PART 71, 
immeasurably poorer in this world’s goods and much more likely to 
starve and to suffer than the native of Africa. Without very much 
use of the method of peaceful picketing and without any elaborate 
organisation natives in the sphere of labour are able to make their 
demands known and to have their requirements met. And by this 
same power they are able to resist passively any innovation which is 
premature. 
All this makes it a difficult matter to register progress if it is not 
welcomed by the native, so that those who would ameliorate the 
condition of the native have to proceed gently and warily lest they 
should offend to the extent of rendering ineffective any movement they 
wish to foster. 
We therefore have to take a median line, we have to give the 
native a return step by step for every effort he makes. The chiefest 
demand is for education and for medical facilities, the root requirement 
is food varied and plenty of it. As individuals their every day life 
outside a reserve is an education, but in many instances it makes no 
impression and general observation leads one to the conclusion that 
only a small proportion of native peoples are capable of being fully 
taught. Whether the proportion will show an increase in subsequent 
generations is a matter for conjecture. It may be said that the main 
mass of natives in reserves requires mass treatment and mass control 
primarily. We therefore may proceed with our plans for the improve- 
ment of their possessions recollecting that we are dealing with a 
people, the individuals of which are very much alike. General 
instructions then, aiming at betterment in one, two or three directions 
are a possible means, and have been. and should be applied in the 
future. 
There is a good case for education through the medium of schools. 
Sufficient evidence and experience has been gained to lead the depart- 
ment to incline towards education of the young rather than to spend 
a greater effort in the guiding of older people. One would prefer to 
say nothing about the disappointments with the old people under the 
system of suggestion, they will try to obey an order but will merely 
smile at a suggestion, unless of course it suits them. 
Particularly is this the case on the Coast where it is important 
that the young people should be fashioned into something much 
better than their parents. Young natives at school, at least at an 
agricultural school, are under discipline: they are drilled daily, thes 
perform all the manual operations in connection with gardens 
ploughing, the experimental work; in other words they are taught te 
be good farm labourers. Many tasks that are considered only fit for 
women to perform are carried out by them. In addition they are 
taught the subject together with the three R’s. The improvement in 
the toys, their bearing, general alertness, and value as lab wrers is 
manifest. A small percentage are really good all round men who 
shuld train on to become teachers themselves 
We know that our trained boys are much more useful at work 
requiring a little skill than the boy who is merely an ordinary labourer. 
We do want to get out of the system which makes a boy an ordinary 
farm hand, a pruner, a driver, in other words we wish to train boys 
to be alert and useful in many lines of farm work. The old tendency 
of the native, derived from the Indian labourers, of professing one line 
of work only, be it cleaning boots. cutting grass, chopping wood. 
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