1867.
The Rev. John Knox Bokwe, then a
little Kafir lad, thus describes that arrival ‘As a lad of eleven or
twelve years old, the writer, along with three companions from the native
village, heard of the arrival at Lovedale of a new missionary accompanied
by two ladies. Heavy rains had fallen during the week, and these little
boys felt some pleasure in puddling the muddy pools of the main street
that passed the house where the new arrivals lived. We were anxious to get
a sight of them, and be the first bearers of news to our parents what they
looked like. A thick pomegranate fence partly hid the front view of the
mission-house, and it was not easy from the street to gain the object of
our visit unless by entering a narrow gateway which led into the house.
Halting there, the quick ear of one of the little fellows was arrested by
sounds which he thought never to have heard before. He stood still to
listen, while his mates continued their puddling excursions. At the gate,
the listener stood entranced at the music strains coming from within.
Peeping in to explore, he saw a young lady seated before a musical
instrument. [It was in a thatched house, which had no bedstead.] The lower
sash window was open. The temptation to the dusky, mud-bespattered lad to
enter the gate, even at the risk of rudeness, was too strong for him. The
lady observed his slow, frightened approach, and quickly wiped off
something trickling down her flushed cheek. The music was "Home, sweet
Home." No wonder the tear! Recovering herself, with a winsome smile she
encouraged the intruder to come nearer.’ Thus began the friendship with
the Kafir who, for twenty years, filled the post of private secretary to
Dr. Stewart.
The names of ‘Stewart’ and
‘Lovedale’ have been wedded for forty years, and this is the title by
which he will be remembered, so long as men can appreciate Christian
heroism.
It was very like Stewart to explain
that the name of Lovedale was not given from any sentimental reason, or
because the place was some happy valley where love was more common than
elsewhere. It was named after Dr. Love of Glasgow, one of the earliest
promoters of Foreign Missions. After the same fashion names were given to
many of the neighbouring missions—Burnshill, Pine, Blythswood, Rainy,
Main, Somerville, Macfarlane, Gordon Memorial, etc., etc. This habit is
indigenous to the soil: witness Rhodesia, Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Port
Elizabeth, Alice, etc., as also the names of streets.
Lovedale lies near the eastern
boundary of Cape Colony, 700 miles N.E. of Cape Town and 8o miles N. of
East London. It is on the western edge of what was Independent Kafraria,
the home of the Kafir race before they became British subjects. It has
been often desolated during the nine Kafir wars. Thrice has the
mission-work been interrupted by war, while the class-rooms were turned
into barracks. What is now the mission land was originally the military
station of Fort Hare, on the banks of the beautiful river Tyumie.
The site was then a barren veldt,
with bare hillsides and a flat valley covered with mimosa-trees. But
Lovedale has completely verified Darwin’s saying, ‘The presence of the
missionary is the wand of the magician.’ The traveller could scarcely find
in South Africa a more beautiful or better kept spot than Lovedale. It now
literally blossoms like the rose. A Scottish visitor wrote, ‘The Lovedale
buildings are prettily nestled among the grassy hills, reminding us of
Moffat.’
In the early twenties, a mission was
planted in that valley by representatives of the Glasgow Missionary
Society. The Church of Scotland, then dominated by moderatism, was not
prepared to espouse Foreign Missions. After some twenty years, the
necessity for the training of native agents had become apparent. Thus in
the year 1841, the Lovedale Missionary Institute was founded by the
Rev. W. Govan, an admirable missionary and educationalist. He began with
only eleven natives and eight Europeans, the Sons of missionaries,
magistrates, and traders, for whom there were then no schools within
convenient reach.
It was a day of very small things,
but despise it not. Among these eleven natives was a herd-boy, the son of
a raw Kafir, and clad in sheepskin. He became a cultured Christian
gentleman, received a complete university training at Glasgow, was the
first ordained preacher of the Kafir race, and the first translator into
Kafir of the Pilgrim’s Progress. A learned and eloquent preacher,
he gained the entire respect, both of the natives and the Europeans. The
opening day of the tiny Boarding School was the birthday of a new era for
the native races. Then for the first time in South Africa the principle
was adopted and avowed that blacks and whites should meet in the same
classes, and dine in the same hall, though at different tables. [This is
due to the fact that the whites pay a larger sum for board than the
natives do, and receive more costly food.] This was the first practical
recognition that the Africans are our fellow-men; that they have the
rights of British subjects, and must be treated according to the laws of
the Empire; and that earnest efforts must be made for the healing of
racial prejudices. This was an entirely new thing in South Africa, and
there was not then such a full recognition of the native anywhere else, in
Africa or America, in educational circles or in Christian churches.
Lovedale and Blythswood have been from their origin embodiments of the
precept ‘honour all men’ in its application to the natives. Mr. Govan
invented a new thing in philanthropy, which Stewart enlarged and
perfected. This new thing was very old, for it was the application of the
principle of the common origin of the race.
In accepting Lovedale, Stewart had
expressly stipulated that if a mission were planted in Nyasaland, he
should be at liberty to join it.
In describing his first year in
Lovedale, Stewart says, ‘I hardly think I read a book quite through in
1867. My student life had to be set aside for a time, and I had to work
within the Institution, and outside like a navvy on the roads, which were
still the untouched primeval soil of Africa.’ Through life he was a great
road-maker: he must find or cut a straight path to everything he had to do
with.
Mr. Govan retired in 1870, and
Stewart, as Principal, was then at liberty to mould the Institution.
There are three stages in the
history of Loved ale— Reconstruction, Expansion, and Consolidation. The
period of Reconstruction was from 1870 to 1874.
Stewart began in Lovedale with one
idea, but it was what the French call ‘a mother-idea,’ and it gave birth
to a very large family. This mother-idea was his own and original, and
loyalty to it through life saved him from vacillation and mere trial-work.
Probably in 1870 no other person cherished the same idea in the same form,
and was prepared to realise it. His aim was to uplift the native by
touching him at every point, instructing him in all the arts of civilised
life, and fitting him for all Christian duties. As an original
Educationalist he is entitled to rank alongside of Dr. Alexander Duff of
Calcutta. [His letters to Dr. Duff in 1864 show that the plan which he
adopted was matured at that early date, and that it was not essentially
modified by after-thought.] In his own sphere he was at least as
great an Imperialist as Rhodes, for his atubition soared to an
intertribal, interstate, and interchurch university, where the most gifted
of the natives of South Africa might receive an education that would fit
them for the higher walks of life. As a leal-hearted son of John
Knox, he wished to have church and school side by side, to provide a sound
elementary education for all native children, and to make an open path
from the school to the college within reach of every scholar ‘of pregnant
parts.’ And he had the daring to plan all this for heathen Africa. Before
he died he had the satisfaction of knowing that his idea had been accepted
by many of the leading statesmen south of the Zambesi, while the ‘Lovedale
method’ had been adopted in all the large missionary institutions in the
land.
He saw clearly what the native races
needed, and began to provide it with remarkable far-sightedness, wisdom,
and perseverance. After a hard struggle, he discontinued the teaching of
Latin and Greek, and adopted English as the classic. [Captain Younghusband—now
of Tibet fame—when visiting Love-dale in the nineties, asked a native if
he was satisfied with the education there. ‘No,’ be replied, ‘they are not
teaching our children Greek and Latin. Dr. Stewart says that English is to
be our Greek and Latin.’ This was a sore point with the natives for some
time. They thought it a hardship that they could not get a full European
education. They regarded Greek and Latin as among the chief charms of the
white men and the hall-mark of gentlemen, and they wanted to know why they
had been deprived of them.] Like every man who is in advance of his
age, he had to fight every mile in his marches towards reconstruction, but
he was inspired by his vivid vision of the things that were coming.
‘Genius conceives, talent executes,’ Abraham Lincoln has said. Stewart had
the genius to conceive, and the talent to realise the greatest and most
beneficent scheme that has yet been devised for the elevation of the
African races. In this he stood alone among the men of his time. At first,
most people, and among them some of his colleagues, believed that a mere
mirage was alluring him into the desert of utter failure. Opposition was
just what was needed to make him take off his coat. His was the trained
self-reliance of a strong and fully persuaded man, and few were ever more
amply dowered with tenacity of purpose. With him the last moment of
conviction was the first moment of action. He had a wonderful power of
getting things done even by the natives, and a wonderful faculty for
getting shrewd business men to believe in him, and entrust money to him.
Among his relatives and personal friends were several who were able and
very generous helpers, and he got not a little support from men who did
not belong to his own Church.
[In Dawn in the Dark Continent,
we find the following foot. note (194):—
'THE BUILDERS of LOVEDALE.—The names
of the chief benefactors are as follows :—The late Mr. D. P. Wood, Natal
and London; the late Mr. John J.
Irvine, a member of the Legislative Assembly, Cape
Colony; Sir William Dunn, London and Port Elizabeth, M.P. for Paisley; Sir
John Usher of Norton; John Stephen, Esq., Glasgow; the late James White,
Esq., of Overtoun; Lord Overtoun; John S. Templeton, Esq., Glasgow; James
Templeton, Esq., Glasgow; Harry W. Smith, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh; and many
other generous donors.
‘The excellent Christian man whose
name stands at the head of the above list, Mr. D. P. Wood, merchant, of
Natal and London, sent £5000 in two donations, without one word of
solicitation.’]
The aim was to give the native, not
a mere storage of information, but a practical training of brain, eye,
hand, and heart.
Lovedale soon became a hive of many
industries. Dr. Stewart brought skilled artisans from Scotland, and new
buildings arose around him. The growth was steady and even rapid. He then
set himself to get fees from the native boarders, and made a great and
fruitful discovery. The natives did not see what good ‘working book’ or
‘speaking from a book ‘—their phrases for reading—could do to the
children. They concluded that it must do good to the missionary, and that
their children should be paid for it. The school seemed to them like a
prison, and they considered that their children should be rewarded for
sitting all day in a house and ‘making a book’ for the white man. The
pupils were at first drawn to the school by presents of beads, buttons,
and brass wire—the currency of the country then. [The missionaries at
Livingstonia had a similar experience. After they had mastered two or
three letters of the alphabet, the scholars said that they were tired, and
they took a rest for a fortnight or three weeks. In some of the schools
the teachers kept a jar of syrup or treacle, with a stick in it. They gave
every scholar a lick of the savoury stick, and so introduced them to the
‘sweets of literature.’ A scholar, when catechised, would say that his
teeth were tired, and that he could not answer the missionary any more.
The native workmen were paid to build a house. The schoolboys then came
and said that they must be paid to learn as the others were paid to build.
The teachers declined, so the boys struck and left school. After a while
the boys came back and asked for pay. ‘No,’ was the reply, ‘but if the
better scholars teach the younger, we will pay them.’ This suited the
boys, who began as monitors. In this way the monitorial system was
introduced into the Livingstonia schools.]
Stewart had a two days’ palaver with
the natives about fees. At last a man, Nyoka, arose and said, ‘I will pay
£4 for my son.’ In after-years Stewart often thought gratefully of that
man as the fair beginner of a nobler time. He then stood alone in the
persuasion that the natives would pay for education. It was a new and
daring idea. A uniform fee was introduced for all natives of whatever
Church, and all denominations were put on the same level, though all the
missionaries at Lovedale then belonged to the Free Church of Scotland.
The payment of fees was an excellent
education of the natives in independence and honesty. Experts say that the
character of the native is injured when he receives education gratis.
The aim was to make the Christian
religion supreme without respecting denominational differences. At the
same time he did nothing to weaken the denominational connections or
preferences. He thus gained the entire confidence of all the Protestant
churches, and they gladly placed their students under his care. Stewart
says: ‘All denominations and a dozen tribes have been represented at one
time or another within the place, some coming from even as far as the
Zambesi.
But broad Christianity does not mean
lax Christianity.’
Another epoch-making feature in the
new Love-dale was the admission of native girls, and their training for
all domestic work.
A lady thus describes her visit to
the new Love-dale:—‘ A very bright, happy spirit pervades the place, and
the radiant, intelligent faces of many of the natives, and their quiet
self-possession, were very striking. It is a hive of industry, and yet one
feels that the spiritual side is never neglected. Dr. Stewart is a
big-hearted and most lovable man. A most happy spirit pervades all the
staff.’
During the four years from 1870 to
1874, the numbers had steadily risen from 92 to 480, and the fees
from nothing to £200, £400, £800, and £1300. The humble thatch church at
Lovedale, which may have cost £100, had now grown into many large
buildings.
Many other colleges have risen after
the model of Lovedale, but they are all either tribal or denominational.
Lovedale, Blythswood, and Emgwali still remain the only missionary
institutions which rise above all tribal and denominational barriers, and
present the note of universality.
In 1870 Stewart selected the site
and arranged for the establishment of the Gordon Memorial Mission at
Umsinga in Natal, near the Tugela, about one hundred miles north of
Petermaritzburg and thirty-five from Dundee. [On this errand Stewart rode
about one thousand miles in a very rough country and in districts little
known, sleeping at any house, shop, or hut he could find. He spent one
night in an outside hide store, and another in a miserable house, where he
got for supper ‘apparently salt beef or salt horse perhaps; but at any
rate it was very good, as I was very hungry.’ He asked to be allowed to
sleep on the clay floor of the kitchen under the table, as it was better
than the veldt. On another night he came to a German mission-house that
was shut up. He managed to get in somehow. Seven or eight years afterwards
a German missionary on board a steamer told Stewart how, during his
absence, his house had been commandeered. ‘Did the intruder behave himself
well and pay for what he took?’ Stewart asked. ‘Oh yes,’ replied the
German, ‘he left money on the table.’ ‘I was that man,’ Stewart added.]
The Honourable James Gordon, brother
of the present Earl of Aberdeen, and grandson of the great chief who once
wielded the destinies of the British Empire, had resolved to devote his
life to the work of Christ among the heathen in South Africa. His purpose
was, however, frustrated by his early death in 1868. In a letter to a
friend in the end of 1863, he said: ‘The old year will soon be gone. Last
New Year’s Eve, I went to bed with scarcely a thought of my soul. But the
very next day, by the grace of God, I was brought to know the love of
Christ which passeth knowledge. Yes, New Year’s Day, the birthday of the
year, is the birthday of my soul.’ It was also the birthday of a very
interesting mission, and the first child in the Love-dale family of
missions. The Countess of Aberdeen and her family resolved to found a
mission among the Zulus, in memory of the deceased, and they entrusted it
to the Free Church of Scotland. [See The
True Nobility: Sketches of the Life and Character of
Lord Haddo, and of his Son, the Honourable. H. H. Gordon,’
by Dr. Alexander Duff.]
Stewart had now laid the foundations
upon which he was to build during the next thirty years. The period of
reconstruction was over, and the time of expansion had begun. But events
of the highest moment were soon to withdraw him from Lovedale.
Before attempting to rehearse these
exploits, a story must be told which claims a foremost place in the
romance of liberality and Christianity.
