THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

Six: Afrikaner Education, Art, Race Relations & EconomicsWe now approach the field of education. Here we need to be reminded that the HeidelbergCatechism of 1562 -- one of the three documents that governs the outlook of the AfrikanerChurches and Afrikaner Calvinists to this day -- in its exposition of the Fourth Commandmentrequires God's people to maintain schools: daily study for daily work!In other words, if you are a South African Calvinist, you are expected to be involved in education --in terms of the Fourth Commandment. I can see this. Exodus 20:8-11. One could perhaps also puteducation under the Fifth Commandment -- in terms of honouring your father and your mother; andin terms of raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. See Ephesians 6:1-4.At any rate, with this tremendous emphasis upon the necessity of education -- the very first SouthAfrican Calvinists at the establishment of the Cape Colony in 1652 did indeed educate. Not onlyparents themselves educated, but the Dutch East India Company garrison at the Cape also suppliedthe school books and made training facilities available to all of the colonists at the Cape. TheChurch and her Officials and notably the Preachers were also involved.What you then have from the establishment of the Cape Colony in 1652, right down till the Britishoccupation of the Cape around 1800 -- is a system of Christian National Schools in which theChurch played a big roll. Yet it was not a system of Church Schools as such -- but a system ofCalvinist Public Schools in which the Church played a considerable role. See Second Chronicles17.But after British takeover of the Cape, by 1820 the whole character of the Public School Systemhad been changed. To a great extent, it had been de-Calvinised -- much to the grief of the SouthAfrican Calvinists who had not been used to this new kind of Public Education that was nowcoming in.This too was one of the fundamental causes of the Great Trek. Many South Africans moved awayfrom the Cape, taking with them some Schoolteachers and Preachers, and setting up mobileChristian National Schools while they were on the ox-wagons as they moved further and furtherinto the interior of Africa. There were schools with a perfect balance between theory (derived fromthe Bible) and practice (derived from hunting game and defending themselves) -- as they continuedto extend the frontier.Already from 1750 through 1800, there had been growing supra naturalistic rationalism in theschools. Indeed, this was so even in the Cape Colony -- especially after the departure of theVoortrekkers in 1836. Statism and Humanism then endured there, down to around 1900 - though itwas never anything like as blatant as it is in the United States or in Europe today. Yet,notwithstanding this, even at that time, the Church still continued to exercise a tremendousinfluence over the schools even in the Cape -- as we saw in the case of Andrew Murray a littleearlier.Round about 1900, the Fremantle Commission met in the Cape. It revealed a condition of publiceducation there, which had worsened steadily during the past century. As far as the South AfricanCalvinist Republics to the north were concerned, in the short-lived Natalia Republic and the longlivedOrange Free State and Transvaal Republics, Christian National Public Education was the rule.There, inspectors of Education had been established. They were always strong Calvinists, and oftenCalvinist Preachers appointed by the State to monitor the quality of education in the CalvinistSchools at that time. But with the defeat by Britain of the Orange Free State Republic and the South