These are hopeful signs for the future, not only in the Colonies mentioned, but also in the Transvaal.
Enough has now been said about the actual conditions of education in South Africa during the past century. It may still be useful to trace some of the changes of ideals within the same period. As a rule such changes take place in response to the development of educational thought in the United Kingdom or some other European country, but not at the same time as that development, and not without modifications. There is always more or less retardation, so that when, for instance, a vicious principle has been rejected by educationalists at home, it may still be found bearing unsound fruit in South Africa, or, indeed, in any other Colony. In the first half of last century, as the rapid advance in the means of scientific measurement led to triumph after triumph in modern engineering, it was hastily assumed that the educational results achieved by every class of teacher could also be accurately determined through such agencies as examiners and inspectors, and that in that way rapid strides in the progress of scholars might easily be secured. In higher education this false principle led to the establishment of the University of London on certain lines which have only been refashioned in recent years, and on the same model the University of the Cape of Good Hope was avowedly formed, and still continues to do its work. At present one of the most marked educational tendencies in South Africa is to break away from the restraints of the examinations of the Cape University and to develop such teaching institutions as the South African College and the Transvaal Technical Institute into independent Universities in all but name. In lower education the same erroneous idea of the value of accurate measurement still affects the character of the inspection of primary schools in more than one of the South African States. A revolt against such conditions of work is a marked feature of educational thought in these Colonies.
A second remarkable instance of change in ideals
