Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:18:16.202Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Charles T. Loram and an American Model for African Education in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

R. Hunt Davis Jr.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the period between the two world wars, a principal theme underlying African education was a belief that the black school system of the American South constituted a suitable model for Africa. Thinking along these lines was prevalent throughout the continent (especially in the English-ruled colonies and Liberia), but nowhere was it stronger than in South Africa. This was mainly due to the Union's unique position of having a large settler population that was steadily augmenting its political sovereignty. White South Africans could readily view their positions as akin to that of white southerners in the United States, while Africans could easily draw parallels between their situation and that of black Americans. Certain individuals, institutions, and organizations in the United States believed that American answers to problems of race relations (which encompassed education) were applicable to other countries—they thus stood ready to aid South Africans in transferring and adapting a generalized American model of black schooling to the South African environment.

In fact, more than one model of black American education for South Africans existed. Africans viewed what was for them a progressive education system that emphasized black initiative and educational advancement. For example, while only 25 percent of their children attended school and 88 percent of their community were illiterate, 70 percent of black American schoolage children were in school, and black illiteracy had dropped from 90 percent in 1866 to 23 percent in 1926 (Huss, 1931: 2). White South Africans (those not totally opposed to some form of schooling for Africans) saw a system that seemed to train blacks sufficiently for living in a modern society yet served to limit any challenge they might pose to white control.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , September 1976 , pp. 87 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anson Phelps Stokes Family Papers. Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Berman, Edward H. (1970) “Education in Africa and America: A History of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1911-1945.” Ed.D. dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Booker T. Washington Papers. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. New York, New York.Google Scholar
Charles Templeman Loram Papers. Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Davis, Jackson. (1936) The Jeanes Visiting Teachers. New York: Carnegie Corporation.Google Scholar
Davis, R. Hunt Jr. (1975) “Penn School as a Model for African Education in South Africa.” Paper delivered at the Forty-first Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Washington, D.C., November 13, 1975.Google Scholar
Du, Plessis J. (1911) A History of Christian Missions in South Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Company.Google Scholar
Evans, Maurice S. (1915) Black and White in the Southern States: A Study of the Race Problem in the United States from a South African Point of View. London: Longmans, Green and Company.Google Scholar
Heyman, Richard D. (1970) “The Role of Carnegie Corporation in African Education, 1925-1960.” Ed.D. dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Heyman, Richard D. (1972) “C.T. Loram: A South African Liberal in Race Relations.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 5 (1): 41–50.Google Scholar
Holloway, J.E. ([1933]) American Negroes and South African Bantu. Pretoria: Carnegie Corporation Visitors' Grants Committee.Google Scholar
Huss, Bernard. (1931) Agricultural Economics among American Negroes.Google Scholar
Jones, Thomas Jesse. (1925) Education in East Africa. New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund.Google Scholar
Jones, Thomas Jesse (1926) Four Essentials of Education. New York: Charles Scriber's Sons.Google Scholar
King, Kenneth J. (1971) Pan Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lewsen, Phyllis. (1971) “The Cape Liberal Tradition—Myth or Reality?” Race 13 (July): 65–80.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. (1917) The Education of the South African Native. London: Longmans, Green and Company.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. (1921) “The Phelps-Stokes Education Commission in South Africa.” International Review of Missions 10 (October): 496–508.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. (1926) Address… on the Occasion of a Dinner Given in his Honour by the Phelps-Stokes Fund. New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. (1927) Adaptation of the Penn School Methods to Education in South Africa. New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. (1929) “A National System of Native Education in South Africa.” South African Journal of Science 26 (December): 921–27.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. ([1930]a) “Native Education in South Africa: The Community Outlook.” Carnegie Corporation of New York Files. Typescript report. Folder Loram 1930.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. ([1930]b) “Education in the Union.’ Charles Templeman Loram Papers. Typescript of paper. Box 1, Folder 26.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. ([1931]) “The Education of Indigenous Peoples.” Charles Templeman Loram Papers. Typescript of paper. Box 1, Folder 28.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. ([1933]) “The Jeanes Teachers in the United States.” Charles Templeman Loram Papers. Typescript of paper. Box 1, Folder 38.Google Scholar
Loram, Charles T. (n.d.) “Proposed Policy with Regard to Native Education.” Charles Templeman Loram Papers. Typescript statement. Box 14, Folder 245.Google Scholar
Marks, Shula. (1975) “The Ambiguities of Dependence: John L. Dube of Natal.’ Journal of Southern African Studies 1 (April): 162–80.Google Scholar
Penn School Papers. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Province of Natal. Department of Education. (1915) Report of the Superintendent of Education for the Year 1914. Pietermaritzburg: Government Printers.Google Scholar
Province of Natal. Department of Education (1919) Report of the Superintendent of Education for the Year 1918. Pietermaritzburg: Government Printers.Google Scholar
Robertson, Janet. (1971) Liberalism in South AFrica, 1948-1963. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Trapido, Stanley. (1974) “Liberalism in the Cape in the 19th and 20th Centuries,” pp. 53–66 in The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries volume 4. London:University of London Institute of Commonwealth Studies.Google Scholar