a quasi-religious community at the Seminary, and to the pupils’ responses to the school’s intense religiosity. It moves on to a discussion of the discourses surrounding the ideal of the educated woman that arose in the Seminary and College’s annuals between 1895 and 1910, identifying three key forms of ‘femininity’ promoted in magazines’ articles, short stories, and poetry. Finally, the thesis examines the impact of the growth of an Afrikaner ethnicity (specifically in the form of the First Afrikaans Language Movement), the South African War (1899-1902), and Alfred Milner’s South Africanism, on the ‘femininity’ espoused by the Seminary and College between 1874 and 1910. OPSOMMING Hierdie tesis ondersoek die voortbrenging van verskillende vorms van ‘Afrikaner-vroulikheid’ aan die Huguenote-Seminarie en Kollege te Wellington, tussen 1873 en 1910. Dié inrigting is deur Andrew Murray, die moderator van die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) gestig, spesifiek vir die opleiding van Hollands-Afrikaanse meisies as onderwyseresse en sendelinge. Die model vir vroue-opvoeding waarop die skool gebaseer was, is by die Mount Holyoke Seminary in Connecticut ontwikkel. Die meerderheid leerkragte aan die Seminarie was dus tot in die 1920’s gebore Amerikaners wat in Amerika opgelei is. Die Hugenote-seminarie was uiters suksesvol: dit het voortdurend meer ruimte benodig om die groot aantal leerlinge te huisves; die meisies se prestasies het hulle vanaf 1875 ná aan die bopunt van die slaagsyfers van die Kolonie se onderwyseksamens geplaas; en die verwante Kollege – wat in 1898 gestig is – was een van die eerste inrigtings waar jong vrouens in Suid-Afrika met die oog op ’n universiteitsgraad kon studeer. Dit het ’n diepgaande indruk op die lewens van ’n aansienlike verhouding blanke, bourgeois Hollands-Afrikaanse – en Engelssprekende – vrouens gedurende hierdie tydperk van snelle en verreikende transformasie in die Suid-Afrikaanse gemeenskap en politiek gehad. Die tesis evalueer die mate waarin en wyse waarop die Hugenote-inrigting spesifieke modelle van Afrikaner-vroulikheid geskep het. Die bespreking word ingelei met ’n ondersoek na die verhouding tussen die Seminarie, die Mount Holyoke-stelsel van onderrig vir meisies en die NGK se evangeliese leer gedurende die godsdienstige ‘herlewings’ wat van 1874-1875 en 1884- 1885 dwarsdeur die Kaapkolonie plaasgevind het, terwyl aandag in besonder gewy word aan die leerkragte se pogings om ’n kwasi-godsdienstige gemeenskap aan die Seminarie te bevorder, en aan die leerlinge se reaksie op die skool se intense religiositeit. Dan volg ’n bespreking van die gesprekke rondom die ideaal van ’n opgevoede vrou wat tussen 1895 en 1910 in die Seminarie en die Kollege se jaarboeke na vore gekom het en drie sleutelvorme van ‘vroulikheid’ wat in tydskrifartikels, kortverhale en poësie bevorder is, word geïdentifiseer. In die laaste instansie ondersoek die tesis die impak wat die groei van Afrikaner-etnisiteit (spesifiek in die vorm van die Eerste Afrikaanse Taalbeweging), die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (1899-1902) en Alfred Milner se Suid-Afrikanisme op die ‘vroulikheid’ wat tussen 1874 en 1910 deur die Seminarium aangeneem is, gehad het. Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 2 Education, Gender, and Colonialism 2 The Huguenot Seminary and College 5 Literature Review 11 The Aims and Focus of this Study 18 Chapter One: ‘vessels meet for the Master’s use’: The Mount Holyoke System and the Huguenot Seminary, 1874-1885 21 Introduction 21 The Age of Atonement: Evangelicalism and Women’s Education 23 ‘we hope a number of souls were born’: The Huguenot Seminary 1874-1875 30 ‘I felt there was a battle going on’: Challenge and Change at the Huguenot Seminary, 1884-1885 49 Conclusion 61 Chapter Two: ‘the right kind of ambition’: Discourses of Femininity at Huguenot, 1895-1910 63 Introduction 63 ‘good, noble and useful’: Hegemonic Narratives of Middle Class Femininity 70 ‘businesslike and capable women’: The Educated Woman as Professional 83 ‘every hope of a South African New Woman’: College Girls and New Women 95 Conclusion 105 Chapter Three: ‘You love not your daughters, you love not your land!’: Nationalism and Identity at Huguenot, 1874-1910 109 Introduction 109 The First Afrikaans Language Movement and the Huguenot Seminary, 1875-1881 115 The South African War and the Huguenot Seminary and College, 1899-1902 131 South Africanism at Huguenot, 1902-1910 143 Conclusion 153 CONCLUSION 156 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 165 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Grateful thanks to – Angeline Marais and Marsha Conning at the Dutch Reformed Church Archive, Stellenbosch. Hannah Botha and Mimmie van der Merwe at the Africana section of the J.S. Gericke Library. The staff of the Cape Town Campus of the South African Library. Letitia Snyman Colleen Vasconcellos Lenelle Forster Hester Honey The staff of the Department of English, University of Stellenbosch. Corinne Harmsen Albert Grundlingh and the Department of History, University of Stellenbosch, for funding both my research and attendance of three conferences. Sandra Swart for eternal patience, enthusiasm, and excellent advice. My family, and especially my mother, for unstinting good humour, support, interest, and love. 2 INTRODUCTION _____________________________________________ Education, Gender, and Colonialism The 1904-1905 Calendar for the Huguenot Seminary and College states, The aim and purpose of the Huguenot College and Seminary is to give its pupils a sound education, and at the same time so to mould and form the character that the young ladies may go out with an earnest purpose, and thus be better fitted for any sphere in life. This is the Huguenot Ideal.1 A century later, the website for Bloemhof Girls’ High School – founded by the Huguenot Seminary in 1875 to provide an education to the white girls of Stellenbosch – declares that it stands for ‘[d]ie ontwikkeling van die identiteit en volwassenheid van die leerders tot verfynde jong dames wat hulle plek op alle terreine van die samelewing kan volstaan’2 (‘the development of the identity and maturity of the learners so as to produce sophisticated young ladies who can take their place on every terrain within society’). On the homepage for La Rochelle Girls’ High School in Paarl – acquired by the Huguenot Seminary as a branch school in 1890 – the headmistress writes, It is our aim at La Rochelle to send a well-balanced, mature, young lady into the world. She is an individual who possesses a sound set of values, is determined to make a positive contribution to society and is able to meet the growing demands of modern life with confidence.3 The similarities between these three mission statements are striking: each of the schools emphasises that it aims to transform its pupils into ‘ladies’ and that, as a result, the education that it provides is as much about the formation of character – the inculcation of the ‘right’ set of values, the endorsement of a particular identity – as it is about academic achievement. Of course, today, this conceptualisation of the role of the school within society is by no means limited to Bloemhof and La Rochelle. The most cursory overview of a number of websites for both independent and former 1 Calendar of the Huguenot College and Seminary, 1904-1905 (Wellington: Huguenot College and Seminary, 1904), 12. 2 Bloemhof Girls’ High School, www.bloemhofschool.co.za/staanvir.htm. Accessed 30 April 2005. 3 La Rochelle Girls’