Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/25

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Boer to be clad in skins. Now they wear woollen clothing, with calico. I fancy that the traveller would have to travel very far before he found a skin-clad Boer. No doubt they are parsimonious;—it might perhaps be more fair to call them prone to save. I, personally, regard saving as a mistake, thinking that the improvement of the world generally is best furthered by a free use of the good things which are earned,—and that they who do not themselves earn them should, as a rule, not have them. It is a large question, which my readers would not thank me to discuss here. But there are two sides to it,—and the parsimony of the Boer who will eat up the carcase of a wild beast till it be rotten so that he need not kill a sheep, and may thus be enabled to stock a farm for his son, will have its admirers in Great Britain,—if not among fathers at any rate among sons. These people are not great consumers, as are our farmers. They wear their clothes longer, and stretch their means further; but that the Boer of to-day consumes very much more than his father there can be no doubt;—and as little that his sons and daughters will consume more.

As to their educational condition I found it very difficult to ascertain facts. The distance of these homesteads one from another makes school teaching in many instances impossible. In some cases I found that great efforts were made, the mother or perhaps the mother's sister teaching the children to read. Here and there I heard of boys and girls who were sent long distances,—at an expense not only for teaching but for boarding. It has, however, to be acknowledged that the education of the country is at present very