306 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
Cape of Good Hope University, established by Royal Charter in 1873, is entirely an 
examining body; it does not profess to teach. It confers degrees, but the examinations 
on which these depend are prepared for by the student in private study. Perhaps 
the two annual schoo! examinations held by the University—the elementary and the 
higher—may be taken as representing the standard of secondary education in the 
Colony. 
The elementary examination requires the candidates to satisfy the examiners of their 
proficiency in :— 
(a) The English Language, including writing passages from dictation, parsing, 
stymology, analysis, English composition. 
The school higher examination is equally without restriction of age, but is consid- 
erably higher in its requirements, both as regards the difficulty of the papers and the 
range of subjects, including a choice of classical and modern languages in Group IL, 
and of mathematics and physical science in Group II. The proportion of candidates 
antered respectively for the elementary and higher examinations in 1891 sufficiently 
indicates the difference in the standard required. In the elementary 1,614 were exam- 
‘ned, in the higher 870. Of the elementary candidates, 641 failed, the greater number 
in history and English ; of the higher, 91. An inspection of the number of candidates 
oresented in the higher for the choice subjects in Group II. shows science to be very 
much at a discount among our Colonial youth. Against 268 examined in geometry, only 
57 were examined in physical geography ; below this came animal physiology with 19 
candidates ; the remaining subjects—botany, mechanics, light and heat—found not 
sven half so much favor as this, while chemistry could not boast of a single candidate. 
[n view of the complaint made by the examiners on another occasion, that the chemistry 
sandidates seemed to have no experimental knowledge of their subject, perhaps this 
indifference is scarcely to be wondered at. Chemistry acquired chiefly from a text- 
oook cannot be a very exhilarating branch of study. 
Beyond these two examinations, most of the better class of schools prepare pupils for 
‘he Matriculation Examination, to pass which does imply that the candidate has a satis- 
factory amount of education, and something even of culture. In 1891. out of 228 candi- 
lates, 142 passed. 
All the above examinations (and, I believe, all the others connected with the Cape 
University) are open to both sexes ; and it is satisfactory to relate that the girls and 
women of the Colony fully hold their own in the contest. In fact, the education of 
women in the Colony is perhaps better provided for, on the whole, than that of men. 
Juch educational establishments as have been started by foreign enterprise (exclusive of 
missionary institutions for natives) are almost all for girls. For these the Colony is 
chiefly indebted to America, the principal centers being at Wellington and Stellen- 
oosch. 
I much regret that coinciding holidays have always prevented me from seeing any of 
these schools in working order ; yet perhaps any detailed account of their working would 
oe out of place in a paper of this kind, seeing it would, after all, be an account of an 
imported system which owes nothing, either in idea or method, to Colonial influence. 
The work done is far from being limited to bare intellectual training. It was pleasant 
and encouraging to hear the other day. from a visitor to one of these schools at Stellen- 
oosch, that, seeing the dormitory walls curiously studded with nails, and asking the 
season, the principal replied that they were for pictures and ornaments which the pupils 
were encouraged to procure and arrange for themselves. These articles were, at the 
sime, put away for purposes of holiday cleaning ; but it was the principal’s idea that as 
.mportant as anything in the education of the Colonial girls, was the cultivation of a 
saste for pleasant prettiness, to know how to'arrange and decorate a room, how to adorn 
iife : things which the monotony and isolation, the materialness, the rough-and-ready