I move—

I do not wish to detain the House, but I hope I will be permitted to make some observations on this procedure. The point is that the Opposition were informed this morning when the bells were ringing of this change in the Order Paper. I hope that this will not happen again, because we were assured yesterday, in reply to more than one inquiry, that the Order Paper as printed would be proceeded with to-day. It is most difficult for the Opposition to arrange for speakers if this sort of thing happens. I would ask the Government side to be clear on what they want to do and to inform us timeously so that we know where we are. This sort of thing has happened all too often with the Order Paper this Session, sudden changes being made, and I hope that it will not happen again in future. The Government seems to me to be slipping and to have no regard for the Opposition, or even for the House. Last night we had the spectacle of a Chairman of Committees trying to double for Mr. Speaker, because Mr. Speaker was not available. They should see that there is somebody to take his place if Mr. Speaker of necessity has to be absent. I think it is only right to draw attention to these matters and I hope it will not happen again.

Order! That has nothing to do with this matter.

Motion put and agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is another instance of the tightening of the grip of authoritarian rule in South Africa over the life of the community. Although the Bill ostensibly deals with National Education, a term which incidentally not itself defined, the text as a whole, and particularly Clause 8, which refers to “the education of White persons”, shows that it is in reality legislation for a racial group, i.e. for the White group. Now, rigidity of rule for the non-White groups has been the legislative preoccupation of this Government for so long that those groups have come to view the prorogation of each session of Parliament with relief and the resumption of the next session with anxiety. And no wonder, because year by year the Government has added to the tangled mass of statutory rules which virtually govern their lives from the cradle to the grave. In this Bill we are now witnessing a step towards tightening the rigidity of rule for the White group, and significantly enough the first step is made in the schools. As we all know the Bill started on its way too late during the last session to become law and so it came back again early this Session. It started as the National Education Advisory Council Bill. We see it now as the National Education Council Bill, but the Minister has had second thoughts about the matter and has agreed to re-insert the word “Advisory”. But otherwise the Bill is unchanged. Make no mistake about it, although the theme of this Bill ostensibly is the co-ordination of education, its real purpose of course is to subvert Provincial autonomy indirectly from below, through the schools, rather than directly from above, through the creation of a centralized Department of Education. If anyone thinks that my criticism is too harsh and unjustified, let him explain to me the object of Clause 8, which for purposes of the record I shall read—

As one who sat on the Select Committee and took part in all its deliberations, I am opposed to this legislation on three main grounds. The first ground is that, viewed as a whole, the evidence adduced before the Committee did no more than to justify the setting up of a body to fulfil two functions, (a) to promote research in education, and (b) to encourage the advancement of the standards of education generally in all schools in South Africa. I use the term “education” in its broad meaning, as the giving of intellectual and moral training in all schools to all persons who seek learning therein, regardless of race, colour or creed; and I use the term “school” as a place of light, of liberty and of learning, where the aims of the parent, the teacher and the child can be directed to the free development of society, even of a society as diverse as it is in this country. Sir, I accept that the two objectives, research into and improvement of the standards of education, can best be achieved through some suitable board or council set up for that purpose, but I say that it is quite unnecessary to legislate for such a body and to include therein all the provisions which are set out in this Bill. It is quite unnecessary to legislate along the lines set out in this Bill to achieve that purpose. The old Social and Economic Planning Council set up by the Smuts Government in the early 1940s had no need to have legal and statutory powers to function effectively and properly; nor has the new Economic Advisory Council set up last year by the Prime Minister any need for such powers. Men of standing came forward before and have come forward again now to aid the Government of the day, by giving their time and service to the country in their capacity as members of a council set up to investigate particular social or economic problems. They did not then, nor do they now, ask for statutory powers in order to give the country the benefit of their advice based on any specialized research and on their practical and professional knowledge of the particular subject under investigation. What happened then can happen in regard to a body such as it is proposed to set up here. Having found the men, all that would remain is to see that funds are appropriated by Parliament for their purpose and that personnel to assist them are made available by the Public Service Commission.

One of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Select Committee had this to say about the old Social and Economic Planning Council. Dr. E. G. Malherbe said the following (page 187)—

I grant that in the case of this new Economic Advisory Council one knows little and hears less about its activities, because the council’s deliberations are kept confidential, and it works in a sort of hush-hush atmosphere. But that, of course, is because the country’s economy is operating at high-level stagnation, and not for reasons of any lack of legal powers. An Educational Council, such as is contemplated here, can and should work quite openly. The point I make in the first place is that, in order to carry out the functions detailed in Clause 7 of this Bill, an Advisory Council for Education can function properly without all the rest of the trappings set out in the other ten clauses of the Bill. Nor will it then be necessary to have this rather self-evident, and, I think, rather pious self-denying, provision which is found in sub-section (4) of Clause 7, and which says-—

I call those “piously self-denying provisions” because it is quite obvious from the rest of the Bill, particularly Clauses 2, 5, 8 and 10, that executive power is really going to vest in the Minister, not in the council at all. There is no need for it, and I say, therefore, that this is a self-evident and self-denying provision. Having said that, I think the real purpose behind this legislation unfolds itself. It is designed to give the Minister new powers and to strengthen the hands of the executive in regard to the policy of education in all secondary schools, provided they are schools for the education of White persons. Therefore I say that the council is not really the substance but only the pretext for the Bill. The council is not the end itself; it is the means to an end, and that end is the tightening of the grip of authoritarian rule over the education of White persons, regardless of whether that education is given in a partially subsidized private school or a wholly subsidized State or provincial school.

That brings me to my second reason for opposing the Bill, namely that it brings within the ambit of this authoritarian rule, not merely the State-controlled schools, but it also brings, by a form of compulsion, within the ambit of the provisions of this Bill, any private school which may, for any reason whatsoever, receive financial assistance from public funds. In this context the term “financial assistance out of public funds” is not confined to grants or subsidies from State funds. It also includes any grant or subsidy from a provincial fund, and, seeing that provincial funds constitutionally vest in provincial councils, that provision in itself is an invasion of provincial autonomy in the matter of education. But, Sir, it even goes wider than that, because the term is wide enough to include any assistance sounding in money which may come from a municipal or local government source; in fact, any assistance which may come from any source to which the public may have contributed either gratuitously or otherwise. That, as I say, takes compulsion very far. Compulsion here goes much further than in that old precept: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Here the Minister will be able to call the tune without any payment being made from State funds at all. Here he will be able to call the tune so long as the slightest degree of financial assistance is accepted by a private school from any public source. Let me read the evidence of an eminent English-speaking educationist who gave evidence before the Select Committee. Prof. Macmillan had this to say (page 91)—

There, Sir, speaks a man who is very sincere and who has great knowledge of the subject with which we are dealing here. But I would like to quote from another eminent educationist, this time an Afrikaans-speaking educationist, who used this expression; Prof. J. F. Burger said this: “Education is a matter of freedom.” I repeat, Sir, education is a matter of freedom, and I say it is that principle of freedom in education which has enabled the English-speaking private schools in South Africa to make such a valuable contribution to the country as a whole in the field of primary and secondary education in the past. Moreover, that contribution in education, paid for as a general rule by the parents, has freed the State from the costs involved, and it has also absolved the State from the duty of providing the service itself. The benefits which have accrued from the private schools, even those which receive some financial assistance from public funds, have always worked two ways, and not only one way. The benefit has come both to the State and to the community, and not merely to the individual concerned. Sir, to speak up for the freedom of private schools and to urge that they be excluded from the ambit of this legislation, is not to be critical in any way of the State-controlled schools, be they Government-controlled schools or be they provincial-controlled schools. There is no need to criticize them when you speak up for the freedom of the private schools. But I want to mention four distinguishing features of the private schools, which should be kept in mind when pleading for the exclusion of those bodies from the ambit of this Bill. The first is this: They are happily free from what may be called the official tidy-mindedness of State schools, because that official tidy-mindedness inevitably results in uniformity. Less considerately that same idea is sometimes spoken of as the dead hand of uniformity. That is the danger which Prof. Macmillan referred to in the quotation which I have read from his evidence. Secondly, these private schools are able to provide that margin of experiment and of independence of thought and instruction which is so necessary to broaden the scope of education. Thirdly, those schools ensure to the parents more freedom to choose the school of their preference than would otherwise be the case. Lastly, I want to say that most of them have been established to give, and they do give, not merely secular education, but also religious instruction. I would like to quote some evidence in that regard. The memorandum submitted by the headmasters of private schools, in paragraph 5, under “The religious purpose of private schools”, says this (page 442)—

Much the same sort of evidence was given by one of the headmasters, Mr. H. J. Kidd, who said (page 451)—

Sir, I quote those four distinguishing features, but I think the point has also been made very eminently, again, by Prof. Macmillan, who said this when he was being asked about the difference between what was called a national pattern of education as against what was called a national policy of education. He said this (page 93)—

I submit therefore that there is no need, nor any justification for making it compulsory for the private schools, even those in receipt of some financial assistance from public funds, to come within the ambit of this Bill. To leave them out can do no harm, but to leave them out can do much good, and I would appeal to the hon. the Minister to have regard to this aspect of the matter and to give it his very earnest consideration. You see, Sir, if the advice or the suggestions of the council in matters affecting education is sound, the private schools would gladly accept that advice. The real test of soundness of advice coming from a body such as it is contemplated setting up in this bit of legislation, is whether it is to be accepted freely and not by compulsion. That in itself will be a desirable factor to the hon. the Minister—to know that the advice of this council is so sound that it is freely accepted by those bodies who provide schools which are places of light and of liberty and of learning. I think Prof. Bingle rather emphasized this need for the test of soundness, because he said that the motive force of acceptance of the advice of the council should be “by the rendering of service”. If there is a rendering of service in this case it will be accepted. I appeal to the hon. the Minister therefore to give consideration to my plea to leave the private schools entirely out of this compulsory aspect of this Bill.

My last reason for opposing the Bill can be briefly stated. The Bill, if passed, will subvert the Constitution in the name or under the guise of promoting education. Clause 8, as it now stands, is a negation of provincial autonomy …

Order! That point has been ruled on. I have given my decision on that point.

Sir, I am not dealing with the matter as opposed to your ruling. I say that your ruling stands; it will be negation of it because of your ruling, not against your ruling. You see, Sir, in terms of your ruling as well as the decisions of the courts, it is quite clear that this clause will never be binding on Parliament itself. Any Act of Parliament which may be passed in conflict with the terms of this Bill will to the extent of that conflict merely be an implied amendment or repeal of this Bill itself. That, Sir, is perfectly clear from your ruling as well as from the interpretations of the court on our constitutional set-up. But on the other hand, if the clause stands, it will deny to the provincial council the right to fulfil its legislative functions in the manner presently prescribed by the Constitution in so far as the passing of laws is concerned in regard to the education of White persons. Thus far provincial ordinances have always been subject to a post hoc veto by executive government. Section 89 of the Constitution Act makes it necessary that any provincial ordinance should have the consent of the State President, and that has been the constitutional safeguard to ensure that legislation passed by the provinces shall in no way conflict with the principles and the policies of the Central Government. That is the constitutional safeguard against legislation which is passed in conflict with the purposes of government. That veto provision has been used sparingly in the past because provincial councils know that they have to observe and regulate their conduct of affairs accordingly. But it has been used and it is a constitutional safeguard. But now the position is being reversed. A pre-legislative veto by executive government can prevent a draft ordinance even being considered, and that, of course, is completely destructive of the right which the provincial councils have to consider, to debate and, if agreed upon, to pass legislation within the competency of that body. It will no longer be able to do so if there is this pre-legislative veto by executive government. That is a complete invasion of the rights of a subordinate body to legislate, and it is in complete conflict with what has always been the constitutional safeguard in subordinate legislation. The other safeguard, of course, is that if a provincial council passes legislation which is repugnant to an Act passed by Parliament, the courts are there to say that it is ineffective. But where it conflicts, not with legislation itself but with the policy of a Central Government, the constitutional safeguard is the post hoc veto by executive government. I say therefore that this clause will make a complete travesty of the constitutional principle which was written into our legislation in 1909 and re-affirmed last year. Sir, I do not think we must delude ourselves. The provision is really directed at the Natal Province, and I think we must face the position in that regard. It is directed at a province such as Natal and it is going to bring about what I call a pre-legislative veto by executive government against a body such as that exercising its legislative authority. And legislative authority, Sir, does not mean that what is proposed is necessarily passed by the Legislature. That is what democracy means; there is an opportunity for free debate, for opposition or change where it is necessary and for rejection …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Sir, that is precisely what Clause 8 is going to do.

The hon. member is going too far away from the clause and from the Bill.

Sir, if you will allow me to read Clause 8 again …

I have read Clause 8. The hon. member must obey my ruling and come back to the Bill.

Sir, I am dealing with Clause 8 …

If the hon. member is dealing with Clause 8 he is drifting right away from it.

Sir, you and I might not agree about what the meaning is but surely that does not prevent me from giving my interpretation of what it does mean.

Order! The hon. member must obey my ruling.

I am obeying your ruling, Sir, but I think the interpretation which I place on Clause 8 is one which the hon. the Minister must deal with, and it is for him to tell me whether I am wrong in my interpretation. He is free to do so, and I invite him to do so. Sir, I say therefore that this Bill is another instance of the tightening of the grip of authoritarian rule in South Africa over the life of the community.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) has now made the sort of speech here which we have heard so often on the Select Committee. I will come back to it later, but I just want to say that it is so typical of the negativeness we consistently get from hon. members on that side of the House. Every speaker who has hitherto taken part in the debate has, to a greater or lesser extent, just like the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South), really had two themes, the rights of private schools and the rights of the Provincial schools. And the undertone of all his objections emanates from a fear complex. He is afraid of this and he is afraid of that.

For good reasons.*

There he confirms it. He says he has goods reasons. I shall come back to it later. In the meantime, I just want to give you this assurance, Mr. Speaker: I am not going to quote this report. We will still hear much about this book in South Africa. It is a valuable document, surely one of the best we have had on our tables for a long time. This book contains the evidence of persons of the highest status and the greatest knowledge. But as in the case of all such books—and here I refer to two or three which you know without it being necessary for me to mention names—almost anything can be proved. Here you will find evidence—thorough, scientific evidence—for almost any standpoint you wish to adopt in regard to education. I have listened here to every speech made on the Bill up to now, and what has happened thus far is that everybody has just picked the raisins out of the cake, and has just taken that small portion of the evidence of certain persons which happens to fit in with his argument. I am not going to do that. This Blue Book must be dealt with as a whole, as the Select Committee tried to do, and the Bill now before the House is the result of its deliberations.

Right throughout all the deliberations we had on the Select Committee, a few things particularly came to the fore and I want to try to summarize them. The first thing that struck me was the intense urge and desire to bring about a change in our education. I think that was the undertone of the evidence of every witness. As far as I can remember, not a single witness said that he was satisfied with the present position. Quite a few pointed out what improvements could be made and then towards the end of the evidence said: “But we would rather not have a change”, for reasons other than those which they gave in their own evidence. Those reasons were not of an educational nature, but of an exclusively political nature. The second point I wish to make is that the real educationists are generally dissatisfied, and I think their dissatisfaction has a sound basis. They are looking for something. Many of them tried to formulate for us what it is, but those formulations were so diverse that we could not evolve one general pattern except for what is contained in the Bill. This Bill is again an attempt to co-ordinate our educational authorities. I use that word deliberately because I want to make it quite clear that in spite of what the last speaker said, this Bill contains nothing more than coordination. The policy we would like to follow is one of conviction and not one of enforcement. The hon. member for Hillbrow must agree with me—he was a member of the Select Committee—that right throughout our deliberations that was one of his strong arguments, and he cannot point out any provision in this Bill to me which does not agree with his own opinions.

The two language groups we have in South Africa are, in my own opinion but also according to the evidence we heard, ripe now for co-operation in this sphere, and they are ripe for co-operation in spite of all the incitement which came from outside, and particularly from a large section of the Press in South Africa which in this respect acted quite irresponsibly. Leave the people of South Africa in peace and they will decide for themselves that this is the course they want to follow. That co-operation can be promoted because it gives, moreover, both language groups an encouragement to become nationally South African. This is the idea I have just mentioned: This national South Africanism is there; it is just awaiting formulation before being generally accepted.

I briefly want to summarize the main characteristics of the evidence submitted to the Select Committee. As I have said, there is unrest and concern in the minds of all our educationists. Too many of us, however, are too afraid, too suspicious and too afraid to think clearly about this theme. When I talk about fear, I want to refer to the previous speaker. He was an example of it. Almost every word he uttered bore the stamp of fear, immaturity, and I might almost say puerility.

Immaturity.

Yes, immaturity sums it up. I have already used that word.

Our methods and systems of education are changing continually. Ever since Union until now we have suffered from a lack of a national, specific research and investigation. What this Bill now tries to do is to create the framework for such research and investigation. Particularly because of the heterogeneity of the population of South Africa it is necessary for our education to have a high object. Our task is different from those countries where the populations are more homogeneous. We must educate every member of our nation as well as it can be educated. The percentage of leaders we need in South Africa must be higher than the percentage of leaders normally required in other countries with a more homogeneous population. We have a greater task in Africa than other comparable countries where the population groups are more homogeneous.

The Opposition, however, wanted to establish an Education Council without any new life. It wanted to have a council without any functions and without any powers. The hon. member who spoke just before me again put it that way. In fact he went so far as to say that he did not even see the necessity for such a council. The main function of this council, as I see it, and as it is embodied in this Bill, is to bring together the best educational brains in order to deliberate, to investigate and to advise. And if this Act is implemented in the same spirit as that in which it was framed, we will be able to achieve this triple object.

The members of the council should not be bound. That is essential for the success of this council. They must be free to deliberate and to decide as they think fit. They must base their decisions only on knowledge acquired through research and that which is prescribed by conscience. In order to do this and so as to be independent, the Minister must appoint the members of the council. If that is not the case, and if they are appointed by other bodies and organizations, they will be in the position where they may regard themselves as representatives of those bodies and organizations—that is, if it does not go further and they are appointed and given a fixed mandate. I regard it as being essential that they should come there without any special instructions or without a mandate. They must sit there as individual scientists who can deliberate with each other on matters. If, however, they are appointed by the bodies of which they are members and to which they are, therefore, still connected or to which they will remain responsible, they cannot act freely, but will always to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the person himself, feel bound. That should be avoided, because if they are so bound it will negative the greatest object of the council, namely to find the best way in which the people can be educated—not this section or that one, but everybody; not as a uniform mass, not with any monotonous uniformity, but the whole of the nation with its various heterogeneous groups which might be in conflict with one another. This is setting a very high ideal, and if this council can attain this ideal even approximately, we shall have achieved much and the work we have tried to do will not have been in vain.

The council must have a high status, and that it can only have by virtue of the persons who serve on it; so much so that it will not have to apply force in exercising its authority, and everybody who has anything to do with education will recognize in this council a body of such high and sovereign status that they will willingly follow its advice. The council must give guidance in such a way that everybody who has anything to do with this great and important matter will feel that they are now getting the guidance which has thus far been lacking. I again want to return to the speaker who spoke before me and say something more on one matter. I would like to direct an earnest appeal to the Opposition, and particularly to those members of the Opposition who served with us on the Select Committee. And that is: that they should get rid of their inferiority complex, an inferiority complex of which we had such a striking example on the part of the former speaker—linking up one inferior thought with another until one has a whole caboodle of inferior thoughts of which one can really be ashamed. My appeal to the Opposition is to get rid of that feeling. That inferiority complex is there only to hide their nakedness; it is negative, humiliating and destructive. We cannot help such people, and they cannot help us. I do not make this appeal in any derogatory sense. I am convinced that what I have said is the absolute truth, yet I do not say it with the object of hurting or inflicting wounds, but I direct that appeal to my fellow-Afrikaners who are represented by hon. members opposite in this House. I ask them to assist us; we need their help. We need everybody; we must have them with us. We live together in one country with one future, and whether we want to admit that or not makes no difference. This duality—I almost want to say separateness—which we still see so often is disappearing. In fact, it must disappear before South Africa can really be nationally sound.

In this Bill we are again making an attempt to promote the unity we would like to have and to give form to it. I do not think the Bill asks too much, because even if all the advice which this council gives us can be implemented, we will only be on the road towards our objective. It should be noted, Sir, that there are population groups in South Africa which are already on that road. That is the case in regard to Bantu education. Here we have got rid of the mutually destructive heterogeneity—not a firm pattern, not a straitjacket, but cooperation and co-ordination. Yesterday we obtained it for the Coloured population. Therefore these two population groups already have it. But as against that, we find that a disruptive heterogeneity is being advocated for the Whites! Is that logical? Cannot we give ourselves some of the valuable things we have given to others?

This Bill does not amount to the usurpation of Provincial rights. You will find that nowhere in the Bill. Apart from that, the Chair has already given such a decision. In spite of that, we again had from the first speaker this morning futile attempts to dig up those old bones, but quite unsuccessfully.

If this Education Council makes a recommendation which is not accepted by a province, what will the attitude of the council be then?

That question has been asked so often already that it has become threadbare. The council will only give advice to the Minister, and the Minister will be the person who has to judge whether it is in the national interest and whether it is opportune. If it is not, it is a dead letter; if it is, it may become something vital. One can only have a vital organization if all sections of it are prepared to accept it and to support it.

Together with my colleagues in the Select Committee, I had only two objects in mind. The first was the more effective preparation of all the members of our nation still attending school for the particular task awaiting them in this Africa of which we form part. The other objective I can formulate in this way, namely less wastage and splintering of the numerically few teachers already available to us. I know that these two objectives I have just mentioned are not contained in the Bill, but I personally consider that that is the ideal which we must strive to attain. This Bill cannot make provision for that, nor does it do so. All it does is to make possible co-ordinated research in the sphere of education in co-operation with all institutes who can render assistance and with local and provincial authorities, and then to formulate recommendations as to how those objectives can be attained. I believe that a new and vital body is being established by this Bill, which through research and the formulation of scientific findings can give guidance to all authorities concerned with education. If we achieve this goal only partially, the work of the Select Committee will still have been worth while.

For the rest, the Bill provides a test. It will afford proof as to who want to make South Africa strong by co-operation, or who want to weaken it and make it the victim of division and mutual jealousy. We are being asked, each one of us, to choose between these two alternatives, and on that will depend whether we become the victim of weakness born out of fear, fear which in its turn emanates from the inherent weakness of immaturity. That is the appeal I make to my fellow members opposite. The time has now arrived for them in heaven’s name to be mature in regard to this matter of education.

Nothing that the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Dr. J. H. Steyn) has said has dispelled my fears about this Bill and I still intend voting against its second reading. That hon. member advanced the theory that some benefit could be derived from uniformity and universality in education in this country. To my mind, its effect will be the opposite. He mentioned, for instance, the success achieved under the Bantu Education Act. To my mind, however, this Act and the number of failures amongst Bantu children, has done anything but prove that it has been a success. Therefore I say that nothing that the hon. member said has helped me to feel more at ease about the importance and implications of this measure.

Now, we have been discussing the question of an advisory council for education in South Africa for some years already. There have been various Select Committees and the Bill has come before this House for its first reading on at least two occasions. Since the Bill was sent to a Select Committee for the first time, there have been some changes to it and I want to show how far these amendments go towards meeting the fear—and there has I concede been such an attempt—expressed by numerous bodies and organizations which gave evidence before the Select Committee. I do not, however, consider these amendments to be very important and they certainly do not offset the basic objections which I have to this measure. One provision which I find in the Bill now before the House which I could not find in the original Bill, is a provision that the proposed Council will submit annual reports to Parliament. One would, therefore, be able to form some idea of the working and activities of the Council. This I consider to be an improvement. In the original Bill the Minister had, with the exception of the provincial representatives, unfettered power in regard to the appointment of members of the Council. The present Bill introduces some qualification at least in so far as members of the Council have to be persons who have distinguished themselves in the field of education or who, in the opinion of the Minister are specially qualified in some aspect of the work of the Council. This constitutes an improvement in wording but in practice it does not mean very much. I say so for the following reasons. Firstly, all members are to be appointed by the Minister and may be dismissed by him. Apart from the provision relating to the representatives of the provincial administrations and of the Department of Education, Arts and Science, there is nothing in the clause to guarantee that the other members of the Council will represent any other point of view than that held by the Minister. They might start off by representing a different point of view, but they will not last very long if they continue to act in a way which conflicts with the Minister’s point of view. Another aspect is that no educational organization has any specific representation on the Council. Universities have no such representation, nor has commerce and industry. In this connection I want to point out that in the Federation, where the Government there is at present setting up an advisory council for education, there will be representatives on the council not only of the school principals, but also of teachers’ organizations. These organizations will nominate their representatives for the purpose of putting forward their respective organization’s points of view. Furthermore, representation is also being given to other bodies in the community having a special interest in education. This will ensure that many points of view will be represented on the council. As far as South Africa is concerned, we already have had an unhappy precedent in the Transvaal in that when attempts were made to try and have different points of view represented on the school boards after the system was changed, the Executive Committee of the Transvaal made it quite clear that only people who were sympathetic to the Government would be appointed to represent minority groups. English-speaking parents, in other words, will be represented by persons who, although English-speaking, largely support the views of the Nationalist Government.

One can assume, therefore, that for the Council proposed in this Bill, the Minister will be able to find enough persons to qualify for appointment in terms of this Bill who are “persons who have distinguished themselves in the field of education” because large numbers of Nationalists have done so. There is, however, no guarantee that the persons the Minister is going to appoint will fall into a category other than those who represent the views of the Minister. A major objection against the original Bill was that it contained a clause empowering the Council to conduct investigations in connection with any of the basic principles of education. What was meant by “basic principles of education” was, however, nowhere to be found. The phrase as such does not appear in the new Bill, but no real improvement has been effected because the investigations can now be such “as the Minister may direct”. That is very wide indeed. Any committee set up by the Minister to conduct such investigation as he may direct, in other words, can turn out to be a very important pressure group both in the school itself and in the provincial executive committees.

Furthermore, there is a conflict between Clause 5 (2) and Clause 7 (4) of this Bill. The latter provision reads—

Can the Minister name me any other democratic country where an advisory body has been given the power to investigate individual schools? I do not think there is any such instance. In this country we already have a school inspectorate with wide powers to investigate the standards of education at a particular school. Clause 7 conflicts with the provisions of Clause 5 entitling the committees appointed by the Minister to perform such functions as the Council may determine. These functions are not limited.

The bare facts of the matter, in any case, are that whoever controls the policy with regard to education, controls education itself. The administrative side of education is, after all, the least important of all the factors which enter here. One is far from being reassured when one remembers the words used by the Prime Minister when opening the new headquarters of the Transvaal Provincial Administration, namely that education would remain in the hands of the provinces but that the Government would determine the policy which would be the best for all. That, Sir, is hardly reassuring.

I wonder whether the Minister can tell us something definite in regard to the “basic principles” of sound education mentioned in Clause 7 (2). According to the clause the Council will have to determine the “broad fundamental principles of sound education” in consultation with the Department of Education, Arts and Science, the provincial education departments, education bodies and organizations and persons who are concerned with education matters. To this, however, some saving words have been added, presumably intended to dispel the fears of those who fear that uniformity might be imposed on our educational systems, namely—

I am very glad that now we have at least an official recognition that some form of diversity is demanded but one wonders how much diversity one can expect in the circumstances. Sir, I am trying to be as fair-minded as, I can about this new Bill which has emerged from the Select Committee. I believe it to be a slight improvement, but at the same time I want to make quite sure that the underlying basis is also understood. Clause 7 (3) of this Bill says—

Despite this, unfortunately, the very nature of this Bill reduces the status of the school teacher from a servant to the people, which is what a teacher should be, to a civil servant under strict bureaucratic control.

Where do you get that from?

Sir, I read it in the Bill; I read it in the whole tenor of the Bill. The investigating committee can go and examine the teaching at schools, it can make recommendations to the Minister on the contents; of education. I am sure that all teachers who are against this Bill will read exactly the same import into it as I do, namely that the teacher will come under much more bureaucratic control. There are many teachers who are not going to be prepared in any way to be intimidated or to have their methods of teaching changed by the existence of this Bill. Nevertheless they will operate under conditions of bureaucratic control and they will know perfectly well that they will be subject to dismissal if indeed it is felt that they have exceeded their functions.

Now, Sir, if we contrast the position which is going to obtain in our schools in South Africa with the condition in other countries we will see that we are proceeding in directly the opposite direction. Everywhere else in the world there is a tendency towards diversification and decentralization and not towards unification or towards uniformity of school systems. The British Bill was quoted by the hon. member as an example of centralization of education. It is no such thing. The Butler Act did not bring in a uniform Act for British education.

Helen, you don’t charm me at all.

I want to inform the hon. member that my purpose for being in this House is not to charm him; in fact I would much rather alarm him. But he does not seem to be very alarmed either. The Butler Act did not introduce uniformity in education; it is a complete system of diversification. There are no fewer than 146 local education authorities which allow for the greatest possible flexibility, diversity and independence. Each school principal draws up his own curriculum and chooses his own books. That, as I say, is the trend in the whole world. In both the United States and Canada education is highly decentralized, divorced and free from Government control. France has a highly centralized system of education but it is moving in the opposite direction now and is trying to bring back regional education councils. In Germany they have a completely decentralized system of education and it is only in Soviet Russia that we find the maintenance of a highly centralized system of education. I should say that we should be going all out for diversification. I do not agree with the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Dr. J. H. Steyn) who seems to find some great ideal which should be imposed with uniformity on the whole country. I believe that the whole of modern life is already subject to such a barrage of what I would call “forces from above”, that it will be to a great disadvantage to all of us if our children were not taught to think for themselves, to have open minds and to draw what they can from diverse cultures; and not to have special ideals which, in fact, only apply to one section of the community, forced on to the entire community. As it is we are subjected in modern life to such a barrage of brain-washing, of propaganda from the radio, from advertisements, from films, that it is very difficult indeed to be an independent thinker in modern times and to maintain one’s own characteristics; be it in the line of fashion, general reading, everything, there is a tendency to-day for uniformity mainly because our propaganda methods have been developed to such a high extent. Judge Learned Hand put it very well indeed. Sir. He said—

Sir, I believe that that is what we should avoid at all costs in our schools. Having tried in a very superficial way to analyse the Bill itself, I want to make some general observations in regard to education. I believe it would be foolish for us to say that there was nothing wrong with our educational system in South Africa because surely there are obvious faults. Standards are low compared with many other countries. I would say that in certain subjects the standard is appallingly low and it is getting lower each year. Take such a subject as English. I think it is common cause that the standard of English throughout South Africa is getting worse and worse.

Because there are no English-speaking teachers.

The hon. member is quite right, Sir. The reason is that in our English medium schools many of the teachers are not English speaking, and the subject of English taught in the Afrikaans medium schools is not taught by people whose home language is English. The hon. member is quite correct. The English-speaking section of this country has not supplied the number of teachers that it should have supplied. I am the first to admit that and the first to deplore it. I might say, Sir, that I tried very hard to persuade both my daughters to take up the teaching profession but unfortunately with no good results. However, that is unimportant. But I recognize that it is the fault of the English-speaking community that it had not supplied its percentage of teachers to the country. Why that is so, I do not know, but I can tell the hon. the Minister this: that a Bill of this sort is not going to encourage English-speaking children to go into the teaching profession.

Why do you say that? How do you know what this Council is going to do?

I will tell the hon. Minister in a minute what I think it is going to do; I don’t know what it is going to do.

Yes, what you think it is going to do!

I can tell the hon. Minister that my suspicions are unfortunately shared by a large number of people in this country; they are probably shared by nearly half of the White population of South Africa. Let me just finish analysing the faults of our educational system. I have mentioned that English is deplorably low and that the standard is getting worse every year and I have given as the reason that which the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) has advanced. In fact, I think it is true to say that we have serious cause to worry, as everybody will agree who has seen “Wait a Minim” with “Ag, please Deddy” which is becoming a very popular song in South Africa. [Interjections.] It is no reflection on the Afrikaans-speaking section, Sir, it is a reflection on the English-speaking section. And that is the way the English-speaking children speak in this country to-day. It is a mixture of both languages, and it is not a very attractive language either. So that is the first thing; something must be done about raising the standard of English in this country.

There is no doubt that there are other things wrong with our system of education. Otherwise you would not have that tremendously high percentage of first-year university failures. I want to give one reason for that, Sir. I taught at a university for seven years and it was astonishing to me to find how badly students, who had gained a first class in their matriculation examination, were doing in their first year at university. And I am afraid that the conclusion I had to come to was that they were very badly taught at school. There seems to be a tendency in our schools for the teachers to write out model answers to questions which they believe are going to crop up in the examinations. The children learn these off by heart and they churn them out like sausages from a sausage machine and they gain high marks. But this is not the way to teach children how to think for themselves; this is not the way to teach children how to absorb what education should be offering them. [Interjections.] That is why I say we want an investigation into all these mistakes in our educational system, but I do not believe that the Council is going to be the right body to do so. I believe that two things should have held up this Bill. Firstly, and very important, is the report of the Schumann Commission which inquired into the financial relations between the provinces and the Central Government. One of the terms of reference of that commission was the very question of the training of teachers. Of course if teachers are better trained, children will be better taught. The whole thing is linked together. I think it would be very wise on the part of this House to wait for the report of that commission which I believe is expected next year; so it is not a very long time for us to delay the passage of this Bill. The second important reason is that I really do not think that we have had a proper investigation into what is wrong with education in South Africa. I know the hon. the Minister is going to throw up his hands and say we have had commission after commission reporting and that we have select committee after select committee. I want to say one thing and that is that I do not believe a select committee composed of party politicians is the ideal body to investigate this question, however ably and however conscientiously that committee carried out its task. That is the first thing, and the other thing I want to say, Sir, is this that despite the fact that we have had other commission reports on education, I believe it is a very long time indeed—in fact I think the last one was the Hofmeyr Commission in 1924—since we have really had a commission going into the whole question of co-ordination of education on a national scale. Others have been provincial commissions. The de Villiers Commission dealt largely with vocational and technical training, if I am not mistaken. It did not deal with primary and secondary education. Therefore, Sir, it is true to say that it is a very long time since we have had a commission that investigated the whole system of education on a national scale.

Do you really believe that a commission can solve all these problems?

No, Sir, I do not believe any commission has ever solved any problem in its entirety. But the reason why I suggest it, is that a commission consisting of independent experts together with persons who have a special interest in education, such as members from commerce and industry, people who have to employ the products from the schools, members of university councils, will be in a position to take evidence in a more impartial way and to sift it in a more impartial way. I think it would have been to our advantage had we had a Judge who was trained to sift evidence at the head of this committee. I believe we are in fact going too fast with this. [Interjections.] The Press Commission is not a very good example. But there have been other commissions, such as the Fagan Commission, which was headed by a Judge, which did not take hundreds of years to report at the cost of many thousands of pounds to the State. So it is possible to have an official commission headed by a Judge with experts on it who are not party politicians, a commission which could have given us a real report on the difficulties and shortcomings of our educational system. Those were the factors which I wanted to point out.

As I say, Sir, these are the things we should be worrying about; why are we having such a high rate of failures of first-year university students; why is there such a shortage of teachers; why higher standards are not maintained in our schools? All that, Sir, is very different indeed from centralizing the policy of education. The hon. Minister asked me why I though the Council was going to carry out its functions in the way I had indicated. I want to give him the reasons for my suspicions and the suspicions of a large section of the White community of South Africa. First of all, I have read this report very carefully. It is very interesting indeed and some very interesting evidence was given. I must say, however, that one sentence really made my blood run cold because it seemed to me that it exactly expressed the fears I have and which a large section of the English-speaking community has, and that is when evidence was given by the I.K.K. which claimed to represent 90 per cent of the Afrikaans-speaking people in this country they stated on page 67—

That was the first thing which worried me considerably, Sir. As mentioned before, past events have also created a great deal of suspicion. Past events have been the reason why we have had so many public protests, why over 80,000 people signed a petition which was presented to Parliament last year. There are further reasons why people are so disturbed. The first reason, of course, is that some people see in this an infringement of the autonomy of the provinces. This, I must say, was not the main reason why people were really worried although some people specifically devoted their fears to that subject. But that is not my particular worry. What really worries the majority of citizens and which certainly worries me, is that they see in the council an instrument, despite the inclusion of the words “with due regard to diversity”, to impose a uniform system of education on the country—and I want to stress this—which is not a homogeneous country; it is a heterogenous country which, taking the White race alone, has got two distinct sections, each with its own traditions, its own culture as well as its own language and even, to a large extent, its own political philosophy. This was expressed very well by Prof. Macmillan in his evidence to the Select Committee. It is not necessary for me to quote it. There are other reasons, of course, why one has these fears. Firstly, Sir, the Prime Minister has made his views very well known over the years to everyone. In 1959 he stated “there would be uniformity in the sphere of education; it could not be otherwise, because the nation could maintain only one ideal in this sphere. There could not be one ideal for one part of the country and another for another part of the country. The Government would lay down in legislation that which could be expected from education in South Africa. National institutions and provincial authorities would have to adjust themselves to the new educational ideal”. Then, Sir, we had a lesser oracle speaking, the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert), whom I am unable to charm. He said—

Does the hon. member remember saying that?

That is right.

He does, you see, Sir. Now that is another thing which worried everybody because everybody knows that the hon. member for Witbank is one of the educational experts of the Nationalist Party. So clearly that also worried everybody. At least I have earned his gratitude, even though I cannot charm him!

Then, Sir, the then Deputy Minister of Education, the present Minister of Justice, stated in 1959 at a National Party Congress in Natal—

None of these statements was particularly reassuring to the English-speaking section. Despite the fact that we have since had denials, that no centralized control is envisaged, none of us really has been able to extract exactly what “die volksideaal” is to which the Prime Minister referred. Nobody has yet been able to determine, of course, what the basic policy and principles of education under the Nationalist Party Government are to be. What we do know, however, is what has already happened in this country. I know that it has been said that C.N.E.—and the Prime Minister himself has said it—is a scare slogan and a thing of the past. Well, if one examines what has happened in education over the last 15 years, it is very much not a thing of the past; it is very much a thing of the present. I want to give a few examples why I say that. A great deal that was envisaged in the original policy laid down and published in a pamphlet of the Institute for C.N.E. is already in fact being implemented in this country. I want to give some examples. Everything, such as the Transvaal Language Ordinance, the single medium education, no parental choice, etc., appear in this pamphlet. The Transvaal Education Ordinance which emasculated the powers of school boards, is part of that policy. There have been repeated onslaughts on the conscience clause over the years in Parliament; the passing of the Bantu Education Act to which the hon. member for Potchefstroom referred with some reverence, is an Act under which African children are educated by the State for the status in life which they are to have for the rest of their adult life. The Separate Universities Act—no mixing either in lower schools of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking children and in the higher educational spheres between the different racial groups. There is the whole question of the new religious syllabuses which have been introduced into our schools; there is the Book Guide which approves of the books which may appear in the libraries of the Transvaal schools. No books may appear in the school libraries unless they have been approved by the Book Guide; the introduction in the Transvaal of this subject known as race studies, a subject which teaches a sort of skew anthropology, that is the only way I can describe it, Sir, and which is based largely on what the Administrator of the Transvaal calls teaching the children a “White consciousness”. So our children are taught race studies in the schools. All this, Sir, is part and parcel of the basic policy originally laid down by the Institute of Christian National Education. It makes it quite clear to all of us that we have already proceeded a long way on this particular road. Only a few more steps are necessary to complete the journey. I maintain—and I believe I have good evidence in maintaining it—that this Bill is one of the final stages. We had another stage announced yesterday and that was the announcement by the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs to the effect that it was the intention to take Coloured education away from the provinces and to place it under his own centralized Department. That is another way of enforcing apartheid in education on the Coloured people. Over the years people who disagree with the Government have watched one piece of legislation after the other come on to the Statute Book which, we believe, tries to mould South Africa into a certain form. To a large extent, of course, all this is in conformity with the apartheid ideal expressed by the Government. I believe that pretty well all the socio-economic part of the Government’s programme is now on the Statute Book. [Interjections.] The Bill has nothing to do with apartheid, Sir; I only mentioned that this was one of the final steps which had to be carried out to implement the policy to its fullest. There remains this one important item and that is to neutralize future opposition to the implementation of the ideological programme which is already on the Statute Book. The best way to do that, of course, is to neutralize opposition at its source, the coming generations. To a large extent this has already been accomplished with the Afrikaans-speaking children of this country. I believe that further uniformity is going to be imposed on the other section and this is what the people fear. They have a different political philosophy from the hon. the Minister. He may not accept this, but they have a different philosophy. And as I say it was very well expressed by Prof. Macmillan when he gave evidence to the Select Committee.

I believe that the Government realizes that the easiest way to neutralize future opposition is to persuade the younger generation of English-speaking children that its ideology, its socio-economic programme, its way of life is the ideal, “die volksideaal” to which the hon. the Prime Minister referred. There is an old German system which was followed even in the pre-Hitler days, which made it very easy indeed, by the stroke of a pen, to bring the whole of the German school system under the authority of the Nazi régime. That was the time when they said “What we want to put into the State we must first put into the schools”. That, I believe, is the great objective behind this Bill. That is why I say, that despite the fact that there are certain changes in the new Bill, changes which to some extent I believe, have been designed to allay the fears of people who have expressly announced their opposition to such a uniform education council, no basic change or real improvement has been effected and, therefore, Sir, I shall vote against the second reading.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and I want to congratulate her on the forceful way in which she has supported this measure by the arguments she has used! All the arguments she has used have just proved once again how essential such an education council is, and that it is high time that we should establish such a council. I say that this measure has come at the right time, at a time when South Africa has entered a new era; we have our own national anthem; we have our own flag; we have our own Republic; the homelands are being established. These facts alone offer an almost superhuman challenge not only to us but also and particularly to the youth of South Africa. Because it will be the youth of South Africa who will have to give our fatherland, the young Republic, its own content, its own character and its own personality. It is the youth of South Africa who will have to place our own characteristic stamp on our fatherland, because we cannot allow foreign nations, foreign ideologies to impress their earmarks and brands on our fatherland.

To accept this challenge and to carry out our task worthily, the very best mental equipment must be provided to our youth. They will have to be given the best education. In all four provinces, by means of method and content, all our children will have to be offered equal opportunities so that they can render the highest possible service to our country. I say it is high time this measure was introduced.

I also want to express my great praise and appreciation to the provincial councils for what they have done hitherto on behalf of the education of our children. But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow this fact to blind us to the deficiencies, to the mental erosion which has already taken place, as appeared from the evidence, as a result of a lack of co-ordination and unity together with diversity of planning as the need, arose from time to time. For that reason this measure to me not only represents the fulfilment of a long-desired need, but to me it is also one of the most precious gifts which we can give this generation and future generations. By this measure we are ensuring the education, the sound education of our youth and we are also taking out an insurance policy to ensure the sound growth and development of our nation in the spiritual as well as the material spheres. I am glad, Mr. Speaker, that I could play a part in paying the premium on this policy. The whole nation is rejoicing over this measure. Everyone is glad. There is a deep wish that this measure had been introduced a long time ago already. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) can laugh in his ignorance. The hon. member moves in a very narrow circle in Durban. He does not know much of what is going on in the rest of the country. That is why he is laughing. If he was familiar with the education conditions in our country, and even in his own province, he would not have laughed; then he would have supported this measure. I say he is laughing in his ignorance. But it is only the United Party and their spiritual comrades in arms, with their characteristic obstructive mentality, who want to defeat this measure. They are the only ones. What are the reasons for this opposition? Many reasons have been mentioned, but there are certain reasons in particular for the opposition they are putting forward which stand out above all the others. The first reason they give is that the autonomy of the provincial councils will be undermined, and that that is in conflict with the Constitution. This is the reason they have given. Nowhere in this Bill is the autonomy of the provinces interfered with. On the contrary, by the grace of this Parliament education will still remain in the hands of the provinces. We only want to establish a council which will co-ordinate and recommend unity of planning.

What does “coordinate” mean?

Here we have yet another typical example of ignorance.

It comes from the Latin. [Laughter.]*

The second reason is that the council will be a political instrument in the hands of the Government. Here I want to express my strongest objections to the insult which has been levelled not only at the Minister, namely that he will be so petty that he will try to use such an important council, a council which through its opinions, its advice, its study and research, must influence the whole education system of our country, as an instrument for his own political benefit. I reject that allegation with the contempt it deserves.

Who has said that?

Read the newspapers and Hansard; then you will find out. I do not want to try to teach that hon. member because he cannot grasp what I am saying. [Interjections.] Secondly, I want to lodge the strongest objection to the fact that they are already in advance trying to undermine the status of this council by saying that its members will be instruments in the hands of the Minister.

Who said that?

Etienne Malan said so.

They say that a colossal disaster has struck South Africa in the shape of this measure, but I think that a colossal disaster has struck the United Party because of its ignorance and its opposition to this measure. I say this is a deplorable besmirching of the members who are still to be appointed. The Minister has said that he will only appoint prominent educationists. Do hon. members want to say that all the prominent educationists in this country are Nationalists? Do they not have one single prominent educationist on their side? I say it is scandalous already to undermine the status of these people and to make the public suspicious in advance. They are deliberately creating suspicion.

The third reason they have given is that the Minister will appoint the members and they will then be obliged to think as the Minister thinks. Let us examine the position as it will be if hon. members opposite get their way. They want, and the hon. member for Houghton also proposed this, the members to be nominated by all the educational and other organizations. What will happen if they get their way? We shall have a number of representatives of group interests instead of national interests, and they will make recommendations in accordance with the wishes of the particular group which nominated them. In other words, we shall have Chaos and we shall not have the best advice and research. But because the Minister will only appoint prominent educationists without advance instructions, these people can approach the problems before them with free hands and purely on an objective and scientific basis.

Furthermore, they say that the measure should be abandoned because the English-speaking people particularly see dark motives behind it. They are afraid that the English-speaking child will be done an injustice. They are afraid that a certain philosophy of life will be forced upon the English-speaking child.

On all children.

If the English-speaking people and the United Party can give one example of where this National Party Government has done the English-speaking children an injustice or wanted to do so, then they would have reason for their fears, but I am convinced that they cannot give one single example. What then is the reason for this fear? There are no examples and this Government has already been in power for many years, and there was also a previous National Party Government.

What happened at Vanderbijlpark?

There we again have ignorance. If the hon. member will only take the trouble to study that position, he would never ask such a question.

What did the parents say?

I say that if they can give one example where this Government has harmed the English-speaking people, they would have reason for their fears. But this is an admission that if English-speaking persons should be appointed to this council, they will be too weak-kneed and too spineless to ensure that the English-speaking child is not done an injustice. Their argument shows that they do not feel themselves capable of ensuring, when the annual report of the council is laid upon the Table of this House, in this House that the English-speaking child is not done an injustice. No, their fear flows from the fact that for so many years and today still, they have sinned in this regard and now they are judging us by themselves. For all these years they themselves have done these things which they are now afraid the Government will do.

Give one example.*

I am going to do so now. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) has said that this measure is aimed particularly at Natal. Why? Why is he afraid that this measure is aimed at Natal? What is the reason? Why is he afraid of that? In passing I just want to help him out of his dreams. If this council should make a recommendation, and the Minister should accept it, then it will not only affect Natal. In the other provinces the necessary co-ordination and unity of diversified planning are also lacking. They will also be affected, just as Natal will be affected. This council is not being established for the benefit of one province, but for the whole Republic. But now the hon. member has let the cat out of the bag. Because he is afraid for Natal’s sake, I just want to examine the position in Natal for a few moments, and it is not only I who have said this. Mr. Essery, a member of the provincial council, urged at the most recent sitting of the Natal Provincial Council that a commission should be appointed to inquire into education in that province. He was very concerned. The hon. member for Houghton has stated specifically—and I agree—that there are many deficiencies in our education. When one reads the evidence, one sees that leading educationists have said that a vast spiritual erosion has already taken place, and we cannot allow it to continue any further. That is why Mr. Essery has asked for a commission of inquiry in Natal.

Before going into details as regards Natal, I just want to discuss one person who comes from Natal, a person who is held in high regard by the United Party in that province and who gave evidence before the Select Committee, namely Dr. E. G. Malherbe, the Principal of the University of Natal. He came in his personal capacity and not on behalf of his university. When one reads his evidence, one can see why he came in his personal capacity, because it consists exclusively of “I did this” and “I did that”; he is full of himself and true to his nature he appeared before the Select Committee and put forward a lot of petty political arguments with the naïve parrot cry: “I do not know whether in the near future we shall have a Department of Afrikaner Affairs and a Department of English Affairs.” But he has not only said this before the Select Committee. He can no longer address his students on graduation day without making a purely political speech, and on that occasion he repeated those same words to his students-—we can expect to have a Department of Afrikaner Affairs and a Department of English Affairs to-morrow or the day after. Whenever he addresses his students, he walks knee-deep in the political mud, but on this occasion he gave evidence and said he was afraid. But I can tell Dr. Malherbe that if he goes on in this way, he will be reducing the University of Natal, a full-fledged university, to the status of a third-rate training school for the Progressive Party. Then he complained before the Select Committee that he could not get funds and he referred to the Government’s practice of establishing departments, but of not giving Natal enough money. I want to tell Dr. Malherbe this. Why does he not emulate the example of the principals of other universities who work to further the interests of education, and who approach the public and ask for donations for their universities? He also does so, but he first makes a political speech and then he expects the well-to-do people of Natal and the Government to give his university money, where he makes political speeches and indoctrinates the students just as he likes. I also mention this instance: He also gave evidence before the Select Committee and he is the great educational Nestor of the United Party, but he has become the pseudo-educational hack of the Progressive Party. The hon. member for Houghton has used practically all his arguments and those of Professor Macmillan in this House to-day. It seems to me that she has been visiting Durban. I think it is the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) who together with the hon. member for Berea feels very upset at the possibility that there may be political appointments, and the hon. member for Houghton has said this as well. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) is very concerned at the fact that this measure, so he thinks, is aimed at Natal. Let us examine the educational position in that province. The hon. member has probably already heard of a certain Mr. A. C. Martin. He was the principal of the Durban Boys’ High School. On his retirement on pension he immediately joined the Federal Party. He stood as a candidate at two elections for that party. During his election campaign he made the most libellous statements about Mr. Murray Booysen, Mr. Jan Stander, the Administration, the “Natalse Onderwys-unie”, the F.A.K. and everything that is Afrikaans-inclined. After his notorious Empangeni speech the Executive Committee gave instructions that a commission of inquiry, the Jarvis Commission, should be appointed. The finding of that commission was that all the allegations against Mr. Murray Booysen, Mr. Piet Groenewald (now a Senator), Mr. Jan Stander and the Administration were incorrect; they found against him. But what happened then? In spite of the findings of that commission, Dr. McConkey—and we know his political history—appointed Mr. Martin as an assistant at the Mansfield High School in Durban. Despite all his political activities, despite all his accusations, Dr. McConkey appointed him as an assistant at one of their schools. The protests of the director and the “Natalse Onderwys-unie” fell on deaf ears, and when the matter was raised in the Natal Provincial Council, the naïve reply was given that Dr. McConkey had appointed him and the Executive Committee could do nothing about it. That is what is going on in Natal, and that is why the hon. member is so concerned; that is why he says that this measure is aimed at Natal. The hon. member has also referred to Mr. Stander and it was precisely here that he exposed himself completely. The political Mr. Martin is acceptable but the educationist, Mr. Stander, is not acceptable because the hon. member suspects that his sympathies lie with this Government. How do we explain this? He accuses us of political appointments and claims that we will use this council as a political instrument, while he knows that all these things are going on in his province. There political appointments are made on a large scale. The other fear in the mind of the hon. member and the other Natal members is the fear that such an education council may recommend that mother tongue education, for example, should be introduced, and how will Natal be affected? In that province they have parental choice. Mr. Speaker, this principle of parental choice sounds all very well, but it is the biggest piece of hypocrisy I have ever encountered, and I want to prove this. In 1946-7 certain parents found out that their child was very unhappy. The child did not want to talk because the parents had prohibited the child from telling stories about teachers, but at the insistence of the father the child then revealed that she had already been in the English-medium class for 14 days. On the father making inquiries, the principal’s excuse was that she herself had put the child in the class because she thought it would do the child good—without the parents’ consent. Then there was no such thing as parental choice. An Afrikaans child was arbitrarily taken and placed in the English-medium class without the consent of the parents. I want to give another example. An Afrikaans speaking parent, as a result of circumstances, had to put his child in the hostel at Ladysmith. The principal of the school told the parent: “I have a place in the hostel but I do not have accommodation in the Afrikaans class; it is full; I therefore cannot accept your child in the hostel, but if you agree to my placing the child in an English-medium class, where I do have accommodation, then I can accept him in the hostel.” The poor parent had no option. Parental choice did not count and he of necessity had to place the child in the English-medium class. Let us analyse for a few moments what happened when the Smuts Government introduced its duel-medium education. When it introduced its dual-medium education, Dr. Malherbe was the first to issue a pamphlet that this was the educational principle par excellence, namely dual medium. Then he wanted to convince everyone that dual-medium education was the solution. The United Party in Natal immediately got going and built one of the finest schools in the country which was to serve as a dual-medium school. But look what they did. They thought out a clever plan. The Voortrekker School in Pietermaritzburg had expanded tremendously. It had in effect become too small for the number of students. They then thought up this plan: They would take the secondary classes of the Russell High School for Girls and of the Harvad School for Boys and place them in this new school; then they would also take the secondary classes of the Voortrekker High School and place them in this school as well, and the Afrikaans-speaking children would then be in the minority. Thus they would have a mixed dual-medium school. When this plan leaked out, there was the very devil to pay. The English-speaking parents immediately put down their foot and said: We are not going to give up the spirit of our school; we refuse to send our children to the dual-medium school. The Afrikaans-speaking parents also protested, and then the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) and his Executive Committee were in difficulties. They had built this magnificent school but the English-speaking parents did not want to give their consent for the secondary classes of those two schools to be transferred to the new school, and the Afrikaans-speaking parents would not do so either. The parents were not consulted; then parental choice meant nothing. They went even further and they took the primary classes of the Voortrekker School and transferred them to the Boom Street School which had a unilingual English-speaking person as its principal, without the consent of the parents. The reply by the Afrikaans-speaking parents was the little C.N.O. school which was established there, and which the Administration through the medium of the F.A.K. later took over. But now they were in difficulties; they had built this magnificent school and the parentis did not want to send their children there. Then Mr. Banks, the Director of Education, instructed Mr. Murray Booysen to devise a plan to overcome this difficulty. Bearing in mind the numbers of students and the feelings of the parents, Mr. Murray Booysen then proposed that Russell High and Harvad should be left untouched and that the new school should be allocated to Afrikaans education. Thus it has come about that the Afrikaans children to-day can boast of this magnificent school in Pietermaritzburg which they were given not as a result of a concession by the United Party, not through the generosity of the United Party, but through the misfortunes of the United Party. Because they wanted to get out of difficulties, the Executive Committee accepted Mr. Murray Booysen’s plan and thus the children were given that school. When we examine school accommodation …

You know more about goats than you know about education.

The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) …

He does not even know that he knows nothing.

Order! Hon. members should not be so personal.

The hon. member for Hillbrow persists in making objectionable remarks and I just want to tell him that what he knows of education is very little and dangerous.

Thank you for the compliment.

Mr. Speaker, more than 30 per cent of the children in Natal come from Afrikaans homes …

25 per cent.

…yet only 12.1 per cent of the school accommodation is allotted to them, with Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.

Do they not go to school there?*

Yes, they go to school, and if the hon. member were not so ignorant of the position there, he would have waited until I was finished. Only 12.1 per cent of the school accommodation is allotted to Afrikaans-speaking children while 51 per cent is allotted to the English-speaking children and 36.9 per cent to parallel-medium schools where Afrikaans-speaking children are also in the majority. What do these percentages mean? It simply means that in Natal English-speaking parents can exercise their parental choice freely because they can place their children in English-medium classes anywhere in the province because the accommodation is available, but the Afrikaans-speaking parents cannot do so simply because the schools are not available.

That is not true.

The hon. member for Hillbrow is becoming the great denier par excellence; he denies everything.

He will deny his existence as well.

I say that this injustice is found particularly in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. In Durban English-speaking children have 13 high schools and 35 primary schools scattered throughout the whole city. In other words, the English-speaking parents can conveniently place their children in English-medium schools, while the Afrikaans children only have four high schools, of which three have only been built during the past five years, and five primary schools. In Pietermaritzburg the ratio of high schools to primary schools is 1 to 5 and 3 to 13 respectively, in both cases in the English-speaking child’s favour. When we take the average number of students per school, the injustice is even more apparent here. In Pietermaritzburg, if we include the English-medium private schools as well, the average number of students is approximately 200 per school in the English-medium schools …

Per class.

… while the Afrikaans schools have an average number of students of 542 …

Per school.

What do these figures show? The classes at the Afrikaans-medium schools must necessarily be bigger, and what result does this have? Individual attention is an essential requirement for sound education and progress by children, particularly the child who is experiencing some difficulty. In the Afrikaans classroom that is simply out of the question because the class is too full and overcrowded. Furthermore it has the result, as the Afrikaans schools are so far apart, that the Afrikaans parent is obliged, because he cannot take his child to such a school, to place that child in an English-medium school. It is very difficult to obtain exact figures, but experts consider that in this way at least 15 per cent of the Afrikaans-speaking children finish up in English-medium classes. The Afrikaans child who does not want to sit in an English-medium class must of necessity travel long distances. He suffers physically and mentally as a result of this position, particularly with the two-session system which is applied in Natal. A further injustice to the Afrikaans child is this: There are children who have to leave their homes almost before dawn and who only return home at seven in the evening.

I know many such children in the Cape.

I say that a large proportion of the Afrikaans children lose the benefit of education in their parental homes because they spend practically the whole day travelling between their school and their home. There is another injustice: Most of the English-speaking schools are in the cities and in the cities the grounds and sport fields are kept in order and maintained free of charge by the Administration. But that is not the position in the case of the platteland schools which the Afrikaans-speaking children attend. They are not even compensated if they do this work themselves. But in the case of the urban schools the grounds and the sportfields are maintained free of charge. The House can see the Afrikaans-speaking child in the city also benefits from this. That is so, but when we examine the ratio between the cities and the platteland, hon. members will see in whose favour it is. I repeat that parental choice in Natal is a fine-sounding phrase, but every rightminded educationist in Natal, every teacher and every Afrikaans-speaking parent who does not want to put his child into an English-medium class, will tell you that this parental choice is nothing but a fraud. It is used to serve as a shock absorber in the well-designed plan of the United Party to force the Afrikaans child into the English-medium schools.

Order! The hon. member must now come back to the Bill.

In conclusion I want to say that it is high time that this measure was introduced. South Africa needs it. It is not only this Government which appreciates the importance of this measure, but it is the teachers who are urging that it be adopted, and it is the educationists who are applauding it. And apart from what the parents and the teachers feel, the children of South Africa, English-speaking as well as Afrikaans-speaking, demand of us that we should adopt this measure and give them a council which will equip them best for the work which they must do in the future so that they can play their part in a full-fledged Republic.

For 50 years, or a little more than 50 years, the educational system of our country has been in the hands of the provinces. Whether they have done a good job or whether their job has been not so good, the position is at least that the provinces have the right to determine the educational policies that apply to each province. I served in the Provincial Council together with the hon. the Minister of Education when the ordinance was brought in to make it compulsory for the Afrikaans-and English-speaking children to go to one or the other school depending on mother tongue. I disagreed with that at the time, but the Transvaal Province did have the right to do this, and I say that that right must remain with them. The right to do these things has led to decisions which sometimes were not in accordance with our wishes, at other times we had agreed, but they have those rights and those rights should stay with the provinces.

What has happened during the past few years to put into us the fear that something is not right with our educational system? What has happened during the past few years to make it imperative for this suggestion to come from a body of people together with the Minister who feel that it is now time for us to have an advisory board to regulate, to suggest, or to give advice to the Minister? I listened carefully to the hon. Minister’s second reading speech, and during the whole of his speech, I could not detect any sigh, or any suggestion from him that our educational systems have deteriorated so badly and so rapidly that it is necessary to introduce a co-ordinating and advisory council. I am not one of those who feel that our educational system in the past has been so bad that the standard of our education in South Africa is lower than the rest of the world. I do not believe that, and I say that in spite of the difficulties that have come our way during the years since Union, we have held our own as far as educational advancements are concerned. We have got people in the various professions, in the various higher councils of education itself, who can compare more than favourably with the best in the rest of the world. I am not going to be one of those who is going to say that the rank and file of the people in South Africa are so badly educated that they cannot be compared with those in the rest of the world. I have taken the trouble to look at standards in various parts of the world, and where they can be compared, I say without fear of contradiction that on the average our people in South African can, and I am sure will in the future be able to keep pace with any advancement in education, no matter where it comes from. If our young people who leave the high schools and go to the universities are found to be unable to adapts themselves to the early part of university life, it is not altogether the fault of the educational system; in many cases it is the fault of the person himself who goes to the university. If there has been one fault with our educational system, I would say that it was the fault of the teachers who have been coddling pupils too much, who have been nursing them along the line too much.

You are hardly fair now.

When those children go to the university and are left to fend for themselves, in the first year they are a little lost, and those that cannot adapt themselves to these new environments fall by the wayside, but the better ones are able to go forward and they adapt themselves to the new conditions. But, Mr. Speaker, let us not as a body condemn lock, stock and barrel our educational system and let us not condemn our teachers, because I think that what they have done is worthy of recognition and praise, and not condemnation.

May I ask the hon. member how then he accounts for the fact that so many of our high school pupils fail in their first year at the universities?

I have just said that I feel that there are very many of our people who are unable to adapt themselves to the new way of life when they come from a school into a university. There are too many of those and I feel that they have been nursed too long in the high schools. Another fault which may be found in our educational system, in the high schools, which may account for the failures in the first year of university education is that there is not an intermediate standard between the high school and the university where a pupil can be brought gradually into the ways of university life. You know that in very many countries they have intermediate classes, that intermediate class which is a higher matriculation and where the individual is asked to help himself to the educational facilities that are provided. It is there where he is trained for higher studies at the university. In our country those intermediate steps are lacking. But perhaps the Advisory Board envisaged by the hon. the Minister will bring those into being. I do not know what its function is going to be. But I do say that if the Report of the Select Committee has recommended an advisory board to be instituted, then it should be an advisory board and it must have no other powers. It must be brought into being so that any phase of our life which is affected by education shall be represented, if at all possible, on this Board. It may be necessary to have some permanent people on the Board, but in the main I would say that people who serve on this Board must be people who want to give of their best for the privilege of serving the people of our country, and I feel that these must be people who will make the question of salary something of secondary importance.

You cannot live on earth and board in Heaven.

I know and the hon. the Minister knows that the best work has been done by those people who have given their time and who have given their services in an honorary capacity.

Like other members on this side of the House and like many people outside, I stand here as one who is a little suspicious of the future activities of this advisory board. When the hon. the Minister and I were in the Provincial Council in the Transvaal, he said to me immediately after I had spoken: “If there is one thing that is going to bring unity to the people of South Africa, it is going to be this method of getting the English-speaking children into one school and the Afrikaansspeaking children into the other school.”

And we succeeded.

He said that that would be the foundation of unity. I say to him that unity will come to the people of South Africa but it won’t be because of this system of education but in spite of it, and the hon. the Minister knows it. The arguments that he then put up I am afraid show some likeness to what he has said here: Don’t be afraid of it, don’t look for spooks, there are no ghosts in the cupboard, this is a straightforward issue, there is nothing underhand in it: The fault that I find with that scheme of which he was one of the architects, is that if he wants unity in this county, if he wants to have thorough bilingualism in this country, he should have done the opposite—he should have allowed as many English-speaking children as possible to go to the Afrikaans-medium schools and Afrikaans-speaking children to come to the English-medium schools.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

The hon. member for Potchefstroom commented on the negative approach of members on this side of the House. He repeated that and he said that we on this side of the House—and I take it he also meant the people outside this House who support our view—were negative in our approach to this Bill. To me it seemed that he felt that unless we agreed to this Bill, we were being negative. I want to ask him whether he thought that the work which our members on this side of the House did on the Select Committee was negative work? If we stand here and criticize the Bill is that being negative? If we come along with amendments in the hope of improving the Bill will that be a negative approach? This is not a negative approach, Sir. We in our own way will try to help the formation of an advisory council if one is going to come into existence, but we have the right to do it in our own way. And our own way is the way we are adopting and that is, firstly, to give the best possible service on the Select Committee. Secondly, in our opinion, if criticism is levelled against this Bill we have every right to level that criticism. When the times come for suggestions to be made to improve the contents of the Bill we will do so. Mr. Speaker, our concept of education is a system that fits in with the worldwide accepted view. Education is universal; it is sought after by all countries. If we are going to believe that it is the life blood of progress and that it is the corner stone of culture and existence, then any hindrance to its progress and development, any process by which it can be isolated or confined or any restriction on its application must be condemned. To me, Sir, education must have certain cardinal essentials if it is to progress in any country. We must have the means whereby knowledge can be gathered and stored.

Thirdly, we have to have an efficient system of disseminating the knowledge that we have gained. To do those two things—to collect and to disseminate—we have to have a very efficient and active research group in education. To get knowledge as we understand it, Sir, and to have an efficient system of gathering it, whether it be in connection with writings or books or pictures or records or films, from other countries and from our own country, then we must gather all that is available from wherever it comes, from wherever progress is being made. I say that when we have got that knowledge, it is for our teachers whether they be in primary or secondary schools, it is for the lecturers at our universities, to be efficient in the dissemination of that knowledge. In this connection I must stop to say that in my opinion unless this advisory council takes into consideration the furtherance and the betterment of the forces which we now have and the opportunities which we now have in training our teachers, the whole system must break down.

In the definition of “Education” as we have it here, education is limited to primary and secondary schools. I know that we want the universities to be autonomous; that there should be no interference with them, but we must remember that the teachers must have a bridge between the universities and the schools. That to me is of cardinal importance. The efficient teaching of the ability to impart knowledge is of cardinal importance. If we are failing anywhere in our present educational system it is in that respect. I do not think for a moment that our children are unable to gather the knowledge. I think they are well able to do so but what I do think is that some of our methods of imparting knowledge may not be as good as they could be. Notwithstanding that, we still find that the pupils are able to do the good work which they do do. There is only a very small proportion of the pupils in our schools who do not measure up to the standards required.

The schools where the teachers work are of great importance but not as great as the teacher problem which we have to face. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) said that in her opinion not enough teachers were coming from English-speaking homes. That may be so. How does that happen? It is not only in the teaching profession that these things happen. It happens because there is so much competition from outside; that competition is economic. It is an economic factor that we have to deal with. We cannot expect a rush of applications to teacher-training colleges unless we have a standard of salary which is comparable to that offered by industry and commerce. We find that young boys and young girls who, having done very well at school, go to the training colleges or university where they get their B.A. degree. When they subsequently go to teach they find that their salaries are less than those of their friends who went to work after matric, or of those who had failed in the matriculation examination. Is that any encouragement to our young boys and girls to enter the teaching profession? The teaching profession to-day in many instances is becoming a vocation. They do it because they want to do it. That is good, but I say we must give full encouragement to those people who want to become teachers but because of economic circumstances are forced into other avenues of work.

In connection with the question of research. I do not know how we are going to have an efficient system of research unless the teacher himself plays a part in the research work. While we have a shortage of teachers and difficulty in finding people, to me it would seem that research cannot be complete until we have a sufficiency of teachers, not only from the teachers’ training colleges but teachers who have been teaching for many years and can give of their experience to research. That is a very important aspect of research. It will not help our educational system if we have, doing the research, people who are not practical teachers.

Now I want to come back to some of the items in this Bill which we on this side are not happy about. Let me first say that I do not want to say anything that may be construed as a personal attack on the Minister, but what I say now is generalization. I do not like the powers that the Minister will take upon himself to vet, and not only to vet but to reject, any nominee who may come from any particular body to this Council.

That has been said over and over again.

To me, this is a very dangerous step that the Minister is taking. I have heard it said by hon. members opposite and by the Administrator of the Transvaal that of course we will appoint Nationalists to the Board wherever we possibly can; that is our right and our privilege. He has the power to do it, but is it the right thing to do? What happens to a Board that is vetted to such an extent by any Minister, which will contain people who only think like the person who appoints them? What happens to a Board which has members appointed to it because of their political affiliations or beliefs? Does that Board give a true reflection of the views of all the people in the country, or is it then going to be a Board which is an image of the Minister himself? And that is what it can possibly be. The Minister will think along certain lines and every person elected to the Board will think along lines similar to those of the Minister and they will carry out the wishes of the Minister because they think the same way that the Minister does. It is possible that the Minister himself may receive instructions from someone higher up, so that the Board will virtually carry out those instructions from other sources. It is no good the Minister saying we are seeing ghosts again. That is something which could quite possibly happen, and I am afraid it will happen. That is one of the reasons why I do not like these clauses. I say that people must be nominated by groups, and that their decision shall be final, and that they shall have the right to sit on this Council, and only if they do not do their work properly will the Minister have the right to get rid of them, after consultation.

In regard to the private schools, I would say that in the past the contributions that the private schools have made to the educational standards of our country have been of the very highest. I do not know that we can level any criticism whatever against the private schools, but if the private school is going to receive a great deal of assistance from the State, naturally I feel that the State should have some say in the running of that school. But in the private schools, as well as in the State schools, is it a good thing to have people snooping and seeing what is going on? I do not think there is any justification whatever for the Minister to introduce a clause into this Bill which gives a certain group of people the right to interfere or to investigate the running of any school, and I do not know why the Minister put that in the Bill. He never gave us the reasons in his second reading speech. He thinks it ought to be done, but why it should be done I do not know. Cannot the schools be trusted to carry out the work properly? Has it ever occurred that the work in schools is of such a nature that it requires special investigation? The system of inspections has not failed in any province. What more do you want? If the Minister is going to use these powers for research purposes, it is not necessary to bring this into the Bill, because it will be done with the greatest cooperation of every school board and every parents’/teachers’ association. There is not a single group of people which has education at heart which will stop the co-ordination of ideas from one school to another. I say then to the Minister that whatever happens a minimum amount of interference in any school, be it private or State, should be allowed. Let these schools go on and do not interfere with their running.

The Minister wants to know why we are suspicious. It is because of the rights he is taking upon himself and his ideas of investigating schools, and we will keep fighting those things because we do not like them. The Minister may have reasons for these things, but I would like to hear what they are. The faults that we find with this Bill are faults that any person outside a particular group would find. Those faults that we see, and which the Minister and his supporters do not see, are those things which we have felt over the years are inroads into our liberties. Where parents are denied the right to send their children to one school or another, we felt that it was an inroad into the liberties of people. Now, when we find the right of a group of people to interfere in the working of a school, and we find that private schools will be interfered with, we feel that is an inroad into those liberties. We may be wrong, and if private schools in the past have not done anything else, they have shown the people, not only in this country, but outside, people who are critical of our way of life, that the freedom of education exists in our country, that it is not yet regimented, that there is still a choice, and that the choice is still wide, and we on this side of the House want that symbol to remain. We do not want any hindrance or besmirching of that symbol. We want freedom in the choice of schools, and we feel that the type of education shall be the right of the individual.

Finally, I want to say this to the Minister, that if he is going to have this Advisory Board, let it be purely an advisory board. Let there be no interference in the smooth running of our present system of education. Let this advisory board consist of people who are elected to serve by groups of people who wish to send their best people there. Let it serve all the people of this country. Let it serve the White people and the Bantu and the Coloureds. I see that its duties are going to be circumscribed. They are only going to deal with White people, and the Minister is in a hurry to get this Board established, but yet before the Board comes into existence, and before he has received the advice of this Board he is already a part of that system which has taken away the right of the provinces to run education for the Coloured people. Would it not have been better for the Minister and for our country if before this step was taken in regard to the Coloureds, the Advisory Council should be established first to see whether or not it is a good thing to separate the Coloureds from the Whites, to see whether it is not better to have the Coloureds stay under our wing? But no, these things must be got on with as quickly as possible and this Bill must be passed as quickly as possible. I hope that the Minister will find satisfaction in the workings of this Advisory Council, and I hope that the Advisory Council in its wisdom will do for all people in South Africa what we on this side of the House wish them to do.

Before calling upon the next hon. member, I just want to point out that hon. members are discussing matters which are not relevant in terms of this Bill. The second reading of a debate deals only with matters which are relevant in terms of the Bill before the House, and from now onwards I shall have to apply the rules more strictly. I have allowed a fairly wide discussion hitherto, but hon. members must now come back to the subject of the Bill.

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) complained that we had accused them of adopting a negative attitude towards this Bill. Speaker after speaker got up and said that he was going to vote against this Bill. Surely that is nothing else but a negative attitude. I shall deal later with his other arguments, but I just want to point out that he believes that there is nothing wrong with our education system. He does not believe that there has been deterioration or that it is necessary to bring about improvements, precisely the opposite of what was said by the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman), who said that much was wrong with it. I will show him how much in fact is wrong with our present system. But after this the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) should not again tell us for two-thirds of his speech, that they welcome the idea of an Education Council, but they are against this and that. One after another speakers on that side of the House got up and attacked the principle of such a Council. They said it was not necessary to have such a Council. One of them said this Council is a catastrophe for the Republic. That was the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). Another said that this Bill would establish a dictatorship in the sphere of education in South Africa. They even raised a point of order—that was the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker)—to try to make this House believe that this Bill is in conflict with the Constitution of the Republic and you, Mr. Speaker, correctly ruled that that is not so. But it seems to me that the older the hon. member for Hillbrow becomes, the more stupid he becomes.

Order! The hon. member should confine himself to the subject of the Bill.*

But he attacked me in regard to a speech I made in this House in 1953, in which I said that education was indivisible, and now he thinks it is such a terrible thing. Is there any better proof of education being indivisible than this attempt to establish a Council to co-ordinate and to lay down the broad principles of education? Surely that proves that we are trying to keep education indivisible. But what the hon. member does not understand is that the control of education is divisible. There is one control of education in Britain and another control of education in Germany. In the Republic there are four systems of control of education, and if one adds South West Africa there are five. That proves that the control of education is divisible, but education itself is indivisible, hence this attempt to have a National Advisory Council for Education which can co-ordinate these things and make it one large unit. I hope the hon. member now understands it.

Before really coming to what I want to say, I just want to deal with a few other matters. The one is this bogy which has been scared up in regard to indoctrination. It is alleged that this Bill would open the way to indoctrination. The hon. members let it be understood that the indoctrination would be in Christian National education. I have on occasions when that particular pamphlet appeared, expressed my disapproval of its contents. But the Minister of the Interior of the day, Dr. Dönges, explained to me that what was stated in that pamphlet was not the policy of the Government and I wish to state that during all the years that it has been my privilege to work with this Government, I have seen no proof or even an indication, of any attempt to introduce any such system in our education, and there is not a single word or any indication in this Bill of any indoctrination of one or other principle or concept of Christian National education. But I want to know what is wrong with indoctrination. [Laughter.] I am pleased that it is one of my English-speaking friends who is laughing, because I do not think they know their own language. I say that all teaching is indoctrination; the moment you try to instil something into the head of a child which was not there before, you are indoctrinating him. All teaching is indoctrination. I want to tell the hon. member for Rosettenville who is laughing so heartily and to the hon. member for Durban (Point) to study their own languages. They should read the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the third edition of 1959, page 993 and they will find that the word “indoctrinate” means “to imbue with learning, to teach, to instruct in a subject, a principle etc”. And that is not only since the time of Hitler. That is the way in which the word “indoctrinate” has been used ever since 1660.

Carry on.

“To imbue with a doctrine, an idea or opinion.” It does not go back to the days of Hitler. That was what it meant as far back as 1832, more than 100 years before Hitler. That is in the 1959 edition of the Oxford Dictionary. It says “to teach, to inculcate, a subject etc.”, and that was how it has been used since 1800. I say all teaching is indoctrination. “To indoctrinate” simply means to teach.

I want to say a word or two about the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) who unfortunately is not here. She frankly admitted, and I want to thank her for it, that the fact that the standard of English taught as a subject in our schools to-day was probably not of the standard which it should be, because the English-speaking section of our country had not made their contribution to the teaching profession that it should have in order to teach the English-speaking children their own language. The Afrikaans-speaking people want to assist them. We cannot help them the way they themselves would have been able to do had they trained their own children as teachers. But we allow our Afrikaans-speaking children to be trained in English to fill the vacant posts and to teach them English. But in that case they must not blame us and say that that is the reason why the standard of English is not what it should be. If they do their duty, there will be no reason for that complaint.

Order! The hon. member must return to the Bill.

On a point of order, may I say that this legislation touches the foundations of our education and the hon. member is merely following the arguments which have been advanced.

I merely replied briefly to the arguments which have been advanced, Sir, but I will now confine myself to the Bill itself. The hon. the Minister has pointed out how many commissions and Select Committees have brought out reports on education during the time of the United Party and during the time of the National Party, but mostly during the time of the United Party, and most of them were in favour of such a National Education Advisory Board. The Hofmeyr Commission spoke about a board of control. The hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) says, yes, but in this case the late Mr. Jannie Hofmeyr was wrong. Well, he was wrong in many respects and I differed from him in many respects, but Mr. Hofmeyr could at least speak authoritatively on the subject of education.

I want to deal with another publication which has not as yet been referred to here and that is the pamphlet which was issued in 1945, during the United Party régime. This report has a foreword and that foreward makes it clear that this is not something which has been decided upon on the spur of the moment but that the body concerned with it had studied the subject for years. They appointed a committee which brought out a report and that report was submitted to their congress and it was unanimously adopted. Then the pamphlet was printed. The foreword reads as follows—

That is exactly what we are doing now. It goes on to say this—

I want you to listen to the names Sir—

I am reading these names because I make bold to say that not one of those persons has ever been or is to-day a supporter of this Government. They are United Party supporters. The report goes on to say this—

The S.A.T.A. said, therefore, that they wanted to instruct the legislators to introduce legislation “for much-needed reform”. That foreword was signed by Mr. H. Bessemer, United Party M.P.C. in the Cape Provincial Council; he was leader of the United Party in that Council and he was their authority on educational matters. That was the report which he signed. The secretary was Mr. J. O. Vaughan. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Dr. J. H. Steyn) rightly said that the time was ripe for the two language groups to co-operate to become national South Africans. I want to quote from this report of the S.A.T.A. to indicate what they said in that regard as far back as 1945—

By implication, therefore, they deprecate the fact that provincial authorities control education. They say the schools must contribute such a great deal to the building up of a South African nation and that it is wrong that education should be delegated to the provinces. But we do not say that. This Bill clearly says that we appreciate the good work which the provinces have done and we do not want to lose that good work. We want to assist them by appointing an advisory board which can assist them and the Minister in their big task of establishing a really proper system of education. This congress of S.A.T.A. was completely opposed to provincial control. This report goes on—

They asked for a new orientation of the functions of the ordinary day-school. I pass on to page 16 of this pamphlet where they deal with “Control and Administration”. The hon. member for Houghton said that there should be greater diversification in education. Just listen to what this authoritative congress of the English-speaking teachers of South Africa said—

They want a national outlook in education, not diversification but a national outlook in education—

They are, therefore, not quite satisfied with this old system of “provincial advisory committees” which existed and which we still have to-day. You must remember, Mr. Speaker, that this investigation was made in 1945. The investigation was, therefore, undertaken during the time of the United Party and I should like the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) and other hon. members who alleged that education did not require such a board, to listen to this; this report says—

This congress says that in spite of the South Africa Act of 1909 the United Party government has derived the provisions of some of their powers as far as education is concerned and here we have the United Party trying to tell us to-day that this Bill is infringing on the powers of the provincial councils. The hon. member for Rosettenville says that there is really nothing wrong with our system of education. Listen to what those people said—

These hon. members say there is nothing wrong with our system of education. The congress of the S.A.T.A. says “The result has been vicious competition and much overlapping.” This is what this authoritative body of English-speaking teachers of South Africa recommended during the time of the United Party—

That is exactly what we are doing here.

What does the Bill say?

The Bill says nothing more than “co-ordinating and advisory” and the hon. member knows it.

What does co-ordinating mean?

The hon. member knows what “co-ordinating” means. If he would only co-ordinate his thoughts he would understand it himself. They say—

Precisely what is laid down in this Bill—

That board even had to lay down the length and the content of primary school courses—

1. (b) the educational needs of children of pre-school age.

That is exactly what we are saying—

1. (c) the functions of the various types of schools, especially in the light of future commercial and industrial development.

That is co-ordination; perhaps the hon. member understands it now. Had he attended the congress of the S.A.T.A. he might have known something more about education. That board had to lay down in broad outline a national policy—

There is the answer, Sir—

1. (d) the practical application of bilingualism in our schools.

Not only one language, both languages—

1. (e) the rationalization of examinations.
2. (f) health services and physical wellbeing;
3. (g) the financial implication of the policy in education.

They even had to decide on the financial aspects.

May I ask a question?

No, my time is limited and in any event the hon. member does not know much about this. [Interjections.] Of course I have. During all those years I was chairman of the educational group of the United Party. I called that group into being; The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp was also a member of it and the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) was my secretary and during all those years we agreed with that report. [Interjections.] The United Party should have done a great many things which it did not do because of its “sins of omission”.*

Order! The hon. member has wandered completely away from the Bill.

This hon. member is provoking me. If he remained quiet I would not wander away from the point, because I wish to conclude; I do not want to take up more time than is necessary.

Hear, hear!

I can understand the hon. member for Hillbrow saying “hear, hear” when I say that I wish to conclude because I know he feels fairly hurt.

Hon. members have told us that the board which the Minister is going to appoint will only consist of marionettes of the Government, marionettes of the Minister. The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) does not want to hear of it that the Minister should constitute the board. I wonder who should constitute it if the Minister does not do so. Listen to what this congress of the S.A.T.A. said on this point. Not only do they say that the Minister should constitute the board, but they say—

He must be chairman; not only must he constitute the board but he must be chairman—

That is exactly what we say here. That board should not control or administer education but it should be purely co-ordinating and advisory. But the South African Teachers’ Association wanted the hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science to be chairman of that board.

What is the date of that report?

I have said it so often—1945, in the good old United Party days.

But there was a United Party Minister and a good Government.

That is as far as their principles go! This is similar to what we had the other day, Sir: If they can use anything for their own benefit then it is all very well, but if the same Bill is handled by another party, then it is something evil. That is as far as their principles go!

In their summary this congress made 18 recommendations to the parents of the country and to the legislators of South Africa and five of those 18 were printed in heavy ink because they were the most important five. The one was precisely this—

That was the language used by the congress of the English-speaking teachers of South Africa in 1945. I do not know what these hon. members think they are doing to-day when they repudiate their own past, as they have done so often in the past—

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort has put to us a very interesting dissertation on the past, but of course he omitted two things. Firstly, in this Bill there are dictatorial powers given to the Minister, and the second thing that he omitted to say is that after 14 years of Nationalist rule there is very little faith and trust left amongst those people.

None at all.

He went back in history to find an explanation of the word “indoctrination”. I will come back a little bit later in history to tell him something. I want first of all to try to give an idea of what is considered by some to be a good definition of education. It is found, curiously enough, in the Mexican Constitution which says—

And most important of all—

Of all the people, not just of a selected group. I wonder, Sir, whether with this Bill we are approaching any nearer to the ideal that I have just read out; whether this council is not merely a screen to give to a single Minister despotic powers, a screen to hide behind and to come up whenever it suits him to exercise those powers. Sir, if he takes over education it will not be long before he takes over religion. I wonder whether this is not merely an effort 13 homogenize the children morally, psychologically and mentally. If so—it looks like it—it is not difficult to see the political significance of the following indoctrination. This Bill gives the Minister the power to destroy the civil rights of parents in the education of their children. The family into which the child is born has the primary right and obligation to educate him. This is based on common sense and the natural relation of parents to their offspring. Freedom in education is the right to send children to independent schools. Not only should the schools be independent but the pupils attending those schools should be subsidized out of State funds. It is a maxim of constitutional law that each and every citizen should be treated alike as far as welfare benefits are concerned. For instance, all the needy aged must receive benefits within the law, and children attending the public State schools.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

With all due deference, Sir, I am defending the rights of the independent schools which are endangered in this Bill.

Under what clause?

Clause 1.

The child’s right to education is personal. Sir, I am not trying to say that private schools should have rights to share in educational benefits, but the individual child, every child of the country, has the right to have the same amount of money expended on him, whether that money is expended in the public schools or in the private schools. The parents of those children pay taxes, and they are entitled to have the same welfare benefits for their children as any other parent.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

On a point of order, Sir, the hon. member is dealing with schools, and Clause 1 (v) says—

I submit that the hon. member is dealing with private schools, many of which receive financial assistance out of public funds.

The hon. member is drifting right away from the Bill. He must come back to the Bill.

With all due deference. Sir, I feel that the parents of children who go to private schools are citizens of the State and who meet their obligations to the State and who in return are entitled to have for their children the same rights as anybody else It is not a difficult problem to me; it is simply a question of arriving at the amount of money paid out by the State for the education of each child in this State and then giving to the parent a voucher for that amount which he can then hand over to a private school.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Sir, this is a most important principle and it is one of the principles of the Bill. There is no multiplication which varies from religion to religion or from school to school, and they must all be paid for in the same way.

The private schools are of the utmost importance to the country, because the right to go to private schools guarantees the freedom of choice in education. It means a choice to the parent, and this is supposed to be a free country. Incidentally, in many cases it also gives the parents the right to choose the environment which they regard as suitable from the religious aspect, which is a most important aspect. The parents should be able to say, “I want my child to grow up in this environment”. That right is being taken away in this Bill.

Why?

Because you are taking it away. I am prepared to bet the hon. member.

Order!

It is possible that a big proportion of the potential brains of this country are at present in a private school. However, I just want to make it clear that I feel that the independent schools should continue to exist and they should be subsidized. Sir, we claim to be members of the Western group. We have constantly been having this rammed down our throats, although the Western group does not like us. It is characteristic of Western civilization that there is no central control. In practically every modern democratic state we find that there is no central control. Private schools are accepted and receive financial support from the State in many instances.

Even in Russia.

The thing that runs through Western education is to decentralize to the utmost and to introduce as far as it is possible, parental interest in the schools. Every effort is made to interest local authorities. Local authorities are close to the parents and they are answerable to the parents personally. Sir, the only Western states which retain central control are those which either in the moderately distant past or in the recent past have been under dictatorships. Those are the states, as I will show, which have central control, and the dictatorship started it. I want to tell the hon. member for Fort Beaufort who has gone back into history that if he had gone just a little further he would have found out who started indoctrination. Indoctrination was started by Napoleon, the greatest tyrant of Europe. He started indoctrination in schools. A country like Italy, although it is democratic at present, has not yet been able to throw off the yoke which Mussolini put upon their education. France, although she has been unable totally to break away from the code of Napoleon, has nevertheless decentralized to the extent that education, although under the control of the Minister, is carried out through the 17 universities, each of which is responsible for an area and enjoying a great degree of autonomy. They have over 1,800 private schools in France, and all art education is free and is not under the control of the State. The United States of America, which after all has a high standard of education—a lot of our people go there—has no central control. There is a Commissioner of Education appointed by the President of the United States. He has no administrative authority. His functions are informational, advisory and statistical. The Office of Education devotes a large part of its efforts to the improvement of the education by wholly non-coersive methods, such as research, studies and surveys. The whole vast scheme of organization and support of public education has the principle of local control, through local boards. The school is a community institution and the people have a sense of ownership and an affection for it as well as a high degree of control over it. Every state, like every province here, permits private schools; controls its own education, and some of the states go so far as to use public funds for the independent schools. Where they do not do that, they make public services available to pupils of all schools, such aa school lunches, free school health and welfare services, free textbooks, transportation from home to school and back in public conveyances. Sir, this is the country which has carried out 80 per cent of the scientific research of the Western world since the last world war. What does Australia do, a country which is similar to this country, a country with provinces and a central government. Every state controls its own education. Even that small area in which the capital of Australia is situated, is controlled by one of the states at the request of the central government.

Order! I hope the hon. member will come nearer to the Bill.

Sir, I do not think I have gone away from the Bill. I am trying to show that this Government is introducing a drastic new principle into the education of this country, and I am trying to show that it is a principle which is completely at variance with modern world thought. That is what I am trying to show and I can only do it by showing what other countries do. Sir, Canada has a lot of problems similar to ours. It has provinces and it has two languages. All provinces control their own education.

It is a federation.

Quebec is the only one that varies very much from the general standard. There they are bilingual and not only bilingual but they have two religions, because the French Canadians are nearly all Catholics, and yet Quebec which is a bilingual province and a bi-religion province, if you like to call it that, carries out that policy without any difficulty. The French have their own way of education and the English have their own way, and private schools receive grants both from the province and from the central government. Another bilingual state is Belgium. Belgium has a population, one group of which is very much like one of our own, with the same characteristics, the same habits, almost the same language—they understand you if you speak in Afrikaans to them. There is no single comprehensive organization for the control of schools there. The Minister of education exercises and influence on organization and administration, and the country is divided into linguistic divisions. Grants are paid to private secondary schools, provided they fulfil certain conditions relating mainly to the standards. Then we have another interesting country, Western Germany, which has been under the heels of a dictator; it knows what a dictator is; it has suffered more from dictatorship than probably any other country, certainly any other in modern times. It has one of the most decentralized and liberal forms of education, and when I say “liberal” I am speaking English, I am not giving to the world “liberal” the connotation which is frequently used in this House. There is strong parental representation and private schools receive subsidies where they are recognized as substitutes for public schools. Sir, there are other very interesting countries, but I do not want to go on too long on this. My purpose is to show what can be done in countries which think clearly and are faced with problems similar to our own. We go now to a country, Sir, which has three languages, Switzerland. Switzerland, as you know, is not the homeland of Calvin, but it is the place where Calvin carried out most of his educational reforms, and he had a great deal to do with our country, and that is why it is relevant to this Bill. Switzerland is a confederation of 25 separate cantons which voluntarily came together and agreed that each community would have its own school system based on its customs and conditions, and there has been no forfeit of these to the central authorities, there has been no forfeit of the customs and traditions of these communities to the central federal authority. Education is a separate matter for each community; it has its own schools; there is no federal Minister of Education; but they have devised there a most interesting method of co-ordination, not in the sense indicated by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker), but they co-ordinate through what is known as a conference. This conference consists of the heads of the educational department of each of the 25 cantons.

Very much like a council.

They meet as an advisory body. The conference consists of the heads of these departments and other cultural associations. In this Swiss conference the head bodies of educational authorities all meet together, but the conference has no powers. The cantons have not forfeited to it any of their powers, and the conferences’ decisions are binding on the cantons only to the extent that they agree to apply them to their territories. The conference acts as a body of conciliation and co-ordination, but its decisions are only voluntarily accepted.

The same here.

I will have another bet with you.

I bet you five to one.

Order!

Japan is also an example to this country. There you have a country which was devastated by war and it is recovering from a period of occupation, but it has decentralized its education to the fullest extent. The only thing that it rejects, because it was an occupied country (and this will also interest the Minister) is anything American.

Order! If the hon. member does not come back to the Bill now, I will have to ask him to resume his seat.

Sir, I would like to say a few words about the United Kingdom.

Order!

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is talking to Clause 1 and is showing what the civilized world has done for education. Surely that is an example for us to follow or reject, and surely the hon. member is entitled to show what other countries of the world are doing in education.

Order! I have given my ruling.

Sir, may I speak on this point of order. I wish to point out that the hon. member is following the plan of this debate laid down by the experts on education on the other side, the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert). I have referred to a speech and his speech covered this ground: Frederick the Great in Germany, men in America, England, Wales …

Order! The hon. member must now obey my ruling, or otherwise he must resume his seat.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, do I understand that members cannot illustrate by a reference to anything else but what is in the Bill?

Yes, in passing, but an hon. member is not allowed to make a whole speech on other countries. It is ridiculous.

On a point of order, may I point out that there is an Education Advisory Council in the United Kingdom, I believe in Wales, and that may be the point the hon. member is coming to.

Order! That is not a point of order.

Sir, I pointed out to the hon. the Minister that his ideas of coercion and direction, which he disputes of course, are out of tune in Western thought. Is it necessary that we should have this controlling and coercing body? What has happened to the Department of Education, Arts and Science that it suddenly needs all this outside assistance? Can it not do its own work? Has it failed, have the provinces failed? Is there any evidence that they are inefficient and incompetent so that they cannot continue to administer the affairs of education? If the Minister has lost confidence in them, he should replace them, not place this new body over their heads. Must we have a remedy of this drastic character? And must we have control by a Minister with unlimited powers? That is what this Bill does. Have the provinces in the past with their autonomy not produced educated adults comparable with those of other countries? Have they not one and all evolved a system of fair average education? Have they not evolved a system which brings the cream to the top for university training and permits the emergence of genius? Let us look for the moment at the facts. Students leave this country in order to obtain university education in other parts of the world, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland and India. Now how do they compare with students they find over there? There is no evidence that they cannot compete successfully, and there is a great deal of evidence that a proportion of them overseas rise to the top and are so good, Sir, that they are kept there. In world competition, not local competition, they hold their own. I will give you a few, Sir, to illustrate, if you will permit me: The present scientific advisor to the British Cabinet is a graduate of the University of Cape Town. In one post-graduate teaching hospital alone in London, which I happen to know well, two out of the four senior surgeons are South African graduates. I could name a lot of others. The former head of Harwell the great atomic research institution of Britain, was a South African and was educated at Grahamstown. The late ex-Chief Justice, Mr. Centlivres, Adm. Syfret, Sir William Holford, J. H. Hofmeyr, Smuts, Dr. van der Bijl; if you want to go to art there is Nadia Nerina and Mimi Coertze. Sir, we send professors in exchange to the universities of America and England. Do you think that the Americans and that Britain would welcome our professors as exchange teachers if our standard was so low? I can point to the record of our Rhodes scholars, and the welcome our graduates received overseas, to the advertisements of Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the professional and technical journals of this country alone show that our standards compare most favourably, and there is no reason for the Central Government to interfere in the development of the children. I do not believe that the educationists whom the hon. the Minister is going to employ will settle the question of mother-tongue or of bilingual training. I think they have bungled bilingualism about as badly as they could. To place the control in the hands of the Minister is to jeopardize the minds and the souls of the children. Thought control, Sir, is the copywright of totalitarianism, and without freedom of thought there can be no free society. This Bill places hobbles on the children’s brains, and those same hobbles will go on the brains of the children in the Free State and the Cape Province as well as those in Natal. I want to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln who said—

I want to tell these gentlemen who support this Bill that they are not the only citizens of this country, that they are not on an island surrounded by a moat. If they wish to have indoctrination let them have it, though it is leading them and the country to ruin. Like an old shirt, Sir, indoctrination has served its purpose, even for them they must discard it, or it will destroy them and perhaps with them the Republic. Mr. Speaker, they have recently won a Republic for themselves and in connection with this Bill, the last controversial Bill still before this House in this Session, I want to tell them a story: When the American Fathers met to hammer out a constitution among themselves, they went there with a lot of thought. And when they had completed their task, Benjamin Franklin walked out and he was met by an old lady, and she said to him: “What kind of constitution have you given us?”He said: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” Do these hon. gentlemen believe that laws of this character are going to keep their republic for them? I just want to tell them a little history, Sir: There is nothing original in the policy of apartheid, in the Nationalist policy.

Order! What has that to do with the Bill?

It is very relevant, Sir. The few words I have got left to say, I should like to say: Spartan started apartheid, and where are the Spartans to-day? Napoleon started indoctrination, and where is he? In the Other Place, yesterday, a Senator pointed out that Khruschev started the sabotage and anticommunist legislation. And what is going to happen to him?

You will probably restrain me if I were to reply to that hon. member. I should just like to say that if the hon. member were to diagnose a patient the way he has analysed the proposed Education Bill, I know the medicine he prescribes would be no good. And the only medicine I can offer the hon. member, I know, will not be any good and therefore I shall just confine myself to the Bill.

This proposed legislation will establish an advisory council. We shall have a council intended to give new injections to our system of education; we shall have a council intended to create new bases, to formulate and implement new concepts. We shall have a council that will have to take a hand in all the facets of education and in all the complex channels of our modern state; that will have to clear up things in our schools; to rub off the mildew; to break down; to rebuild; to build extensions, or to dismantle completely. The council proposed here is a council that will have to grip firmly and deeply. It will sometimes have to cut deeply and hurt a lot, for everything that is embraced by education will fall within the scope of this proposed council. Everything that is involved in education will fall within the functions and the task and the activities of the proposed council too. This council will also have to raise the teacher and his status in the national hierarchy. This council will never have to rest. It will not be able to rest, for the process of education is a growing process that produces new leaves and new fruits every day. This process of education as a process of growth has the most fertile soil of all soils from which a living organism can grow, and that is namely the mind of man. Here in our Republic we not only have the mind of man on our soil, but we have the mind of man on the richest soil the Creator could have given a nation. Therefore I say that this council will be fully able to justify its existence, will be able to serve its purpose. For always, for so long as one can forsee, this council will always have a task to perform. We should not forget that we are to-day in the midst of revolution of great complexity, and our children, our juveniles, are involved in this revolution very deeply and we are responsible to them. We have to accept the challenge this complex revolution is putting to our youth, on their behalf. This challenge will confront us with the fact and the reality to equip our youth with all the elements that will enable them to hold their own. In this great revolution, in this great time that makes tremendous demands, for which we want to establish this council, we shall have to let the Education Council play the key role in giving to our young countrymen the equipment to enable them to adapt themselves at all times to the dynamic circumstances we are living in, not only in their work, but also as people in a community. In the mind of our nation there are hidden forces which, if exploited properly, will be able to decide the mighty struggle for power in which we are involved, in our favour. Not numbers, not sputniks, not projectiles, but those forces hidden in our nation will after proper exploitation, with proper planning, with proper guidance and with correct deployment, be the guarantee for our triumph in this struggle for power in which we as a Republic, as a part of the Western World, are involved. This council will also have to see to it that all the spiritual capital slumbering in our nation and in our youth, is developed to the fullest extent, for I make bold to say that in our economic aims we are dependent on our spiritual capital. Our spiritual capital is the basis of our economic and cultural power. Is it not a fact, Mr. Speaker, that the Netherlands experienced its Golden Age, and that in the cultural field, and in the field of the arts, and in every field, the Netherlands produced its highest achievements in the Golden Age. That was the period of its greatest economic power. But for the basis of economic power, and to develop to maximum advantage of the State economic prosperity and all resources, it must first be ensured that spiritual capital develops and is adapted to the best of its ability and its bearing capacity. Our struggle in the Republic will be lost without knowledge. Our struggle will be lost without strongly balanced citizens. In the exploitation of this spiritual capital the teacher is the keyman, and he is dependent upon the system of education and the kind of educational institution in which he has to complete his most important and exacting task. The beacons of our knowledge are only shifted in our community and State, by well equipped, trained, balanced, strong citizens, who have been mentally developed according to the best educational methods, and whose personal qualities and talents will enable them to handle their weapons of knowledge in the most effective manner. Our nation will now, by the efforts of this council, have an opportunity to benefit from the full ripe harvest flowing from the proper policy of education and educational organization and system of education in which the rare talent and the superior intellectual ability as well as the person who is mentally less talented, will come to full fruition. An effective system of education is equally important to our Republic as the heart of the creature to his Creator. It is the teacher and his pupil within the process of a purposeful organized system of education and policy of education, that break-through from the unknown to the known. It is the pedagogue who has to guide his pupil in the midst of numerous cross roads that may lead him away from his real, proper destination in life. It is the most effective policy of education and an educational institution that will enable the educationist to cut all the jewels of our nation, the children, in the proper shape and form and to fit and mount them as jewels for the particular ring for which they are destined. I see that in the task of this proposed council, this National Educational Advisory Council. The greatest day for our people, one of the great monumental occurrences for our nation, dawns with the discussion of this Bill. Mr. Speaker, may I point out that after the sputnik aroused America so roughly, an investigation was made with typical American thoroughness into their problems of education, only a few years ago. And what were the conclusions they arrived at? One of the most important conclusions they arrived at was the crying ignorance of the general public as regards the need for a healthy system of education and the role science and technique plays in the modem community. Then America realized what a start Soviet Russia had got, who in 1917 already reorganized its education on a national basis. And then America found that public opinion—and we have to accept it here too in that manner—is the climate in which the growth and the progress of education and science are determined.

Now I should like to ask this question: Is our climate right? Are our public conceptions in South Africa in respect of education still bound to an old obsolete and ineffective norms, or is our public opinion sufficiently aware that education and the process of education no longer is the simple task that may be regarded lightly? Is our public opinion aware that the career of every child is irrevocably and finally bound to well-planned education, and that advanced education—I repeat advanced education—is becoming the foundation stone of the structure of State and that more and more emphasis should fall upon the full human being with the best equipped professional knowledge? Is our public opinion ice cold in respect of important educational problems? The task of the Council will be to provide the answer to the questions I have put here. What do we need? In South Africa we need national ideals, in the same way that any human being and any nation needs it. We require countrywide policy and planning. I would point out that we are saddled in South Africa with five separate departments of education, plus that of South West Africa which is a sixth. This division has led to the development of various systems in education. We have no semblance of a national policy of education for the Whites. There is no question of a national policy of education for the White people. The highest authority in our education—there the hon. Minister is sitting as the highest authority—is invisible and unattainable to public opinion, to the public outside. Many problems arise from this divided control, from this lack of co-ordination in the sphere of education. We have six education authorities and we have no uniformity of policy in respect of the following matters: In respect of medium of education; in respect of compulsory school attendance and the conditions for exemption; the promotion of scholars; in respect of the granting of certificates; in respect of free education and scholarships; in respect of the age of admission; in respect of conditions of employment; in respect of qualifications and remuneration; in respect of syllabuses, and in respect of the training of teachers, about which I should like to say a little more later on.

This divided control and lack of uniformity has a prejudicial effect upon our pupils. When the parents are transferred from one province to another, the pupil suffers. The pupil has difficulty in adapting himself to the different circumstances and syllabuses and systems of education. Thirdly we also find inter-school competitions where considerations of numbers sometimes affects the purpose of education. We find that pupils are withheld from the kind of education they ought to receive on the basis of aptitude and interest, when that kind of education has to be obtained in a different school, e.g. a vocational school or an agricultural school. But, Mr. Speaker, it also interferes with the quality of the education that is provided by the various education authorities. It varies also in accordance with the financial resources of the provinces. So the Transvaal, for instance, which financially is stronger than the Free State, is able to provide better buildings and better equipment and educational facilities. I submit that under our present system every White child does not, as it ought, receive his proper share in our education. Bantu education has been placed on a national basis. Very soon Coloured Education will also be placed on a national basis. Then we shall have 700,000 White children in the Republic and South West Africa, divided, classified and children controlled in six different departments. It will be the task of this Council that is to be established to investigate and advise. Should all vocational training be transferred to the provinces? Education commissions have in the past made very divergent recommendations on this aspect of the problem. In 1934 we had the Roos-Commission, which recommended the transfer of certain aspects. In 1957 we had the Pretorius Commission in the Free State, which said: No. The Wilks Commission of 1945 in Natal said: Yes. The de Villiers Commission does not say yes nor does it say no. We are in doubt and in the dark, and no ideal is served under this system. If we continue on this basis, the Council will have to create the machinery for co-ordination of the various divergent systems in accordance with the principles of national education policy. This council that is to be formed must not be sterile, as the old consultative committee has been. In respect of the old consultative provincial committee I should like, for the information of hon. members opposite to quote from the Roos Commission Report. They say—

The de Villiers Commission also recommended a national education council whose functions, task and duties should be defined by Parliament. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, this proposed Council will have to give attention to the training of teachers. It is a serious matter. We have 28 training institutions in South Africa, among which there are 8 universities, 14 training colleges, 6 technical colleges. Hundred-and-one different certificates are being issued. There is a difference in the equality of the certificates. The quality of the teachers produced varies. Discredit to education is caused, and this has a restraining influence on the advanced study of education as a science, by diversion of attention from being steeped in education. It will be necessary for this Council to make a thorough investigation into the training of, teachers, the system of training and where the training should be given. Such an investigation has become an urgent necessity.

There is the question of the organization of our secondary education. It is a problem in regard to education which also raises the question of purberty education. The organization of our secondary schools immediately brings to the foreground the question of the aims of secondary education, and the proposed Council will have to look into this very thoroughly. The question of the objects involves the necessity of knowledge of the age of puberty of the child, which is influenced by the present community and culture. But I wish to say this also in this connection: We shall have to have an investigation by this Council, and that will be one of the tasks of this Council, into the desirability or otherwise of the comprehensive type of school, and whether that is best for our nation. Conversely, if the comprehensive type of school is not the best, what then is the best type of school for our children? We know that the Cape and Transvaal differ in respect of this. But there is another problem that will have to engage the attention of the proposed Council. That is the question of the divergence of the choices of courses and the contents of the syllabuses in the various provinces. Is that necessary? Is it right that the division should be according to historical provincial boundaries? Is it fair to the child, and is it serving the best interests of our education interests? Should we not divide according to socio-economic Westernized basis? These are matters the proposed Council will have to investigate fully and express its views thereon. In the Transvaal e.g. we have our own system of choices of subjects in the so-called differentiated system. In so far as the provincial schools are going in the direction of the matric examination, unanimity is beginning to be reached. In the Transvaal, a large variety of subjects may be chosen for the school leaving examinations. At the present time there is great difference of opinion within our education circles and among our teachers on the question of the moulding value of these various subjects. The question is whether the five departments of education do not see the question of differential education in the same light, and that is a matter this Council will also have to investigate. We are still waiting, and the Council will do it and can do it; it is within the compass of the functions and the duties of this proposed Council, we are waiting for a searching, comprehensive study of the question of differential secondary education.

There is no unanimity either in regard to the following matters: The question of generally moulding education. What is the pedagogic connotation of this? What subjects are required for it? What are the limits of our secondary education? In respect of the following matter I should also like to ask this question: What is understood by occupational education? What place should it have in our education, and which subjects should be included under it? Then I should like to ask further: What is understood by vocational education? What is the philosophical and theoretical pedagogic basis of vocational education? Or are we just carrying on on a pragmatic and utility basis? What is the relation between our industrial development and vocational education? Are the present organization and the classification of schools pedagogically sound? There are the problems that will engage the attention of the proposed council, and it will prolong its task for many years to come. We shall also have to devote attention to the question of the existence and constitution and functions of the present Matriculation Board. It is accepted, Mr. Speaker, that the Matriculation Board exerts a great influence upon our secondary education. Who is satisfied with the role of that board? There is strong agitation at the present time by the provinces that, as regards their own certificates, they should be completely free of control by the Matriculation Board, and that the Matriculation Board should have control only over the examinations for admission to universities, and that this examination should be an entirely separate examination. The question has arisen—and that is what the proposed council will have to investigate and advise upon—whether there should not be an extra year of study for pupils between the high school and the university. Then we have the question of special education, which has assumed important dimensions in the Republic.

In respect of this problem, I should like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that it will be one of the tasks of the council when it crawls in and snoops and breaks down and pulls down in our system of education. The education of children who are mentally deficient is a provincial matter at the present time. The education of children with ill behaviour is managed partly by the Department of Education, Arts and Science, and partly by the provinces. For instance, there is such a provincial school in the Transvaal where I was teaching a few years ago still. The education of children with physical defects is under the control of the Department of Education. The question of the control, organization and the functions of the children’s guidance clinics also comes into question here. We know that every province has its own conception of the operation and organization of this. It is a dangerous state of affairs, as much harm can be done hereby. The educational basis of this work is neglected completely at the present time. Briefly, I submit there is great confusion on the question of the place, the organization and the function of children’s guidance clinics in our whole system of education. Then I should like to come to the next problem, namely the problem of vocational training in our schools. This is an extremely important question because it is closely related to vocational education, to training in the professions and the eventual distribution of the available man-power. There is much confusion in our country on this matter. The Transvaal calls it school training and includes every possible aspect of education in it, while the other provinces have retained the term “vocational training” and limit the scope of that idea. The question is what is understood by this pedagogically. Is it a purely pragmatic conception or has it a normative connotation? The Council will have to go into that, and advise the Minister on it. We hear about the difference of opinions on this aspect of our education every day. One of the important questions in our modern community pedagogically is the question of the large number of adolescents and immature youths between the ages of 16, 17 and 21 years who are on the labour market at the present time. In overseas countries—and the hon. member over there could have quoted this just now very fruitfully, and then he would have been within the scope of this Bill—living schools for children are established. Here in our country, in spite of the fruitful and good work that is being done in the sphere of education, for which we need not take second place to the world, we have not done much regarding this aspect of our education. As long as there is immaturity in a child, there has to be guidance, moulding and education. Has there ever been a searching and far-reaching educational investigation into the contents of our secondary school syllabuses? That will be the task of this Council, and it is one of the duties it will have to perform.

Then I should like to deal with the social study which is now to such an extent being established in our schools in the Transvaal. Among our parents and among educationists, there is a great difference of opinion on this social study direction in which our education is now throwing out feelers. It is of American origin. It is causing much comment in our country. In some provinces it is a blend of history, geography and civics. In other provinces an attempt is made to build a new subject from it with geography, historical, ethnological and other social aspects of the community. Here we are faced with a most important educational problem. If it is tackled wrongly, if it is directed wrongly, and if it develops wrongly, it can definitely harm our cultural subjects at school very seriously. The Council will have to regard it as one of its tasks to give its serious attention to this matter. Then we have the better known issues and contentious matters in our education, such as mother-tongue education, bilingualism; at what stage the second language should be commenced; at what stage a third language should be commenced; the question as to whether a Bantu language has as much value as a modern or classic language for cultural and intellectual development. There is the question of religious instruction, whether it should merely link up lightly with the spiritual work of the church and whether it should be closer binding and even be a continuation at school of the ecclesiastical functions. There is the question of the promotion of pupils, examinations, certification and the place of nursery schools in our system of education. All these are problems that are on the threshold of the proposed Council.

I want to conclude, Mr. Speaker, and say this: Here we have a task for this Council. I cannot imagine that of all the Councils we have in our fatherland, there ever has been established or will be established a Council entrusted with such a task. It places a great responsibility upon the shoulders of our hon. Minister, but I should like to tell him and the hon. House this: I have the fullest confidence in this man here in front of me, in his educational ability, in his vision and in his perspective and interest. With such a Minister we can bind this Council together to be a mighty force, to take out of our nation what can be taken out. The strongest thing we can take out of the nation is if we can develop and steer in the right direction its mind and all the forces that are locked up in its mind. But, Mr. Speaker, we have somewhat wasted our time. I should like to conclude by making these few observations. We have wasted our time in a spree of confusion on sentimental defence of democracy and democratic ideas. And this democracy, as they understand it, has insidiously crept into our system of education. I should like to show to what extent. It is one of the causes of the weaknesses we can point out in our system of education in spite of our efficient system of education. I am not interested in the achievements of Russia, Mr. Speaker. They do not interest me. I am more interested and concerned about the lack of achievement among our own people. I am not interested in the loading of our youth in a chaos of activities and curricula and visual classes and choices of subjects; I am interested in the process of breaking down in respect of depth, discipline and the mind forming discipline that is going on. The maintenance of discipline has been elevated to a crime. How many injunctions have been issued from time to time by school principals to their assistants: “You may not punish; you must be careful, you must not reprimand too strongly”? How many teachers have ended up in court because they have exercised discipline with a view to the maintenance of discipline? There stands the frustrated one! We all point our fingers at him. There he stands, Mr. Speaker, he whom we call a “Ducktail”. He points with his finger to his parental home and to our system of education. There are the sensation mongers; there are the politically unstable ones; there are the culturally dead and there are the social outcasts. The political dead? There they are sitting. The political outcasts? There they are sitting. I do not wish to detract from the value of my argument, Sir, but Mr. Speaker, you will permit me to say this: When you refer to ducktails, there they are sitting in the political sphere. All these outcasts and these ducktails can rightly point their finger to our education and our authorities.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order …

The hon. member is using the word “political” to cover ducktails …

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker; I really do not wish to cause trouble.

I wish to conclude by saying that it was the pious democracy that has allowed the so-called free Press to write, by means of irresponsible, spiritual outcasts, in contempt and disloyalty to the authorities. The authorities are being demolished with untruths and lies. All motives of service are being undermined. If there is one important task for this House, then it is to lay down a new conception and a new idea for our youth in respect of that which means loyalty, service and knowledge in a true citizen of a country, imbued with true national allegiance, armed with the necessary profound scientific knowledge he can harness for the benefit of his state and in particularly for the benefit of our young Republic in this mighty struggle for power we are involved in at present. It is a great task for this Council. I wish to convey to this Council my best wishes. I should like to wish our esteemed Minister every blessing. I am sure that in the course of years, in a decade or two hence, this Minister will be able to say: I was in the front line when this Council commenced its work. May this Council develop an education system that will make us, although small in number, Mr. Speaker, the strongest nation on earth.

Sir, I hope I will not get as emotional as the hon. member who has just sat down. What frightens me about the hon. member is that he means every word he says. The thing that frightens me more, Sir, is that he does not know what he says means.

You did not understand me.

I think the hon. member put his finger on the very point which the hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter) mentioned, that one of the important things that this Council must do is to do something about the medium of instruction. That was what he said. He said that this was the first and most important function which this Council should perform. The hon. member for Vryheid had an awful lot to say about Natal this morning. He said this Bill had nothing to do with Natal; it had to do with the Republic. But, Sir, when you consider what the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert) has said—he is the foremost authority on that side of the House—and what the hon. member for Vryheid sas said, you can piece together what this legislation really is about. The hon. member for Witbank spoke about one mind, one ideal and one education system. I seem to have heard that before, Sir. I think it was said in Germany. It went like this: “Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuehrer.” He left out the Fuehrer, otherwise he went the whole way.

The hon. member for Vryheid said the most scandalous thing which has been said in this debate. He said that in Natal they were using their education powers to support the United Party plan to make Afrikaans-speaking children go to English medium schools. The hon. member then went on to make a few statements on which that allegation was based, and he gave those as his reasons for supporting this Bill. He said that this Bill would do away with the system which existed in Natal. Everything he said confirmed my very fear as to what this Bill really is about and what the intention of this Bill is. His whole speech was devoted to what happened in Natal; his whole speech was devoted to supporting this Bill because those things would no longer happen in Natal when this Bill was accepted by this House. His speech was brimming over with poisonous insinuations, with bitterness and with prejudice. Prejudice against what? Prejudice against the system which exists in Natal. There will be prejudice to the only educational system in South Africa which can be called South African. That is the stage we have got to in this country, that I can stand up here and say without fear of contradiction that in Natal we have the only system of education which is South African.

You are dreaming.

And that is so because the United Party is in control of education there. The hon. member does not like it, but the fact remains that it is South African and that it is aimed at bringing about a South African nation. But here we have the hon. member talking as he does about that education system, and on the other hand we have the Prime Minister talking about “eenheid”, about co-operation, and the very place where it is practised is condemned out of hand by that hon. member. I want to tell the hon. member that he made certain statements to-day which were not true. He spoke about the situation that exists in Natal where Afrikaans-speaking parents were obliged to put their children into English-medium schools. Surely the hon. member knows there is an education ordinance which says in Section 11 that if there are 15 pupils at a school and their parents want them to be taught in a certain language they can demand it; they can go to court and demand it, and they will get it. The policy there is that in Natal all schools are potentially parallel-medium schools. The hon. member knows that the high school and primary school in Dundee were first English-medium schools and that they are now parallel-medium schools, and he knows that in places like Howick, Richmond and Umhlali, which are by no means Afrikaans areas, all those schools are parallel-medium.

Tell us what is the general practice.

The general practice is that we believe in a broad South Africanism. The broad situation in Natal is that in the rural areas it is not possible, economically, to provide two schools in one small community, and in those areas where there are English and Afrikaans-speaking people they are provided with parallel and dual-medium schools. As to the discrepancies which arise upon the figures which the hon. member quoted—I shall demonstrate how false they are and how they do not support the premise, prejudiced though it was, upon which his argument was based.

The hon. member spoke about Pietermaritzburg, and said that the proportion of schools there was three to 13, but what he did not tell the House was that in Pietermaritzburg there were in fact four, and not three, Afrikaans-medium schools, and of a total of Afrikaans-medium pupils of 2,020, 1,845 attend Afrikaans-medium schools—90 per cent attend Afrikaans-medium schools. He talks about the proportions and the ratio in Natal. The proportion of Afrikaans to English-medium schools is that on the average in the English-medium schools there are enrolled about 551 students, and in the Afrikaans-medium schools 508. So that the proportion is in favour of the Afrikaans pupils, and not of the English-speaking children. These figures bear no relation at all to what the hon. member for Vryheid said. It is true that some areas are predominantly English-speaking. In the south of Natal there are predominantly English-speaking schools and in the towns there is a concentration of English-speaking people. That is why there are more English-medium schools in Natal, proportionately, in the urban areas. But it does also indicate that the hon. member for Vryheid supports this Bill for one reason only, and that is that he wants to see in Natal the policy of the Government which is applied in the other provinces, applied in Natal also. That is what it means, Sir, otherwise he would not have made that speech and would not have expressed those bitter thoughts. Mr. Speaker, he does not deny it.

What is the policy which the hon. member wants this Council to achieve, and also the hon. member for Ventersdorp? They want to achieve the Transvaal system, of which the hon. the Minister is the architect. I am not surprised that he has so much faith in the Minister, that he will produce this system of education which is of a national character.

Order! I have allowed the hon. member to reply to the hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter), but for the rest he must confine himself to the contents of the Bill.

Before I saw this Bill in the form in which it now is, when I first heard that the Government was introducing such a Bill, I thought that it was for the purpose of implementing Christian National Education, and home language education in Natal. I might have been wrong about it, and I would have had doubts about it, until I read what the Minister said about this Bill when he was installed as Chancellor of the University of Potchefstroom. There he said what this Bill was for.

That is not true. I referred to this Bill only in passing. I told that gathering that I had appointed a Select Committee and that they would see to the Bill.

Ah! Well, one of the things the Minister is reported to have said—I wonder whether the Minister will deny this—whether it was said in passing or not, I do not know, was that as the result of the divided control over education in South Africa, the youth at school, which was now being controlled by five departments, was not developing a national character.

What is wrong with that?

What has that to do with the Bill?

That is precisely what this Bill is for.

Nonsense!

What has that got to do with the Bill? That is precisely what this Bill is for, and the Minister said as much in his second reading speech.

What is wrong in creating education of a national character?

There is nothing wrong with anything of a national character, but it all depends on what you mean by a national character.

Order! That is just generalization. The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

With respect, I want to read from Clause 7 (1J, which says—

The Minister says he wants to develop education of a national character. The Minister, in terms of this Bill, is going to appoint the Council which is going to determine that policy, and therefore I submit that I should be allowed to deal with the question of what is national and what is not national. But that is not all the Minister said in Potchefstroom. He went on to say that with a view to establishing a national character, legislation will be passed this Session to establish a National Education Advisory Board. In other words, that is exactly what this Bill is about. And the Minister does not deny that either.

Do you disagree with him?

I disagree with it when I know what national character means in the mind of the Minister. Then he went on to say that South Africa’s educational system should also have a more definite religious character. And if one did not quite know what he meant by that, he enlightened us by saying that the preparation of the child for his eventual career, in accordance with the child’s abilities, interests, aptitude, etc., and the education of the child into a socially and morally sound human being are the two accepted tasks of the present education system. “These tasks do not satisfy me, because in my opinion they are not sufficient. I have objections to the colourlessness of the words ‘morally sound’ and would prefer the word ‘religious’ or even ‘Christian’.”

What is your objection to that?

Order! The hon. member cannot go into that.

I am quoting this to indicate what the purpose of the Bill is. The Minister has said in advance what the Council will decide.

That is not true, and you are only making a fool of yourself.

The Minister will appoint every single member of this Council and he can dismiss them when he likes. I am pleased the Minister has not denied that he said this, for it shows that the purpose of the Bill is to give us Christian National education, for which we do not thank him at all. [Interjections.] I am not a silly ass, Sir. I am perhaps just an embarrassing ass. If all the Minister can say is that I am a silly ass, then I am pleased to note that what I said has made an impression on him. The Natal education system is in this Bill now to be jeopardized. Why else would it be necessary to have a Bill like this? If the Government did not really want to implement its policy, why should they have this Bill? It says that the Council must advise the Minister in regard to the policy to be applied in connection with education.

Goodness knows, half-a-dozen members opposite have already spoken about the medium of instruction as being part of that policy, which it is, and if there is one place in South Africa which is not in line with the rest of the country, it is Natal. It is part of the functions of the Council to advise the Minister with a view to having a national education policy, which means a national, recognized, co-related, unified system of teaching in this country. That is what it means. This is not a clash of teachers in regard to the standards of education. This is a clash between two authorities which have the power to determine policy in this country. But the Minister puts it all down to the fact that there is divided control. There is Natal on the one hand, with a South African education policy, and the Government on the other side with a narrow, Calvinistic. Christian National education policy. [Interjections.] I would not be proud of a system of education which divides the children in their most tender years into English and Afrikaans-speaking, and even puts a dividing wall down the middle of the playground.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

We do not have it in Natal.

You never even recognized the one flag in Natal for years.

The Minister of Information seems to have forgotten what happened in Durban. Does he not know that Durban recently decided not to fly the Union Jack? [Laughter.] He is very badly informed. One of the objections the hon. member for Vryheid had to this Bill was that after this Bill was passed the present position in Natal would no longer continue in this respect, that the parents would have no choice as to the medium in which their children were to be instructed. Under the system he wants to apply, the parent cannot even decide what his own home language is. That is the system which will be applied, the national system, the abolition of every dual and parallel-medium school.

Order! Is that in the Bill?

Yes. If one reads Clause 7 (1) with Clause 8, and read with Clause 5. It has been pointed out that this Bill does not contain any reference to the non-Whites, no reference to the Coloureds or the Indians, which is very significant, because one of the principles of Christian National education, as stated in Articles 14 and 15, is that there must be different education for all the non-White groups because foreign ideologies make them unhappy. That is what it says. That is why it is not in this Bill, because this Bill is drafted in accordance with the principles of Christian National education.

Order! That is not in the Bill and the hon. member cannot discuss it.

I just want to say that the words “European education” by themselves are not enough, and then in Clause 8 it says, “No proposed legislation relating to the education of White people will be introduced in the Senate or the House of Assembly …”, and that is what the hon. member for Vryheid mentioned when he said that we must not allow foreign ideology to stamp itself on our education. I wonder what he meant by that? That is also out of the Christian National education handbook. The Minister of Coloured Affairs can dare to talk here about education when he is in the process of taking over Coloured Education, also in line with Articles 14 and 15 of the Christian National Education Handbook. I do not believe that this Bill stands alone. I do not for a moment believe that it will be used for all the wonderful things that the hon. member for Ventersdorp hoped it would be used for.

What reason have you to deny it?

My reason is that I have seen Nationalist policies with regard to education at work. I have seen it in the Transvaal where you have the language ordinance and where our children are divided.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

The background of this Bill is the deeds and not the words of this Government, in regard to education. The background of this Bill in Natal is contained in all sorts of things, one of them being the appointment of Mr. Stander, the Deputy Director of Education, in the teeth of the fiercest opposition.

Order! That is irrelevant. The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

The Bill is aimed at making us all a lot of ventriloquist dummies directed by some invisible Broeder who is in direct touch with the spirit of Calvinism. Why is this Council getting powers to co-ordinate? To co-ordinate what? I have asked the Minister and he has not answered. I have asked” the hon. member for Fort Beaufort, and he does not know. None of those hon. members know. Sir, you cannot have co-ordinating powers or functions without having powers to co-ordinate. It is no good talking about a coordinating function without having power to do so. You can have advisory functions without having the power to do anything about it, but you cannot have co-ordinating powers without having the power to co-ordinate. What is going to be co-ordinated? The policy which will be decided, which hon. members have pleaded for on that side of the House, which the hon. member for Ventersdorp wants, the medium of instruction of the children? These questions are not nonsense. One of the other reasons why the hon. member for Vryheid supported this Bill was because in Natal it was not possible for any Afrikaans-speaking parent Jiving on the platteland to get any decent education for his child, because we ignore the country areas, and because in the country areas he could get nothing but parallel-medium education. I think I understood the hon. member correctly.

I did not say that, and you did not understand me correctly.

I heard the hon. member speak. I think he has let the cat out of the bag, and the hon. member for Ventersdorp has also given the game away. The Minister can still stand up in this House and pretend it has nothing to do with Natal and nothing to do with home language ordinances and with the control of the parent over his young children at school. I do not think the Minister should pretend any more. He should come clean and either deny or admit what the hon. member for Vryheid has said and what the hon. member for Ventersdorp has said, namely that the first most important function of this body would be to co-ordinate the education system of the Union to such an extent that we would have in South Africa a system of education medium that we have in the Transvaal. I hope the Minister will deal with that, and that he will specifically deal with the hon. member for Vryheid.

When did I say that?

The hon. member for Vryheid spoke for half-an-hour about why he wanted this Bill, because it would remove all those things in Natal which he spoke about. Did he not say that? Of course he did. I hope the Minister will let us know where he stands and that having heard the hon. member for Vryheid he should not be surprised that we in Natal oppose this Bill tooth and nail.

Now what contribution did you make? Nil.

Mr. Speaker, when the hon. the Minister introduced the second reading, he made a point of saying that it was the obvious desire of the White population of the Republic that a co-ordinating Council be established. That has not provoked any serious argument from this side at all. Whether the White population as such has been heard specifically about its desire for the establishment of this Council or not—and obviously it has not been heard—there is no serious objection, as the Minister well knows, to the setting up of an Advisory Council for Education for the purpose of co-ordinating educational procedures and systems in South Africa. Yet speaker after speaker on that side of the House has stood up and argued as if they were trying to persuade us of the need for such a Council. That—to me, at any rate—seems to be an attempt to waste time, because whereas any speaker opposite to us should endeavour to show what sort of Council the Minister envisages in this Bill, and then try to persuade us that whatever fears we have of such a Council are not worth having—instead of doing that they keep on arguing as though we were strenuously opposing the appointment of any council on any basis whatever. So in the light of that, I merely wish to examine the Council envisaged in this Bill, and obviously what I will say will be confined to the Bill. However, I must say I speak at some disadvantage, because the Minister in the same introductory speech said something which was calculated to be a warning to people like myself. He said he was not going to be bothered with any educationist on this side of the House “who had obtained his Sub A and now sits here Now, I have obtained my Sub A and I have even gone through Sub B, but that does not qualify me to speak about this Bill. What does qualify me to speak is the fact that, like any other member of this House, I am concerned with the education of the children of this country, and more particularly the education of the children in my constituency. I can say with some emphasis that in the Hospital constituency there are a large number of educational institutions which will be affected by this Bill. There is the University, which does not come directly into the picture, since a university is excluded from the definition of “school”, but it must be affected because that or any other university will be compelled to take the product of the educational system which may be created by the establishment of this Council. So I do not exclude the University, or any university, from the influence which will be exerted by this Council. But in any case, in my constituency there are the Johannesburg College of Education, the Goudstadse Kollege and the Helpmekaar Hoërskool vir Seuns and the Helpmekaar Hoërskool vir Dogters, and many other schools and institutions. Therefore I propose to deal with this Bill, whether I have my Sub B or not. What puzzles me about the Minister from time to time is the fact that he speaks nostalgically of the days when he was a schoolmaster, and therefore he is an educationist and better qualified technically to discuss this Bill than I am. But that nostalgia makes me wonder why he ever left that vocation where he used to be faced with a docile class which would listen to his every word, in order to come into this House where he is faced with a lot of suspicious members of Parliament.

Now, in regard to this Bill, the first point which creates difficulty for people who are concerned with the prospect of a better educational system as the result of the introduction of this Bill is in Clause 1 (5), where it says that the definition of a “school” means also a school which receives any financial assistance out of public funds. At this stage, I do not want to canvass to any great extent the position that will arise in regard to private schools, but clearly those private schools which receive, as they usually do, a grant of R20 per pupil per year, are going to come into the orbit of this particular Bill when it becomes an Act. I am reminded of the statement which was made here by the hon. member for Welkom (Mr. H. J. van Wyk) on the day when the second reading debate took place, and I wonder whether the hon. the Minister listened to him or heard what he said. That hon. member, referring to a report which had appeared in the Transvaal Educational News, said that in the report were the following words: “Inevitably the payer of the piper calls the tune”. Sir, I would not have put that quotation like that, but let that pass. Who, in the case of the private school, is the so-called payer of the piper? Who is the person who maintains that school financially? The Minister knows better than I that apart from the R20 or R10 per year, or whatever it may be, it is the parent who maintains that school; it is the parent who pays the piper in regard to that school; and, what is more, the same parent is also maintaining other schools because as a taxpayer he contributes to the cost of the entire educational system, but for reasons of his own, with which no doubt the Minister has no desire to interfere, he wants to maintain a private school as well as maintaining all the other schools in his province or in the country. Therefore I say emphatically that if the Minister were to take heed of what was said by a member on his own side, the hon. member for Welkom, that the payer of the piper inevitably calls the tune, then the hon. the Minister must agree that at least in the case of private schools, he should not say that any financial assistance received from public funds immediately brings that within his sphere of influence. He should rather say that a reasonable amount of financial assistance will bring that school within his scheme of things. For example—I think he must have considered this himself; I think it has been suggested from this side already—if the Government were to give a private school 50 per cent of the finances it requires to conduct that school, then that would constitute the sort of assistance out of public funds which could reasonably be held to be sufficient to place that school within the orbit of this particular measure.

Order! The hon. member must not go beyond the scope of the Bill.

Sir, I was aware of the fact that you would be returning to the Chair soon, so I made up my mind to confine myself to the Bill. Sir, another aspect of this Bill which is rather remarkable is the fact that on reading the Bill one comes to the conclusion that the members of the council to be appointed under Clause 3, who will receive such remuneration as may be determined by the Minister in consultation with the Public Service Commission, were really going to constitute an advisory council of people who were both experienced in education and eager to serve the cause of education in South Africa. One does not get the impression, on reading the clause, that there will be a permanent fulltime body of officials or a new department of the Government. But before one could even take this clause as being an indication of a part-time council, the Minister in his second reading introductory speech made it perfectly clear that he was going to appoint at least five persons as full-time members—fully paid, full-time members of this council. I want to deal with a similar aspect of service to education which requires some sort of recompense from the State but which apparently is regarded in a completely different light by the hon. the Minister.

Order! I hope that is relevant.

Well, Sir, if you were to ask me, I would insist that it is relevant—but I am going to submit it to your decision. A little while ago I asked the hon. the Minister a question in regard to a body which is controlled and to some extent subsidized by the Minister’s Department, and that was the National Committee for External Relations. In reply to that question—this being a committee that deals with the allocation of bursaries to foreign students particularly and applies the provisions of various cultural agreements between South Africa and other countries—the hon. the Minister stated that there were a number of these committees which apparently came under the generic term of National Committee for External Relations, and he gave a long list of names of the various committees, starting for example with the committee headed by the Secretary for Education, Arts, and Science. It is called “Die Komitee van Toepassing en Advies”, and it consists of the Secretary for Education, Prof. Boshoff, Dr. Snyman, Prof. de Waal, Prof. van Warmelo, etc. There are about 15 persons on this committee. There is another committee which has an educational function—and advisory function (that is the point)—which is again headed by the Secretary for Education, Arts and Science—the Belgian-South African Cultural Committee, consisting of something like six university professors, according to their designations here. Then there is another series of committees, according to the Minister. He says that there are in addition several bursary committees, which have a number of members, who are again listed here. I do not want to read out all their names. Then there is a further committee which has 23 members, all drawn from the educational sphere—university professors, directors of education, the Secretary for Education, Arts and Science—all people who, according to the Minister’s definition of an educationist, would be well qualified to serve on his proposed council. If so many well-qualified people, educationists, South African citizens who serve the cause of education—and I have his authority for the fact that there are many such people—can be found to serve year in and year out on these various committees which come under the general supervision of the National Committee for External Relations, if so many can be found to serve South Africa in a voluntary capacity—and the Minister told me in answer to question (3) that the members receive no remuneration but that in respect of travelling and subsistence allowances an amount of R1,200 per annum in the aggregate is paid—apparently all these people for all their efforts receive no more than subsistence and travelling allowances, and the efforts of all these scores of highly trained educationists, eminent in their own particular field, cost the State no more than R1,200 a year—then the question which I believe to be a very important one in this connection is: Does the Minister not realize that he could get people like that, if not exactly the same persons, to form a pool from which he could draw his National Education Advisory Council? Does he not realize that? There are many people, in and outside this House, who serve a good cause in the national interest without any recompense. There are dozens of us here who sit on hospital boards. We get no more than subsistence for our advice. We do not even get a travelling allowance if we live near enough to the hospital, but we are concerned with an undertaking which serves the public and which therefore serves the State. Any public-spirited citizen is more than willing or should be more than willing to place at the disposal of his own country and of the Government the benefit of his training, the benefit of his skill and the benefit of his advice without being a full-time appointee of the State and without receiving a salary which, if I were to take a guess, would be of the order of R6,800 per year, and therefore is going to become a very expensive burden on the Minister’s Budget. I believe quite honestly—and this is a point which I think is simple enough not to require labouring—that if the Minister were altruistic about this, as he says he is, and really wanted to set-up the sort of council that would advise and co-ordinate, and wanted to ensure that in that council he had people who could in fact advise from their own experience on the best way to co-ordinate our educational system, then he has a wealth of talent on which he could call in order to setup a very good council to advise him. Therefore if he is not going to accept this suggestion, which I am making in the best of good faith, then he will leave me and other members in this House to wonder why he is going to insist, as he said in his second reading speech, on appointing five persons full-time, with a few satellites part-time and with a paid secretariat. Why? If in fact he wants independent, impartial and good advice, why must he immediately make those people completely subservient to his Department, if not to him? I hope he will in due course provide an answer to this particular question, an answer which will be as lucid as his statement that he is going to appoint five full-time persons.

Another question that arises from the same process or procedure of appointment is the hon. the Minister’s desire to appoint two vice-chairmen. Sir, this is a curious situation. Two vice-chairmen in a voluntary body such as this council would be regarded by most of its members as being entirely unnecessary in the first place. Anyone with experience of the structure of a council would agree with that. Why therefore does the Minister say that he is going to appoint, immediately, two vice-chairmen as full-time members of the council? I ask him that question because he has a chairman and he clearly wants a vice-chairman for the purpose of carrying out the functions of the head of that council in the absence, whether avoidable or otherwise, of the chairman. That is why he wants a vice-chairman, but then he says he is going to appoint two vice-chairmen. If he feels that he cannot take the risk of the chairman and the vice-chairman both being absent at the same time or being unavailable—the hon. the Minister smiles but he must have a reason for his two vice-chairman—then you would think that he would say, “I am going to appoint a senior vice-chairman and another vice-chairman”. Sir, you know the protocol of this better than I do. There must be some precedence. They cannot rank pari passu, as the stockbrokers would say.

There is duplication.

Exactly, there is duplication here. Assuming the chairman of the council were not present at the meeting, who would decide on who would take the chair? Do they draw lots for it or do they have a duel, the two vice-chairmen, in order to decide who will take the chair at that particular meeting, or do they just toss for it? Why, Sir, this is not even as good as the American business system which, as you know, requires that there shall be a president of a company and that there shall be up to 50 vice-presidents. I once came across a company in the United States—I say this in all seriousness—that had a president and 48 vice-presidents, but they all rank according to a certain position in the hierarchy. The Americans like calling a person “vice-president”, but they know where he stands. Sir, I do not want to put any idea into the Minister’s mind that he should have 48 vice-chairmen, but the point is simply this: There must be some reason—I do not use the word “motive” because I do not wish to ascribe any motive to the hon. the Minister—there must be a reason why he is so determined to appoint two vice-chairmen and he is not prepared to give his reason. At the same time he, is not prepared to say how these two gentlemen will be appointed to the Chair in the absence of the chairman. Sir, that is an obscure point about this particular Bill which I think requires clarification.

Another aspect which is one which I think may perturb any person trying, as I am trying, to be objective about this Bill, is Clause 2 (3) (a), where the Minister says that one of the members of the council shall be a person who has special knowledge of the functions of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. The question immediately arises; Why only one? The Minister is going to set-up a big council here. He is going to set-up one with a permanent executive of five; he is going to pay them all and presumably if, as he says, they are full-time, they will be reasonably well-paid as State officials should be; and then he says that only one shall be an educationist. The definition of an educationist, I take it, is one who has special knowledge of the functions of the Department of Education, Arts and Science. The hon. the Minister knows that people like myself who have just about made the sub-B standard would not qualify here, so I am assuming that he will find somebody of the order of one of the gentlemen whose names appear on this list, which I did not read to the House, but which contains the names of very well-known educationists. Let us assume that he appoints one of those persons who has this special knowledge that he is in fact an educationist. Surely, Sir, you would expect that in a Bill designed deliberately, the Minister says, as the result of the consideration of five or six commissions which have sat on this particular matter in the last 30 years, that in setting up the new council, he would rather say that one may be a person who has not got special knowledge of education and of the functions of the Department, but all the others must have it! Why this reversal in regard to a normal policy where you want a certain result to be achieved by a council of specialists? What is the Minister’s purpose? Sir, I am asking these questions and I sincerely hope he will answer them, because in regard to Ministers answering questions, I have had experience which was rather unfortunate. Why does the Minister say so categorically that he is going to put his educationist on the council that he has designed, in a minority of one?

Sir, this may be a minor point, but there is a point arising out of Clause 4 (3) (a) that I want to raise. This sub-clause provides—

1. (a) if he becomes insolvent.

I have seen the usual conditions on which a member of a particular body has to vacate his office. I have seen such a list of reasons which does not include this proviso at all. I have also seen one, quite recently, which provides that if the person concerned becomes insane he shall vacate his office. The odd thing about it is this: In this particular clause the Minister provides that if a member of the council becomes insolvent, then he must vacate his office, but—and I am only looking at this clause—the hon. the Minister says in effect that if a member of the council becomes insane, he need not vacate his office! Where is the benefit that this council will derive from a man’s insanity as compared with the disadvantage that it will suffer as the result of a member’s insolvency? I would say that it should be the other way about.

Order! I think that is also a matter which can be dealt with in Committee.

I do not want to pursue it, but I do feel that it is relevant. I am not going to challenge your ruling.

I do not say that it is not relevant but I think it can best be dealt with in the Committee Stage.

Sir, the future is so obscure that I wondered whether I could not touch, at this stage, on some of the matters which go to the root of this particular Bill. However, I will go to Clause 5 (2), and here I want to refer the hon. the Minister to the report of the Select Committee. You must remember, Sir, that we have been assured that any suspicions on our side are baseless. We are just a lot of people who are naturally suspicious, but in this particular case we are told that there is no earthly reason why we should be. When it is suggested that this clause which provides for an investigation in regard to one or more particular schools as the Minister may direct, that this is something which may possibly lead to an inquisition, to discrimination possibly, we are told that we are suspicious. Why he says that we are suspicious I do not know, because he surely knows that the representatives of the Federal Council of the Teachers’ Association of South Africa, a body which, as has already been pointed out, has 27,000 members and is probably the body best qualified to tell the Minister what sort of education council is needed, if at all, those people were heard to say (Report of Select Committee, page 5)—

Thus the hon. the Minister must not be so pained when somebody on this side of the House gets up and says that this may lead to an inquisition, that these people may become snoopers, because that was foreseen by representatives of the Federal Council of the Transvaal Teachers’ Association. They used the word “inquisitors” in the first place, and if the Minister has a cogent answer to this particular criticism, then in giving that answer he should rather direct it to the organ that represents 27,000 teachers in South Africa than to anybody on this side of the House who may have criticized that particular clause of the Bill. I think the Minister will agree that it does require an answer. Furthermore, when you compare his intention, under this particular clause …

You are making a good speech!

Somebody says I am making a good speech, Sir. I could not believe my ears. [Laughter.] The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) does not believe it either. Sir, when you contrast the powers given in this clause to the proviso in Clause 7 (4), then the whole thing becomes a complete mix-up. I say this with great deference to the hon. the Minister. It must be remembered, Sir, that in sub-clause 4 he is giving this council the power to carry out an investigation of one or more schools, which means any school that comes within the orbit of this measure. An investigation requires at least physical intervention in that school; somebody has to go to that school; somebody has to move around; somebody has to ask questions and somebody has to be in a position of authority to do so. But then in Clause 7 (4) the Minister says—

I say in effect that this particular clause cancels out the one which gives him the power to investigate a school, because an advisory power does not come into the question of proceeding deliberately from, say, Pretoria to, say, Worcester. Two or three people would do that, would spend three or four days or a week there, would go to the school and talk to the teachers and say, “You must do this, that or the other.” They have the power.

Nonsense.

Who said that?

I say it.

Order!

Sir, it does not matter. The point is, as I have already said before, that if ever I need advice, I will never go to Randfontein! I maintain—and I hope the hon. the Minister will be able to support what the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) said, when he answers me on this point—that in the ordinary usage of words, the one clause cancels out the other. If the hon. the Minister has an explanation, I sincerely hope that he will disabuse my mind of the belief that the two do not make sense together. I believe the lawyers call it a non sequitur.

In regard to Clause 8, which has already been touched upon by various members on the basis that there will be control over the provincial administration and therefore over its educational system, by virtue of the power which the Minister has—that they may not introduce any legislation except after prior consultation with the hon. the Minister and any other interested parties.

Order! That point has been covered.

That is why I am not going to pursue it; but, Sir, I am going into the Select Committee Report. I knew what you were going to say, Mr. Speaker; I am not going to argue with it. Sir, there is the following statement at the bottom of page 8 of the Select Committee’s Report. This question was put to Messrs. H. C. Botha and S. J. Hunter—

Part of the answer was—

Here is the point—

Sir, that is a very revealing statement. The teachers—and the hon. the Minister has been a member of that profession and he must remember what his views were about the influence that teachers should exert in our educational system—the teachers say that they are for co-ordination but they are opposed to control, and that means in effect that if he is to pay any heed at all to the opinion of the organized teachers of South Africa, he will under no circumstances allow this particular clause to go forward in its present form, because he is taking just that control to which the teachers themselves will object and which they have already told him in advance he should not try to apply.

The other point which arises more or less in the same context is whether or not it is desirable to have a uniform system of education, and we were repeatedly told this afternoon that it was desirable; yet one hon. member, I think the hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter) said that you could have “eenheid en diversifikasie.” He says in effect that you can have uniformity and diversity together. Sir, you cannot have prosperity and adversity, and I would like to assure that hon. member that it is impossible for uniformity and diversity to coincide in the same situation; it is completely illogical.

Read the evidence.

I want to tell you, Sir, that I have better proof of that, than I require from the Select Committee. Sir, there is a statement in this particular publication which I hold here, to this effect (and I think you will agree it is relevant)—

The relevant statement here being that the various provincial education departments also specialize as they realize that the conditions and background of White children also differ to some extent from province to province. Sir, who do you think was responsible for this statement? Not a person or an association or even an author opposed to the Government or its policy. This appears in the latest issue, Volume 8. No. 5, of the Bantu Education Journal. Can you believe it? The Department of Bantu Education puts out a statement which says in effect to the hon. the Minister: It is wrong to try to amalgamate all your provincial educational systems merely in order to get uniformity. It says in effect that there must be differentiation from province to province; that this whole Bill is ill-conceived.

Where do you find that in the Bill? That is a lot of nonsense.

Sir, I do not want to venture into the field of nonsense, which is something which the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) knows a great deal more about, but I merely want the hon. the Minister to explain to this House how it is that the Minister of Bantu Education who, after all, has a very important function in the education of some of the people who live in South Africa—whether forming part of the South African nation or not—who after all is a colleague of his in the Cabinet, who after all also has the same political philosophy as the hon. the Minister, can advocate this one educational philosophy while the Minister advocates a different one? They must explain these things to us. The last thing I want to create is a split in the Cabinet—heaven forbid—but I want to tell the hon. the Minister that the moment his council starts meddling with the scholastic system, with the educational set-up in this country, he will cause more trouble than he foresees at this stage, in spite of his assurance that he has the utmost confidence in the council yet to be established. I will give you one example, Sir, in Johannesburg, and, as it happens, in my constituency. There is the Johannesburg College of Education, which will come within the sphere of this council which the Minister wants to establish, and here is an article which refers to what appeared in Educational News, which is the organ of the Transvaal Teachers Association, a body with which the Minister has had contact through the years. This article says, in comparing the college (the Johannesburg College of Education (the former Normal College) with the new Goudstadse Onderwyskollege:

I am not going to read the whole article, but it says here—

That is where the danger lies, Mr. Speaker.

What has that to do with the Bill?

Sir, as soon as I have finished reading this one sentence, I think you will see what I am driving at—

The point is that if the hon. the Minister is going to set up a Department of State which will have the power to investigate and as a result of such investigation to report, resulting in the hon. the Minister then taking action, it is inevitable that that action to some extent will be coloured or motivated by the opinion of those persons who form this Advisory Council on Education. In other words, the personal element inevitably must come into it, and this (what I referred to a few minutes ago) is merely a foretaste of what may easily happen when, as a result of appointments made not from nominees of the various bodies in the field of education, but as a result of appointments made purely by the Minister on his own knowledge and on his own experience, some persons will have unduly great influence on the educational system; and he will find that a situation may arise where he will in fact be accused of the creation of a “politieke kollege” or a “politieke skool”, or whatever it may be, by virtue of the fact that persons sympathetic to one political view or another have had something to do with advising the hon. the Minister.

So I want to say, in conclusion, that whereas no one on that side of the House need take up more of the time of the House unduly, to express the need for an Advisory Council on Education, there is every need to advance good reasons why the council should be set up in the form envisaged by the Minister in this Bill. Therefore I sincerely hope that when we come to the end of this debate, those hon. members who of their own volition have decided that this is a good Bill and that this particular type of council is a good council, instead of berating us on this side of the House and trying to accuse us of all sorts of suspicions and motives, and obstructing the national interests, will clarify that argument. [Time limit.]

The member who has just resumed his seat in his younger days was an artist of some kind. I do not know what heights he achieved in that direction, but I should like to say that since I have seen him in action in this House, he has revealed himself as a great clown …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

All right, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw. As I have learnt to know the hon. member in this House, I should just like to tell him that had we still been a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, I would have had not the slightest hesitation to recommend him as a King’s jester …

Order! The hon. member must return to the Bill.

I do not propose to react further to what the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) has said. He earned the reputation in the Transvaal …

Order! I have ruled that the hon. member should return to the Bill.

I accept your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I now turn to the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. D. Mitchell) and I should like to reply to what he has said, but before doing so I should like to have clarity for my own edification. Is he in this House as a representative of the United Party or the Progressive Party? I know that in Natal he was much in doubt as to whether he should stand as a Progressive or as a member of the United Party.

Order! The hon. member should now deal with the Bill.

All right, Mr. Speaker. With reference to his allegation that this Bill is an attempt to force Christian National Education down the throat of Natal, I should like to quote something to him he probably did not read when he decided to become a member of the United Party. I have here the “Programme of Principles” of the United Party, and the first thing appearing here is this:

I should like to read the third point too—

I think that is enough. I merely wish to suggest to the hon. member that he should go and read it again.

Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) I also analysed the evidence given before the Select Committee, but unlike him, I do not regard it as a kind of referendum. I also want to deal with the status of the witnesses and the quality and expertness of their evidence and the motives they had with that evidence. Having made this analysis, I found that there are 19 of the witnesses who replied that in principle they had no objection to the institution of an Education Advisory Council; four of those witnesses said “Yes and No” and only two said “No”. I should like to have a look at the status of those witnesses. In the first place at those who deposed in favour of the institution of an Education Advisory Council. We find there all the recognized education associations, as represented in the Federal Council of Teachers’ Associations in South Africa, a body that represents 27,000 Afrikaans and English-speaking teachers in the whole Republic and South West Africa, the Association for Technical and Vocational Education, the Teachers’ Associations under the Department of Education, Arts and Science. I do not think there is a single member of this House who will have the courage to impugn the competency of these bodies to talk about this Bill. In the second place there are recognized educationists, men of status in the pedagogic world who have published a number of works hereanent. I should like to mention only a few of them. I mention here Professor Bingle, P. S. du Toit, A. E. Bleksley, Professor Lighton. All of them depose in principle in favour of the Education Advisory Council. In the third place there are interested bodies of recognized and established status, and I should like to refer under this heading to bodies such as the “Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en kuns”, “Die Inter-kerklike Komitee”. Hon. members may differ from the point of view of the Committee, but I do not believe there is any doubt about the status and the expertness of this Committee. They have published their views, and it is there for those who are capable of being convinced. Then furthermore there is the Education Panel, and I mention the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies. Then I mention in the fourth place also the United Party Caucus of the Cape Provincial Council. What is more, two of the members who endorsed that attitude of the United Party Caucus in the Cape are to-day occupying seats in this House, namely the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) and the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Timoney). I now come to the four witnesses who said “Yes and No In the first place there are the private schools, and I should like to point out that they do not have an organization of an established status; they are merely a “conference of Headmasters and Headmistresses of Private Schools”. They say they are not opposed to an Education Advisory Council in principle, but they would rather not see it established. In any event, if it is established, it should rather leave the private schools in peace. In other words, they are more concerned about themselves and their own affairs than about the broad interests of the children in the country. I leave them there. The second witness who tries to sit on more than one chair like this, is Professor E. G. Malherbe of the Natal University who has also been referred to here this afternoon. Now it is interesting to me to know that this witness in 1925 advocated an Education Advisory Council in his book “Education in South Africa”. Now he wants a postponement pending the findings of the Commission on the financial relations between the Central Government and the provinces. But at the same time he also signs the memorandum of the Educational Panel who declares itself in favour of the principle of the Education Advisory Council. It is a long time since last I have experienced so much vaccilation on the part of a responsible man. If perhaps it were a case of his having changed his views because his status has changed, then I leave it at that. However, I want to object that he hides behind one of his National colleagues on that Committee, and that he dragged in a personal letter he wrote him, in the evidence before the Select Committee. Furthermore, there is the National Council of Women. This is a body that deposes itself that they really aim at enlightening the women in the country on public affairs, particularly matters of welfare. They do not refer to educational matters specifically. In other words, I am not prepared to accept them as an educational authority, apart from the fact that I have a very strong suspicion that they represent mainly one section of the women in our country. Now what do they want? In their memorandum they say that they are opposed to it, but in the evidence they gave, they say they are not really opposed to it, but they would prefer to have a commission of inquiry first. In this circular I got hold of subsequently, and which all hon. members probably got, they say that their Johannesburg branch had now decided that they now definitely are opposed to this Education Advisory Council, and then there are these words at the bottom—

I am merely mentioning this because other members have failed in their duty in this respect. The National Council of Women, at least as far as the Johannesburg branch is concerned, therefore is now opposed to the institution of an Education Advisory Council. A further yes and no witness is the Home and School Council. They say that in principle they also have no objection to it, but they desire a judicial commission. Now it is tremendously interesting that one of the most prominent members of this Home and School Council, Professor Arthur Bleksley, a man who according to the evidence has been serving on this Home and School Council since 1950, advocates the advisory council, not as it is proposed now, “but as contemplated in the Bill”. In other words, all the objections raised by members on the Opposition side, do not even apply to him. He advocates the establishment of an Education Advisory Council as envisaged in the Bill. In spite of that, this organization comes along and pleads for a judicial commission.

I now come to the two remaining witnesses who gave evidence against this Bill. The first one that is outspoken, but quite negatively outspoken, is the Black Sash. The Black Sash will have nothing to do with this whole Education Advisory Council in any shape or form whatsoever, but it (or perhaps I should rather say “she”) does not say what she really wants. I wish to point out that we know the Black Sash well, not as an educational body carrying any weight, but as a political body of protest. Then in the last place there is the Education Vigilance Committee, which is also opposed to the legislation and also demands a prior inquiry. Mr. Speaker, what is this Education Vigilance Committee? They themselves testify that they are a mushroom organization that emerged when there was talk of the establishment of this Bill. In other words, in the educational field these witnesses have hardly any value, and in some cases no value at all.

I should like to summarize it by saying that the status of the bodies (note I say “bodies”) that testified against the principle of this Bill, are not such that they carry any weight in the world of education. They are not bodies that have published anything, they are merely political protest bodies, and I think we shall know how to deal with their evidence. I should like to point out further, the relationship between these witnesses, and I wish to tell you that all these bodies that testified against this measure, or which said “yes or no” in connection with the legislation, are merely legs of the same spider, and I am including the Opposition in that, which is one of the strong legs of this spider. I should like to prove what I have said here. I should like to ask Mr. Speaker, whether you also noticed that it appears from the evidence that Mrs. M. Stoy, who was the speaker here the other day at a protest meeting of the Civil Rights Defence Committee, is Chairman of the Cape Town Branch of the National Council of Women, and that she is the one who testified before this Select Committee on behalf of the National Council of Women. Then there is Mrs. Grant who testified on behalf of the Black Sash, who were standing here in front of the gates the other day only, and she is vice-convenor for education of the National Council of Women. I should like to refer to Mrs. L. Marquard, also a witness for the Black Sash, who is opposed to it. But she also signs the memorandum of the Education Panel which is in favour of an Educational Advisory Council. I conclude with that as regards this relationship, but should like to add that leading ladies of the Home and School Council which is known to us in Johannesburg, all are of the same kind and that the leading ladies there also are members of the Black Sash. I should like to call as a witness the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) who sat with me on the School Board of the Witwatersrand. He will be able to testify how many of those Black Sash women were so exhibitionistic that they came to the School Board meetings with their Black Sash badges and caused all kinds of incidents there. I say that all these bodies are birds of a feather, they are legs of the same spider.

What is the Opposition now doing with this evidence? I think I can best illustrate it by referring to the case of the magistrate whose friend came to visit him and because he had nothing to do in the small town, he attended the sitting of the Court. At the conclusion of the sitting, he told his friend over a glass of beer about the day’s experiences. The magistrate then said to his friend: “Tell me, what do you think of the administration of justice?” His friend replied: “Yes, it was very interesting, but you know what struck me intensely, is that I noticed that you merely listened to the one side of the evidence, and then you gave your judgment”. The magistrate then said: “Yes, it is experience that does that; if you listen to both sides, you become much too confused”. That is exactly what the Opposition has done in this case. In reality they are rejecting this whole cloud of evidence in favour of the establishment of an Education Advisory Council, like this magistrate to whom I have referred. And what do they do? They hide behind this small group of people who have the courage to protest in public, as they did in regard to the General Law Amendment Bill. That is why it is not difficult for me either to prophesy that they will be led by the nose in this matter as happened in the case of the so-called sabotage Bill. I am just wondering what the hon. members for Pinelands and Salt River, who signed that memorandum of the Cape caucus, are going to do and whether they are going to vote against the principle of this Bill, or whether they also are going to sing a song of praise in regard to party unity, like the hon. member for Germiston District and the hon. member for Yeoville before they vote with the United Party against the principle of this Bill. I am looking forward to seeing that.

Which memorandum are you referring to now?

The hon. member was not in his seat just now, for then he would have known what I am referring to. I want to repeat that the United Party is against this Bill in reality and that that amendment proposed by the hon. member for Hillbrow was merely a smoke screen behind which they are hiding. They do not have the courage to come forward with their true views in this matter. I am saying that on the ground of the fact that when leave was asked for the introduction of the original Bill (not this one) they lodged an objection to it. In other words, they preferred not to see the Bill before this House. Secondly, there was that motion on the point of order by the hon. member for Germiston (District), which is nothing but an attempt to keep this Bill out of the House. In the third place there was the weak amendment of the hon. member for Hillbrow before the Select Committee, and now in this House again, in which they say with all the piety in the world that they are in favour of raising the educational standards in this country, but that they are voting against this Council. Now I ask you: If they are in favour of the principle, as the hon. member for Hillbrow said in passing, why then did they not vote in favour of the Bill at the second reading and fight us in the Committee Stage, clause for clause? I submit they are hiding behind these bodies of protest to which I have referred because they do not have the courage to reveal their own attitude, namely that in reality they are opposed to this Bill.

I should like to return briefly to the Bill itself, and I should like to congratulate the Select Committee on the work they have done to clear the atmosphere in connection with this great national matter. Indeed, in my view the Select Committee succeeded in removing the main objections raised against the original Bill. We have listened to speech after speech here, in some cases tirades, speeches that brought no honour to this House, and in those speeches in most cases use was made of hollow-sounding phrases that are meaningless. Some of them used some aspects of the evidence and applied it altogether obliquely. Whether it was stupidity or calculation, I cannot judge. I wish to emphasize that the majority of the memoranda submitted to the Select Committee related to the original Bill, and I do not think it was fair of members on the Opposition side to have used arguments raised in those memoranda against that specific Bill, and to have quoted them in this House to suggest that the people still feel the same way about the Bill now before the House. I wish to put that point very strongly, and I should like to show that what I am saying here is correct, by merely referring to the attempts my hon. colleague for Waterberg (Mr. Heystek) made to put the evidence of prof. Bingle in the proper light. I should like to mention a second example. The hon. member for Johannesburg North (Mrs. Weiss) indicated here that the South African Teachers’ Association now feel differently on this Bill to what they said in the Federal body. She referred to the Queenstown meeting and wished to give us the impression that 2,000 of the teachers were opposed to this Bill. That is an example of what I referred to just now. Surely the fact of the matter is that that Queenstown meeting was opposed to the original Bill, but that the objections they raised were almost entirely met in the Bill that is before us now. That is why I say that the objections have been mainly removed. I should like to mention them here. In the first place the greatest point of attack in all that evidence was that the Council should be an advisory council; it should have no executive powers; its functions had to be advice, co-ordination and research. That was urged by the various bodies. I should like to refer you to Clause 7 of this Bill and to the assurance the hon. the Minister gave in connection With this matter, and I could add to that the amendment he has proposed even as regards the name. I should like to say that if the Opposition are not prepared to have themselves convinced by this, then they are blind, and it is true, as the adage goes, that no one is as blind as he who does not want to see. A second objection raised to the original Bill was that the members of the Council should not be full-time, there should be only a small full-time nucleus plus a broad Council of part-time members. That point was conceded and I refer to Clause 3 of the Bill before us. A third objection to the original Bill was that the members should be recognized educationists. That was not only conceded, but has been repeatedly emphasized by the hon. the Minister, and in this regard I should like to refer to Clause 2. A further objection to the original Bill was that it should give advice in relation to the education of Whites and non-Whites. The original Bill merely related to Whites. That point was also conceded, and I refer in this connection to Clause 7. The next objection to the original Bill was that admission to schools should not be secured without the consent of the responsible bodies. On that point they were also met, and hon. members need only look at Clause 5. Then a further objection was raised, or rather representations were made that minority reports as well as majority reports of this Advisory Council should be submitted to the Minister. That point also was conceded, as provided in Clause 9. In fact there were only two points of objection to the original Bill that did not lead to amendments in the Bill before us. Those two are the appointment of the members by the Minister. The Minister has given sound and conclusive reasons as to why that is not only impossible, but that it also is undesirable. These friends who are so fond of quoting the example of England, could lief go and take a page out of the Butler legislation as regards this matter, and be less worried about this matter than they appear to be at the moment. A last point, Mr. Speaker, is the alleged abridgment of the legislative powers of the provinces. This point also has been explained very convincingly by the hon. the Minister. I leave it at that. I should like to repeat a point I have already made, and I would like to quote what prof. Bleksley said. Prof. Bleksley was announced as one of the authorities before the Select Committee. Prof. Bleksley has served in an Education Advisory Council and we were told that he should be able to give us first-hand information on his experiences. Prof. Bleksley then said:

If the crown prince of the Home and School Council says that, then I ask what right have many of the hon. members of the Opposition to come along and denounce this measure as a political measure.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to conclude by saying that if you have regard to the manner in which people have acted in regard to this Bill, the prolixity that was pursued, the opportunities given to all objectors to come forward with their misgivings, if you have regard to the explanations, if you have regard to the goodwill of the Select Committee to accept all these amendments, then I ask you whether these are the acts of a Government that simply wants to act in a dictatorial fashion and wants to force certain things upon an unwilling Opposition? I think that is an idea that has been sucked out of the thumb, Mr. Speaker. I think their charge that the Government has political motives with this Bill, is due to the fact that their consciences are not so clean in regard to this matter. They are seeking us behind the door because they themselves are standing behind that door. Their criticism against the provincial policy is exactly the same as that against this House. I worked with the representatives of the Home and School Council for a long time in education circles in Johannesburg. Let me tell them that they can point out chapter and verse all the shortcomings of the existing education system and their criticism of the provincial authorities, of course excluding Natal, is precisely the same as that which they have against this Bill. In other words, I submit that this cry that this Act abridges provincial powers means to them simply that Natal may be involved. And that is merely a hypothesis too.

To me this Bill is an honest and sincere attempt to lift our education in our country out of the political arena. I really trust that once this Bill has been passed, it will be the end of all this quibbling about matters of education. It is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that all the difficulties flow from mutual racial fear. We have seen that when one section does the planning of education in a province the other section always is suspicious. That is a fact. We are seeing it in Natal at the present time. They allege that this is an attempt to force Christian National Education down their throats. The converse also applies when the Afrikaners do the planning. The same arguments they have against this Bill, they also have against the National régime in the various provinces. As I see things, we have two parallel systems of education in this country next to each other. I believe that any educational reform should not only apply to both sections, but should also be acceptable to both sections. Experience thus far has taught us that if we have to follow that road in the political struggle, we cannot follow it. That is why I say that I regard this Bill as an honest and sincere attempt to lift education out of the political arena. We no longer have time to waste on this important matter with soap box speeches and recriminations.

The hon. member must deal with the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to emphasize the need for a body that can advise on educational and scientific grounds and I wish to conclude on that note. I trust that the decision taken by this House, will be an historical decision because it will lift education out of politics.

The hon. member for Westdene (Mr. van der Spuy) who has just resumed his seat, tried to use the speech of the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) and the statistical findings he brought up in respect of the evidence of the witnesses before the Select Committee, in an attempt to prove that the attitude of this side of the House is not in accord with what was asked by most of the witnesses. I should like to point out to the hon. member for Westdene what the Federal Council of Teachers’ Associations said before this Select Committee. That is a body that represents 27,000 male and female teachers in South Africa. I would say this to the hon. member for Westdene: Does he think that the attitude of his side of the House represents the views of those people? I want to go further by saying that the attitude adopted by this side of the House by way of the amendment we moved at the second reading, is actually in accord with what the teachers, the teaching profession, in South Africa expects us to do and what they would have liked to be included in the legislation of the hon. the Minister. Take their memorandum, on page 4. This was their argument in respect of the old legislation and it has not yet been changed. They say:

I should like to quote one resolution they adopted in 1956:

This legislation is not an example of that. The hon. the Minister does not have to consult them. The hon. the Minister is not required to appoint any of their representatives or prominent leaders to this advisory council. Let us listen to what Mr. Wahl said. He is from the South African Teachers Association. He and Mr. Whiteford represented the Association before the Select Committee. I am quoting from paragraph 102—

Then the hon. member says to us: There no longer are many objections; there are only these few things that remain. He says it was the duty of the United Party to have voted for the second reading, and then to have tried to amend the Bill in the Committee Stage. [Interjections.] But surely you have had the opportunity to amend it in the Select Committee. Amendments were proposed before the Select Committee. You had an opportunity there to vote. Good proposals were made in accordance with what the educational interests in South Africa wanted. Did the representatives of hon. members opposite vote for them? No. Can we expect that after the second reading has been approved, they will accept those amendments in the Committee Stage? How can the hon. member expect us to vote for the second reading on that basis? Then the hon. member says we are merely afraid that Natal will be included in this legislation; that they will be compelled to adopt the Christian National Education system the National Party wishes to pursue. But I do not wish to take myself as a witness, nor any other member on this side of the House. Let us listen to the present Minister of Justice; he then was Deputy Minister of Education. He held a meeting of which a report appeared in the Eastern Province Herald on 29 September, 1959. And what did he say—

Then the hon. member says it is an hypothesis of this side to think that it will be a result of this legislation if passed. Then the hon. member concludes his speech by saying that he hopes that this is a serious attempt on the part of the Government to lift education in South Africa out of the political arena. Even the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert) has said it will be the beginning of greater unity between Afrikaans-and English-speaking people. The hon. member also said that he had urged his own people to achieve this. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) mentioned strings of things that this Bill will entail. I had just thought that sooner or later he would say that this Bill also would bring a lid to every pot. Mr. Speaker, what is the position? To actually take this question of education out of politics, what should have been the attitude of the hon. the Minister or of the Select Committee? Then they should have accepted those very sound principles of education submitted to them by the witnesses. Then they would have lifted education out of the political arena. If the hon. the Minister had been prepared to say: All right, when the education interests have submitted to me the names of all the persons that ought to be members of this Education Advisory Council I accept their advice; then he would have taken it out of politics. The whole of South

Africa would then have been recognized. The powers of this Council should have been defined fully. We should not have referred in broad principle to “to advise the Minister”. If the hon. the Minister had been prepared to repudiate the speech of the present Minister of Justice made in 1959, we would have achieved national unity in South Africa as regards education; then we would have been in a position to take education out of South African politics. For I think, Sir, that it certainly is the wish of every educationist and of every parent, that political capital should not be made out of education. On the contrary, it ought to be so in every democratic country. No responsible leader of a nation, whether it be a Minister or an Administrator or whatsoever position of leadership he may occupy, ought to use education for the benefit of a particular political party.

Yes, but the hon. member should now return to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to point out that the hon. the Minister is going to appoint this Council and therefore there will be political considerations. It will depend on his choice alone. That is why it is so wrong, Sir. That is one of the reasons I wish to submit, why we should vote against this Bill at the second reading. If we pass this Bill, it means that we accept the principles of greater political control in our system of education. It ought to be the wish of any leader that there should be no political interference in education, otherwise he will be exposing himself to that charge that he wants to use education for the benefit of his own Party. That is why we find in most countries, even in a country such as America, where education is in the hands of the State, that they transfer control thereof to various local committees. It is estimated that there are approximately 50,000 different systems of education in America. That is the freedom they have there. Nobody can accuse the leaders of that country of wanting to use education for their own advantage. As long as the hon. the Minister has these provisions, as long as he refuses to recognize the teaching profession in South Africa, as long as he refuses to recognize the interests outside, such as the Chamber of Mines, commerce and agriculture and the other bodies that ought to be represented on this Council, the hon. the Minister must expect that there will be suspicion regarding his Bill. And we were anxious to assist him. The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) very clearly stated that we wish to assist him; our amendment says so very clearly. We also are concerned about the decline in the standard of our education. We also are anxious to see that more research should be done in respect of our education, without there being any interference with that right the provinces have always had. Now it is said that we should vote for this legislation because it will bring about a new dawn in our education, as the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter) has said. What right has he to say that? Is this Education Council going to wipe out the shortage of teachers in South Africa? Is it going to make more money available to our several provinces? How do we know that? For instance, is it going to see that the financial arrangements between the State and the several provincial administration are changed? What right has he to say that? That applies to the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) too. They have tried to find justification for this legislation, and they come along and tell us that it will now ring in a tremendous new period of growth and progress in respect of our education. Mr. Speaker, it could be done as well by giving more assistance to our provincial authorities. Where there is a shortage of teachers, it could be done equally well by means of scholarships and what have you to see to it that that shortage is wiped out. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) cannot come and tell me that all of that will be brought about by the establishment of this education council. But Mr. Speaker, what is the true object of this legislation? The hon. the Minister was not so outspoken as the present Minister of Justice was a few years ago. No, he stated his case here in a very nice way. He told us: It is not advisable to state the functions and duties of the Council too narrowly. We should not make it so narrow; that is why it is as wide as possible. He also quotes Clause 7 as an example, and then he says: No legislation will be capable of being passed unless the views of the Council have been obtained. The hon. the Minister continues: The main object is that a national education policy will be developed gradually. Gradually a national policy of education will be developed. In other words, complete uniformity throughout the Republic. Every province will have to pursue precisely the same education policy, if we want to talk about a national education policy. The hon. member for Ventersdorp also stated it very clearly. He mentioned the example of the differences between the various provinces in respect of parental choice. Mr. Speaker, one can expect that the policy this Council will have to lay down, will not be that of an advisory council; the Council will not be an advisory council, but it will advise the Minister how to achieve a national education policy. And once we have that national education policy, what then? Should it not be carried out then?

Are you opposed to that?

Of course I am opposed to there being a national education policy in respect of every aspect of our education. That is the attitude of this side of the House.

And this policy has been laid down very expressly in Clause 7 of the Bill—to advise the Minister in regard to all matters concerning education in the country. How then can the hon. member say that when we have a national education policy in our country, there will be no interference with the various provinces? I do not know why hon. members opposite are so keen to have a national education policy. Surely there are three provinces in the country already where the party opposite have the control. Are they then so dissatisfied with their own achievements in the majority of the provinces?

There are other people in the country too.

If hon. members opposite wish to pursue a national education policy, and at the same time …

We are not discussing a national education policy now, but a national education council.

Mr. Speaker, you are quite right. The clause is not called national education, but I have been referring to the words of the hon. member for Ventersdorp.

Are you satisfied with the policy of education of the Cape?

The hon. the Minister asks whether I am satisfied with the policy of education of the Cape. Of course I am not satisfied for in the Cape there is a National majority. Much more could already have been achieved in the Cape if that catastrophe had not befallen us, that the National Party secured the majority in the Provincial Council. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, if one looks at this legislation and the evidence given before the Select Committee, one realizes that the Bill cannot serve the best purposes of education in the country. I wish to mention certain reasons why I am saying this. The main reason is that the powers of the proposed council, as specified in Clause 7, are wholly too wide. It may affect any aspect of our education. But if one wants a fine example of how an advisory council in education ought to operate, then we should look at what they are doing in Australia for instance. Here in my hand I have the Australian Universities Commission Act, No. 13 of 1959. This legislation was introduced to nominate representatives from every university. They constitute a committee that has to advise the Minister of Education of the Federal Government in respect of universities. I should like to quote Clause 13. The marginal note is: “Functions of the Commission”—

It is very clear what the object is and what advice they have to give. We also have a university Committee established by the Act of 1955, in terms of which the principals, heads or rectors of our universities are empowered to advise the hon. the Minister and the Government on specified matters. We do not do so; why was not precisely the same principle adopted in this legislation by the hon. the Minister? Then there would not have been any suspicion. No, but this Government always is surprised when there is suspicion in relation to legislation with which they come to Parliament. Surely they are the cause of it. Surely it is in their power to draft legislation in such a manner that there will be no suspicion. Yet the activities of the proposed council, as the Minister himself said in his second reading speech, have deliberately not been stated too narrowly. Hon. members opposite are complaining that there is divided control of our education in our country. They are terribly concerned about that, and pretend that it is to the prejudice of the child and to the prejudice of the teaching profession as such. But what is being done here? Here another Department of Education is being created, that is to say, over and above the existing departments of education. So here we are creating a sixth department of education. Is it really the object of hon. members opposite that divided control should be eliminated? I am asking the hon. member for Ventersdorp whether that is so.

You will not understand if I were to reply.

I say it is not the intention, and that hon. members opposite will not succeed in eliminating divided control for here they go along and are creating another sixth department of education.

You will experience everything within one year. Then you will see.

What I am prepared to experience is that there shall be amendments to this measure to a considerable extent. I am prepared to experience that the Minister will ask still further far-reaching powers to get this national education policy for South Africa. Hon. members opposite also contended that this legislation will not mean interference, and that we need not worry about that, for no one will take over any of the functions that normally belong to the local authorities and the provincial administrations. I should like once again to ask the hon. member for Ventersdorp who thinks he made such a wonderful speech to-day, whether he thinks that we shall be able to apply a national education policy in South Africa under a system of divided control? Does he think it is possible? I say it is not possible to have a national education policy in South Africa unless divided control is dispensed with. It must be abolished if the Government wishes to introduce a national education policy. Clause 5 is the beginning of that. Provision is made therein for the appointment of committees. I must admit that this provision is better than that in the old Bill, but only in certain respects for the possibility is still there that no school will be free of interference on the part of the Council. And is the position not already that schools are dissatisfied about the interference there is at the present moment? Do principals feel happy about the inspectors who come round to their schools all day to see what is going on?

Do you want them abolished too?

I think the hon. member for Winburg has spoken a little too soon by making that interjection, for I wish to quote to him what the hon. member for Randfontein has said about this matter. All of us know that the hon. member for Randfontein was a capable vice-principal of his school and that he takes a keen interest in education. What did he say the other day when he made a speech before the South African Teacher’s Union? According to the Burger of 14 June of this year, that is to say yesterday, the hon. member said the following—

The hon. member for Winburg asked me whether I want inspectors abolished, but he should ask the hon. member for Randfontein that. I repeat that the teachers and principals are complaining already. The hon. member for Randfontein is right therefore in what he has said, for teachers and principals are complaining already that inspectors come around to see what they are doing while they themselves are trained people who know what to do. But what is the effect of Clause 5 now? This, namely that it intensifies the system of inspection in our schools still more. The hon. member for Randfontein ought really to vote with this side of the House for this is an important principle that is contained in this Bill, namely that the National Education Advisory Council will have the right to appoint these committees to carry out inspections at schools. If the position already is such that principals and teachers cannot tolerate inspectors under the present order, what will be their reaction in respect of this provision? Are they going to co-operate in the manner the hon. the Minister thinks they will? And if research has to be conducted at our schools—something I admit is necessary—can it then not be done equally well under our present system? Are our universities and training colleges where people are doing postgraduate work, not in a position yet to conduct research at our schools? Why then create an additional body for that purpose? Why establish another body to do that kind of work and thereby create great friction and greater frustration among our teaching personnel? No, Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Winburg has made an unfortunate interjection for him, when he asked me whether I wanted inspectors to be abolished. In conclusion I should like to say that the Council to be established under this legislation, will not be something whereby unity and South-Africanism will really be brought about in South Africa. As far as I am concerned, I believe that if you really want national unity, your education should enjoy the greatest possible measure of freedom. In this connection I should like to quote a few words from the book Democracy and Education by Dewey—

It is a most dangerous direction. We should understand and we should appreciate that there is considerable suspicion in South Africa—suspicion between Afrikaans and English-speaking people. That is so, we cannot argue it away.

Your speech is a typical example of that.

How can this suspicion be removed? Can you do it by having a greater measure of division? Or should you bring it about by giving the parent the freedom to do what he thinks is best for his child, and so that Afrikaans and English-speaking children can get an opportunity of coming closer to one another on the school benches and on the playing fields?

Before commencing my speech, I should at the request of the “Transvaalse Onderwysersvereniging” like to correct a certain point. They have asked me to correct paragraph 1036 of their evidence in this debate by substituting the following for that paragraph—

I am pleased to make this correction on behalf of the “Transvaalse Onderwysersvereniging” in order to have it recorded in Hansard.

I do not want to say much in reply to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West). My time is limited and I do not want to devote it to him. However, I just want to make a correction regarding the question of the abolition of inspectors of which he has made so much. I happen to have here the notes of the speech which I made on Wednesday. He has completely misquoted my speech. If one only reads what he read out, one can make the inference which he has made if one does not read what follows. The correct context of the words I used was as follows—

From this it can be seen that in essence I have no objection to the appointment of inspectors, but I do have objections to the way in which certain inspectors carry out inspections. I hope that makes the position clear.

I now want to turn to the Bill under discussion. We now have this Bill before us after years of work and years of striving to fulfil their ideals by various bodies and persons. The principle embodied in this Bill is that a National Education Advisory Council should be established. We do not want to nor can we actually discuss now the tasks and functions of the council—what exactly it will achieve and what it will aim to do—because that council will have to find its own way, step by step, as the problems present themselves. As I have said, this council represents the realization of a long-felt and long-cherished ideal. In his introductory speech the hon. the Minister pointed out quite clearly that from as long ago as 1910 representation had been made in this regard and that various commissions since that time had submitted reports calling for the appointment of such a council. I do not want to go into that aspect again. Organized education has repeatedly asked for such a council. Various organizations which are interested in education have asked for such a council over the years. I do not want to discuss this voluminous report by the Select Committee, except to point out that to make quotations from the views expressed first by the one school of thought and then by the other, really does not get us any further because we can make quotations from that evidence both for and against an Education Advisory Council. To say therefore that this or that point of view predominated does not really get us any further.

As far as I am concerned, I just want to make one quotation from this report, and this is from the evidence given by the Education Panel. On this Panel there are persons such as Dr. Bleksley, the former Chief Justice Centlivres, Professor Lighton, Professor MacCrone, Miss McLarty, Professor MacMillan, Professor Malherbe, Mrs. Marquard, Mr. Ollemans, Mr. Harry Oppenheimer, Mr. Pistorius, Professor Sutton, etc.

What about Professor Thom?

Professor Thom did not sign this document and I can therefore not link his name with it. However, he is also a member of the Panel. I want to make the following quotation from the memorandum submitted by this body to the Select Committee (page 85 of the Report)—

I now want to submit that this is the very object of the Bill now before us, namely the establishment and development of an educational pattern in South Africa. However, I shall come back to this aspect later.

As I have said, the establishment of this council has been urged in various quarters. I have here a cutting from the Cape Argus of 26 January 1961, in which the attitude of the Cape Council of Education was set out. This body convened a special meeting in the City Hall with the object of drawing public attention to the Bill. What is the attitude of such a body, as expressed on that occasion, towards the establishment of such a council? It is the following—

This then is the attitude of the Cape Council of Education, a body which certainly does not support this Party. It has already been pointed out how many persons and organizations who gave evidence before the Select Committee, asked for such a council. I submit that the United Party itself asked for such a council some time ago. I have here the Hansard reports of the debates held in the House of Assembly on 16 April 1945. The main speaker on the Government side at that time was Mr. Sullivan, the then member for Durban (Berea). In connection with education, he said the following on that occasion—

At a later stage in his speech he said the following (col. 5421)—

And what was the reply of the then Minister of Education, namely Mr. Jan Hofmeyr? After pointing out that education at that stage was in the hands of the provinces and that the Consultative Committee which existed at that time, had made attempts to secure cooperation, he said (col. 5471)—

Then come the following significant words—

But it was not only Mr. Jan Hofmeyr, the then Minister of Education, who supported a National Education Advisory Council. The present member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) also asked for such a council. To prove this, I want to quote from a speech which he made in the House of Assembly on 2 April 1945. On that occasion the House was discussing Bantu education and the hon. member for Hillbrow, who at that time was still the member for Vryheid, said the following (col. 4488)—

Here we find the principle that an Education Advisory Council should be established for Bantu education. The hon. member then went on and discussed general educational principles and he then said (col. 4490)—

Further in his speech he discussed provincial control over education and said (col. 4492)—

This was surely a slip of the tongue on the hon. member’s part because is the education of the Whites of South Africa not also a national matter? The hon. member for Hillbrow is therefore the last person who should continue to oppose this Bill.

I now want to turn to the discussion which we have had regarding national policy and a national education pattern. In this regard I want to quote from the British Education Act of 1944, in other words the well-known Butler Act. During this debate it has been alleged with a great fanfare that a national education policy will mean that everything will be made uniform and be dominated from above. Britain is held up to us as the model State in the field of education. Section 1 of the British Act to which I have referred, reads as follows—

Britain can therefore have a national policy in respect of education and everyone praises it. The Republic of South Africa, however, dare not speak of a national policy or it is said that it will be a Nationalist policy. Hon. members do not know the difference in their own language. During the debate which was held in the British House of Commons on the Butler Act, Sir Henry Brook, a Conservative member, had the following to say—

During this debate a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury was also quoted, in which he said—

This, after all, is national education; it is after all a national policy on a broad basis. Another British member of Parliament, Mr. Colegate, said—

However, if we in South Africa dare say that we want to introduce a national educational policy with the object of also teaching our children to be proud of our Republic, we are accused of petty politics. Here I want to quote the well-known verse from Lord Tennyson’s poem—

[Quorum.] But I want to come back to the Bill before us. I have discussed the national education policy in Britain and I shall come back to the Butler Act presently in order to make one or two further quotations from that Act. The amendment moved by the Opposition to the second reading of this Bill contains in the main two submissions. In the first place, they allege that the Bill interferes with the autonomy of the provinces, and in the second place, that it gives the Minister undue powers. As far as the autonomy of the provinces is concerned, you, Mr. Speaker, have already given a ruling and I therefore do not want to argue that point any further. However, I just want to ask the Opposition why they are now so concerned about the fact that this Bill will interfere with the autonomy of the provinces. If this Government should decide that it is necessary to interfere with the autonomy of the provinces or to interfere in some way or another or even to take over the education which falls under the provinces, then provision is made in the Constitution that that can be done in whatever way we like. We need therefore not introduce artificial legislation for that object or hide it away in a sinister Act! We need not do it in an underhand way! The Constitution provides specifically that certain education is entrusted to the provinces until such time as Parliament otherwise decides. If Parliament therefore were to decide to-day to act differently, no one except this sovereign Parliament would have anything to say about the matter. That is the task of this Parliament alone. If that is the position, why should we introduce a Bill with sinister objects in this regard if we can achieve our aim by direct methods as provided for in the Constitution? The Opposition’s argument in this regard is therefore a foolish one.

The proposed council will be advisory and co-ordinating. This being so, I submit that hon. members opposite are now criticizing the wrong legislation. The Bill now before us only provides for the establishment of an advisory council for education. This advisory council will investigate matters and advise the Minister accordingly. The Minister will then consider the advice and decide on a purely constitutional basis—because it no longer has anything to do with the advisory council—whether that advice should be converted into legislation, whether he is going to reject it, or whether he will convey it to the authorities concerned by means of a circular with the request that it should be put into practice. If the Minister decides to introduce legislation in order to embody such advice in legislation, then that is the opportunity for hon. members to criticize such legislation if they do not agree with it. But for them to criticize this Bill the object of which is only to establish an advisory council, means that they are barking up the wrong tree. I want to submit that not one single piece of advice by the proposed advisory council can be forced upon a province without legislation being introduced into this House for that purpose.

That is the point.

The opportunity for the Opposition to fight will then be when such legislation is introduced. If mother tongue education is to be introduced or if Christian National Education is to be introduced, then that will be the opportunity for the Opposition to fight. To do so at this stage already, means that they are seeing bogeys because they are arguing on the basis that such things may still happen. By so doing they are missing the mark completely.

Another objection by the Opposition to this Bill is that the Minister is being given unduly wide powers. The Opposition still cannot believe, and still cannot understand, that they no longer rule the country. For 14 years already they have not been able to understand and accept this. Who else is to decide? I think it is the hon. member for Durban (Berea) who said that the whole Bill was saturated with “the Minister shall” and “the Minister may But what do they want? The Opposition would probably have accepted this Bill unreservedly if it had laid down that “the Opposition shall appoint a National Education Advisory Council”, that “the Opposition shall appoint one member of the council”, or that “the Opposition shall advise in respect of education”! Under those circumstances they would probably have accepted the Bill unreservedly. But because these powers have now been given to the Minister, it is such a terrible thing!

But exactly what powers will the Minister have? I maintain that this Bill does not give the Minister one-tenth of the powers which the corresponding Act gives the Minister in Great Britain. Once again I want to quote in this regard from the corresponding British Act and then to draw a comparison between the powers the Minister has there and the powers our Minister will have under this Bill. Clause 93 of the Butler Act reads as follows—

And now the Opposition are making such a fuss about the investigations which will be possible in terms of this legislation. The Minister can cause inquiries to be held in Britain. Was there such a tremendous fuss about that provision? Not a word. I quote Section 99 of that Act—

Anyone can write a letter to the Minister and say he feels unhappy about what the local authority is doing. Any man in the street can write a letter to the Minister—

He can immediately take the necessary powers to correct the position himself. I ask whether these are not vast powers. But I want to go further and discuss the inspections. I want to say at once that the object of this Bill as I see it, and I am convinced that this is the underlying idea, is not that these committees will institute investigations in order to act as inquisitors. These will be people who must carry out research or investigate a specific matter. Under those circumstances it is essential that they should go to various schools to obtain first-hand knowledge and must we now stop them seeing what is happening, or obtaining information with a view to research? But in Britain inspections can be carried out. They did not make a great fuss about this—

No provision is made regarding the qualifications which these persons must have. There is no question of their being educationists. They can be political “stooges”, according to the argument of the Opposition, and the Act provides for that, but the British Opposition did not make a tremendous fuss as this irresponsible Opposition is doing.

Then there is the question of consultation. The Bill now provides that there must be consultation between the provincial authorities and this advisory council before legislation can be introduced. Section 88 of the British Act says—

Just look at the powers which the authorities have there. If the authorities decide to appoint a certain man, then they have the following powers—

In Britain they cannot even appoint a director of education, as we would call him, without consulting the Minister. And then what is still worse—

These are far-reaching powers. If this Act had been introduced into our Parliament, I am certain that the Black Sash would once again have stood in rows protesting against the violation of the Constitution. But this Act was passed in Britain without the slighest opposition. But besides the powers given to the Minister, there are a whole series of powers given to local authorities. This creates the impression, if one reads the Act quickly, that the local authorities are given certain powers, but the specific sections which give these powers to the local authorities, read as follows (Section 82)—

It therefore seems that they do not have much powers—

They may not even undertake research into educational matters in their own areas without the consent of the Minister. Then there is Section 83, which deals with the organization of conferences of teachers on matters in which they are all interested—

They may not even have a conference on educational matters without the approval of the Minister. And this is not in Russia, but in the mother of all democracies, which is always being held up as an example, namely Great Britain.

Here is another argument: The Minister will appoint all the members and they will all be “political stooges” of the Minister and will only carry out his will. What does Section 4 (2) of the British Act provide?—

He appoints all the members and also the chairman, just as will be the position here, and in addition he appoints the secretary. And there was no revolution or opposition. There was not even a vote on it.

Then we have the establishment of the advisory council and the powers of the council. These powers are set out in Clause 7 and the Bill provides that advice will be given to the Minister in regard to the general policy to be applied in connection with education. I read from Clause 7 (1) of our Bill—

That is the general principle. There is a similar council in Britain, or actually two councils for two different parts of the country, and what are the relevant provisions?—

And then the Act says for which areas—

Education, theory, practice—they can advise him in respect of all these matters and in respect of any matter which he may refer to them, but when we give our council certain powers to advise the Minister in respect of the general educational policy, the very devil is let loose.

I now want to leave the British Act and I want to say at once that I form the impression that we are dealing with the very same old problem, namely that here we have an Opposition who took up a stand on this Bill too quickly, who never considered the overall situation. They saw the immediate reaction of individual persons and they thought they should be in the forefront of this reaction and they immediately opposed the first reading, right from the start. Now the witnesses who should have supported them before the Select Committee have with one or two exceptions all abandoned them. They all welcomed the Bill and said it met a long-felt need, and the Opposition to-day are trying to save their face by this sham show to cover up their foolishness in opposing the Bill from the beginning. That is actually the crux of the matter.

But I want to go further and to devote the last part of my speech to discussing not what the work of this council will be, but why this council is essential. I do not want to say what it should do. I say that South Africa demands it from us at this time. In general I am satisfied with and I want to praise the provincial councils for, the work which they have done over the past 50 years for education. Gigantic tasks have been carried out from a difficult initial stage until we have large and extensive educational departments. But the provincees have each moved in their own direction. There has been no system, direction or course in their planning and in their work. The simile which I want to use is that they have been like four strong, fiery horses, with tremendous power and energy, but each has galloped off in its own direction with all its strength and energy. The object of this Bill is not to deprive those four horses of their strength, not to deprive them of their energy, but to harness them together and to give the reins to a driver and to say: Now all pull forward in the interests of all. That is all this Bill wants to do. Let us pull together and move forward. Let us be “united”, if the Opposition perhaps does not know its own name. Let there be direction in our education. I want to dispose of one matter immediately. I want to say that the national education policy which we are discussing is not a pre-conceived and pre-determined system or policy which we now want to force down the throats of all in a sinister way with the assistance of this council. This national education policy is a policy which will be gradually developed as these investigations take place, as the requirements of the various communities are analysed, so that we shall develop a common policy, as the Minister has very clearly said. It is not the intention to enforce a pre-determined concept. The object is to build up such a policy towards greater strength and greater heights through united action. That is why this council is necessary and that is why it is such a great pity that hon. members are making such a tremendous fuss and creating suspicion against this body which we want to establish in order to fulfil this noble task in our education. We are not envisaging a strict, centralized educational system, as they have in France a system under which a child in the North and a child in the South are taking the same subject at the same time on the same day, and there is only one curriculum for every child throughout the country. Education in South Africa is organized on such a basis that we must provide for diversity in unity, and the hon. member for Hospital will not understand this, because he says one cannot be rich and poor at the same time. I say that there will be diversity in unity. There can be a unity of direction and approach, which is in the interests of all, but there can be diversity, so that each educational authority will interpret those general principles in its own way and give expression thereto in its syllabus. There can be diversity within the unity. We do not want to produce slavish machines nor do we want to make everyone the same. We do not want to be dictators. On the contrary, our people are a free people who will never tolerate a dictatorship. I therefore say that I regard the school as being the substitute for the parental home and the teacher as acting on behalf of the parent. Although there may be differences between the Afrikaans and English-speaking groups, and although there may be different points of view, between the Afrikaans and English-speaking peoples as regards the children of South Africa and their future. In the future our schools must emphasize those points of agreement rather than the differences. Let us build one nation and one common ideal on that basis without surrendering the principle of individuality. We do not want to have one group dominate the other. That is not our object.

I want to conclude with a final thought. Mr. Butler said: “The greatest asset of the people is the people. It is human quality that counts,” and in the words of Disraeli, “Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends”. If those words were true of Britain more than 80 years ago, and if the value of a people is to be found in the people itself, then those words are a hundred times more true in South Africa, namely that the future of this country will depend on its education. That being so, we on both sides of the House must welcome this legislation, if we do not want to make petty political capital, because it gives us the opportunity eventually to build up our spiritual values and to establish a unity of which we can be proud in the future.

Mr. Speaker, before I take part in this debate, I should like to make a few observations about the speech of the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder). I am very glad indeed that he has been so inspired by the Butler Act of 1944. The Minister and the hon. member for Witbank and many other hon. members have made reference to it. The hon. member for Randfontein has told us about the British Education Act and what happens in Britain. He spoke about the “Britse Wet”. Mr. Speaker, there is no such thing as a British Education Act. The hon. member should go over to Britain during the recess and study the system there. The Parliament at Westminister controls England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the Scottish system of education has been a separate system for many hundreds of years. 150 or 200 years ago the two outstanding systems of education in Europe were those of Scotland and Prussia. The English system has always lagged behind. The Act to which the hon. member refers is the Education Act for England and Wales, and from that the hon. the Minister should draw some inspiration. The differences between the people of England and the people of Wales are much less than the differences between the hon. members opposite and the people in Natal whom they have been condemning. How did they deal with the situation over there in the Butler Act? They established two advisory councils for education. When I suggested to the Select Committee that we should have the name “The Advisory Council for Education”, because we had been trying hard to satisfy everybody, I went to the Butler Act and now the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Stander) says I was a reactionary because I would not accept the word “national”. These two advisory councils for education operate separately for England and for Wales, and the members are chosen from panels. Can you imagine the National Union of Teachers in England consenting to being dictated to by anybody on which they did not have adequate representation? The hon. member should make a study of the system there, not that it would help us a great deal, except in regard to this slight difference between England and Wales. But Wales wanted a separate advisory board; Supposing Natal were to have said to the Minister: Give us our own advisory board, and you can have your own? I asked one or two witnesses what they thought of that suggestion. When the hon. member speaks about the local bodies, the only difference is that they have councils of education which are rather bigger than our school boards, the sort of thing that has been advocated for the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal, that the Rand should have its own Director, although coming under the Province. It is a different organization; it is a different system. The hon. member should have devoted his speech to that. He told us about extra, additional inspectors to visit schools. The additional inspectors are the plumbers and the carpenters who go to inspect the sanitary arrangements at the school. These people inspect the externa, as it is called, the plumbing, buildings, etc. They are the people who are called inspectors over there. So much for that.

In discussing this Bill, I should like to associate myself wholeheartedly with the Minister in the tribute he paid to the Chairman of our Select Committee. He deserves all the credit we can give him. I think the Minister rather exaggerated in suggesting that he had succeeded in reconciling our points of view. That would be asking too much. The hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert), when he spoke, said, “Dit is verbasend hoe eners ons kan dink”. It would be wonderful if we could get to that stage, but we have not got there yet. But I associate myself with the hon. member for Witbank when he pays tribute to those witnesses who came at their own expense to give evidence, and I would like to add that I want to thank the staff for the splendid work they did.

Hear, hear!

These young men did most excellent work. They were under very great pressure at the time and they gave us excellent service.

Now the value of the Select Committee was not to do what the Minister said. I could not quite follow what he said in his speech and perhaps he can help me here, “It is possible for me to announce to-day that the Bill in the form submitted to the House is accepted practically in toto. The few points of difference do not affect any principle but may be mentioned only to achieve greater clarity”. Does the Minister mean the Bill from the Select Committee?

Yes.

Thank you. Then I can understand it, because that Bill was not accepted unanimously by the Select Committee. On the contrary, we were very much divided on it. The other point is this, that the hon. member for Witbank, who was Chairman of the Select Committee, was not quite fair to the United Party members on the Committee. When he said this about the speech of my colleague, the hon. member for Hillbrow “The United Party bluntly refuses to help in this education attempt.” I do not think that is quite fair, because if hon. members will look at this paperback best-seller, the report of the Select Committee, if they look at the opening remarks, they will see that the United Party members proposed no fewer than 29 amendments. I can assure the Minister that if those amendments had been accepted he would have had a better Bill. But how many of them were accepted? Not one. Not a single amendment was accepted and we talk of thinking in the same way and working together. It is most unfortunate that we could not. What was the value of this Select Committee to us? It helped us to clarify our differences, because some of our differences were deeply rooted, and sometimes it helped to emphasize them. It served a useful purpose, because when men sit together in the pleasant atmosphere that we enjoyed under our Chairman, it is possible to tell each other frankly where we disagree. We were able to do that. I wish to discuss where we do disagree, because the disagreement was not only in the Select Committee, but it is between our two parties and our policies. I do not blame the Minister; I want to help him. Now that we have reached this stage, I want to cooperate as much as we can. We have had many debates on education in this House, preliminary to the introduction of this Bill. We had that great debate in 1944 when a private motion was introduced in the House by Mr. C. R. Swart. We had a motion introduced in 1952 by Mr. Davidoff of the Labour Party. We had one introduced in 1957 by Mr. Bailey Bekker for the Conservative Party, and we had a motion introduced by the hon. member for Witbank which seemed to me to be a preliminary—some people call it kite-flying—for this Bill. Those debates have helped to clarify the two points of view. I want to refer to the debate of 1944, and I want to make it clear that I do not condemn any view, whether it is the Nationalist Party view or ours, or any other view. This is what Mr. Swart had to say in his speech—

I do not quarrel with that. I think hon. members opposite have the fullest right to maintain that point of view. Mr. Strijdom, in speaking in that debate, in his usual forthright manner, said this: He did not mind what the Government side (i.e. the United Party side) did about their schools, but he said, “In God’s name leave our schools alone; leave our single-medium schools alone.” I am not quarrelling with that either, at this stage in our history. In contrast with that, what is the policy the United Party stands for? It has been stated many times. We still stand for our old policy. We have not changed it. The United Party has stated its policy as it was developed over the years. We say there are four freedoms in education for which we stand. The first freedom is the right of the parent to decide how his child is to be educated, to decide to send him to an Afrikaans-medium or an English-medium school if he wishes.

May I ask you a question? Do you think it is always fair to the child to do that? After all, education deals with the child. Is it always fair to the child if the parent can make that choice?

I will come back to that and give my reply. The second point is that any group of parents can decide to have the type of school they want for their environment.

And dual medium?

I am dealing now with the organization of schools. The third point is this. We say that if there are groups of parents or associations of people in South Africa who wish to establish private schools outside the Government system, for religious or other reasons, they will have the right to do that. The fourth is this: We believe in provincial autonomy in education. The provinces should be absolutely free to apply that system. I am coming back now to my hon. friend who asked that question. The hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter) said this afternoon that “ouerkeuse is die grootste bedrog”. Well, we are a Republic, building up our Republican systems. I want to go back to what has been called the model Republic in the history of this country, the Free State. What was their law? It went like this: Het onderwijs op dorpen sal gegeven worden door middel van eene taal, Hollandsch of Engelsch, na verkiezing der ouders tot en met Std. 2. And then after that the law in the Free State described the type of dual-language school that they would like to have.

That proves nothing.

In other words, the old Free State had this system of freedom. Now I come to my hon. friend, the member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Schoonbee). He and I have worked together, I think with some success. The hon. member says, “Would it be fair to the child for the parent to send the child to what we call the wrong medium; if the child does not know Afrikaans, would it be fair to send an English-speaking child to an Afrikaans-medium school, and, vice versa, if the child does not know English, would it be fair to send him to an English-medium school? Sir, I dealt for many years as inspector of schools, with the Transvaal laws of admission, and never on a single occasion did I come across a case where a parent tried to put the child in a school where the child did not know that school’s language fairly well.

There are thousands in Natal.

I am thinking of bilingual children. I regard the position as being this: If a parent sends a child to what we call the wrong school, it is the principal’s duty not to refuse the child but to say to the parent, “You are not doing the best for your child; you should send your child to the other language-medium for a certain period, and then after that you can decide; you have the right under the law to decide”. If the parent goes to the doctor and says, “My child is ill,” and the doctor says, “You must have the child’s tonsils taken out”, who decides whether the tonsils are to come out—the doctor or the parent? The parent decides. In other words, the inspector, the principal and the director are there in an advisory capacity to the parent. That is how we see it. I regard it in that way, and I have not seen the education of children ruined by it. On the contrary, I have seen children who have been educated in what we call the wrong way, who have been sent to the wrong school, who have turned out remarkably good students. But that is by the way. That is the difference in our outlook, and we must recognise these differences. I have no desire to convert hon. members opposite. What I do ask is that in our legislation, in our attitude towards each other, we recognize the difference. Sir, this dichotomy in our parties that I have referred to, one can find as well in this book (Report of Select Committee). The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Dr. J. H. Steyn) put it very well. He said that any person can pick up this book and quote to his heart’s content support for his point of view. If you read the evidence you will find that the witnesses fall into two classes. I will mention three from each class—all good witnesses. First of all, and very important, from the hon. the Minister’s side: The inter-Kerklike Komitee. Three reverend gentlemen from the combined Dutch Reformed churches gave evidence before us. The second from the same side would be the F.A.K., the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge, and the third would be the A.C.V., the Afrikaanse Calvinistiese Beweging. These are three outstanding groups of witnesses. I have not mentioned Prof. Bingle who was quoted at length by hon. members on the other side, because Prof. Bingle was a member of the original Inter-Kerklike Komitee, and you would therefore only have duplication. Those are the three from the Minister’s side. We know what their views are. The Minister knows what their views are. They are his views, and to some extent his views are inspired by the Inter-Kerklike Komitee. Now we come to the other side, to what I would call my side, although I do not agree with everything they say, just as the Minister does not agree with everything the other side says. The first would be the Panel of Education; the second would be the Cape Council of Education; and the third of these would be the Association of Private Schools, because they represent something which I think is necessary and which I am very pleased to support. But the division is very marked throughout. Hon. members who were on the Select Committee know that. Sir, there is the position; we have these differences. What should we do? What should be the plan? We are the legislators in this country. It is obviously our duty to find a basis of agreement. Sir, the other day when I quoted from John Milton an hon. member over there said, “Is that all?” because there was such a lot of it, and I said, “No, there is a lot more”. Milton said this about the situation that we are in to-day. He lived at the time of Van Riebeeck and he was faced in his country with the situation we are faced with here to-day. He said—

That is my attitude, and my attitude has come from my experience, because many of the years of my service in the Transvaal were in the schools of the children of my hon. friends on the other side. I did not spend 10 per cent of my life in purely English-medium schools, although I did spend some time in schools with parallel classes. I want to give one example of an opportunity which our friends on the Select Committee lost, or rather missed, because they have not lost it yet. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) gave a most reasoned explanation to-day on the position of the private schools. We had evidence from them. I do not like the name “private school”; I prefer the English names, “independent schools” or “registered schools”. They also have another type of school that they call “voluntary schools”. I do not like the name “aided schools” because these schools are not all aided. There are 65 of them with about 12,000 children, and 25 of them draw a small subsidy from their provinces, not from State funds but from the provinces. What we ask is that in the first clause, sub-clause (v) where “school” is defined, that definition should end at the word “administration” at the end of line 17. Then you would delete these words in line 18, “or receives financial assistance out of public funds”. In other words, let us make distinction between the two types of schools, those which receive aid and those which do not. Now, here is my appeal to the hon. the Minister. He and I are Transvalers. We both know the Transvaal system. We know that there is no logical basis for the manner in which subsidies are granted in the Transvaal. It is partly historical and the hon. the Minister knows it. I am not going to discuss individual schools. That would be grossly unfair. Sir, it would not be correct for him to discuss it with me personally, but I am going to suggest, if I may, two members of his own party with whom he can discuss this, who understand it. One is the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee). He has the background of experience of this special subject. The other who, although I am not so sure, I think also has the background of experience is the hon. member for Kemptonpark (Mr. F. S. Steyn). I should like the hon. the Minister to discuss the position with them, because we are asking that we exclude all private schools. And in asking that I want to thank the hon. the Minister for what he has done so far in the Bill. I am grateful for what has been done but why stop at 90 per cent of the way? Twenty-five schools out of 65 receive a small subsidy; 40 do not. Why take in the 25 and leave out the others? Sir, I want to say this about private schools. Private schools were the Transvaal system of schools under President Kruger. They are ours; they are right in the tradition of Afrikaans-speaking Transvaal. The man who created our system was that great South African, Afrikaner, the Rev. S. J. du Toit, who came to the Transvaal just after Majuba to give us the Transvaal system, on this condition. He said: They must be subsidized schools and not Government schools. The whole of the Transvaal system was one of subsidized schools. There is not a man in this House who would have anything but the greatest praise for the work of the Rev. S. J. du Toit, the teacher, preacher, great journalist, known in our history as the father of the first Afrikaans movement (Die eerste Afrikaanse beweging). He gave his greatest gift to South Africa, in that illustrious son of his, Totius. He gave us our system there. When the English uitlanders wished to establish their schools, President Kruger said, “Establish your own schools and I will give you the same grant as I give to my own, if you will teach the Dutch language and South African history for an hour a day”. Unfortunately we did not have Afrikaans in those days. Now, that is my feeling. We owe a great deal to these private schools. They are a very valuable adjunct to our Government system. They are growth-points in education. They are a field for experiment. And see what they have given us: They have given us the Montessori system; we have the Dalton plan individual method in education; they have given us the prefect system, which is adopted throughout our country now and, the best gift of all, rugby football—from a private school in England, and brought to this country by a private school in Cape Town. They gave us rugby football. All that has come from private initiative, and I would like those schools retained.

Then one final word to the hon. the Minister, and here I am going to give my only quotation from this blue-book. This was a question put to the Leader of this deputation, Mr. W. D. Wilson, by the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Mostert). I want to thank the hon. member for Witbank for putting this question—

The reply was this—

I think so too. Sir Alfred Milner, after the Anglo-Boer War, agreed to the C.N.O.-schools being established. He did not subsidize them, but those two great men General Botha and General Smuts, together with the Church, established them. They had freedom. That is all I have to say about Clause 1. Clauses 2, 3, and 4 are concerned with the establishment of this new council. The first five of the executive will be appointed by the Minister as full-time men, I take it. I do not know what five men are going to do as full-time executives. We are going to have ad hoc committees to make investigations.

I think I will have to make provision for overtime payment.

The next thing I want to say about this scheme is this: We put up a scheme for representatives from various sections of the community and it was rejected.

I should like to ask the Minister whether it is not possible to have something of both schemes. Cannot we have some of these men nominated and some of them appointed by the Minister? I would like to put that to him for consideration.

Now I come to the important Clause 5 (2) (a) and (2) (b). They have been dealt with at length by some of my colleagues. I do not know what we are going to do about this. What do we mean by “carrying out investigations in regard to one or more particular schools” by these ad hoc committees? Surely they can simply ask the provincial authority to carry out any investigation that is necessary? Secondly, a person authorized can give permission for this committee to go to the school. I think a mistake is being made here. I quite understand that the Secretary for Education, Arts and Science will have that authority because he receives that authority from the hon. the Minister. But the directors of education, with all due respect to the directors of education in the provinces, receive their authority from the administrators. It is the administrator who must give permission. The director of education does not; he is an official; he is not the responsible officer; the authority, is the Administrator-in-Executive-Committee.

Then I come to Clause 7. The arguments have already been advanced; the hon. the Minister is familiar with them. The Council must advise the administrator through the Minister. Is that really necessary? Is it not possible that the Council may advise the administrator directly? Is it not possible to give the hon. the Minister a copy of the advice? Let us try to provide contact between the advisory committee and the administrators. I think that is very necessary. Sir, there are other points in these clauses that require careful consideration and we will discuss them when we come to the Committee Stage. In the meantime I make an appeal to the Minister to go a little farther than our colleagues on the Select Committee were prepared to go. If we do not, then we will just have one more lost opportunity in South Africa. Sir, we go on disagreeing, sometimes about small things. I wonder if we are going to progress to the ideal state of co-operation amongst the Whites or whether we are proceeding to the Götterdämmerung, the twilight of the gods of white men in this country.

As a good teacher I have now had an opportunity of listening to a long discussion. To-night I shall have to draw up the points sheet and I shall draw a red circle, as we did when we were schoolmasters, next to the name of each person who has failed one of his subjects, and I shall give A’s and B’s to those who have done well. Under the circumstances, and seeing that it is late, I move—

I second.

Agreed to; debate adjourned.