EXPANDING RANGE

Which brings me to my closing issue: the reconstructiveproject that now holds in South Africa. A key part of this isan expansion of the dialogue between liberals andsocialists. In this regard, Simkins's critique of Marxism isworth reflecting on briefly. To argue that at the heart ofMarxism is optimism about power (liberalism and theProblem of Power) is to raise one of the most tellingcriticisms of Marx. Marx, and Marxists more generally,have no good account of the concept of power.

Certainly for Marx. power, class. the state and politicswere all forms of one another; the disappearance of oneentailed the disappearance of all. The resulting accountof future society - in which politics disappears butindividualism does not - is quite implausible. In spite of

this, however, the political values to which Marx waswedded remain attractive: individualism, logically prior tocommunity but compatible with it. Socialists generallyhave, it seems to me, learned a set of key lessons aboutpower, about the importance of pluralistic politicalsystems coupled with the defence of rights, and about therelationship between markets and industrial society. Inthis they have moved closer to liberals. Liberals, bycontrast, have - some of them anyway - uncoupledliberalism from capitalism; in this they have moved closerto socialists.

My point is this. On page 71 of Reconstructing SouthAfrican Liberalism Simkins offers an acid test, on whichmany socialists would qualify as liberals. Can socialistsnot devise the corollary of this- and claim Simkins as oneof their own?O

____________________________ by ELWYN JENKINS _

CULTURE AND COUNTER-CULTUREIN SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS

The boys and girls of the late Victorian and Edwardianboarding schools of Natal, the Eastern Cape, Johannes­burg and Cape Town: the Afrikaans-speaking childrensubjected to Milner's Anglicization policy; the students ofDepartment of Education and Training schools in the1980s: pupils of the schools of the House of Delegatesand the House of Representatives - in fact, pupils at allthe schools administered by South Africa's eighteeneducation departments and the country's private schools- share acommon educational heritage. No separation ordisparity has altered the homogeneity underlying theofficial and hidden curricula of South Africa's schools.

Ashley (1976) has traced the roots of the South Africaneducational system to Scottish and Dutch Calvinism, theemergence of BritiSh secular education in the nineteenthcentry, and the Christian ideals of the BritiSh publicschool. Honey develops more fully the dominant partplayed by the late Victorian public schools in moulding thecurriculum, extramural activities and organizational struc­ture of South African schools:

The results of this predominance can be seen not onlyIn the handful of boys' private schools established inSouth Africa in varying degree of likeness to Arnold'sRugby, from 'Bishops' down to the newest privateschool on the Rand, but, no less strikingly, in theEnglish speaking government schools for boys up

and down the country, whose structure, ethos, andactivities show many obvious derivations from theRugby model, and many more resemblances to itthanthey show to other possible models in the English­speaking world or in continental Europe. Many ofthese characteristics can also be seen in Afrikaans­speaking government schools (1975/76: 22).

THE BRITISH SYSTEM

The same influence may be seen in the schools for otherraciat groups. British missionaries set out todevelop theirmission schools for Blacks into schools and colleges thatwould fall typically into the BritiSh public school pattern.Black schools today perpetuate sad vestiges of theBritish System - the uniforms, the conformity, the stresson unquestioning loyalty, the corporal punishment, beinga travesty of what Arnold and Kingsley had once ad­vocated.

Even in Britain the high ideals of Arnold and Kingsleybecame transmuted as the nineteenth century closedand the Empire was caught up in the militaristic andjingoist fever that presaged World War I. From an initialemphasis on character and leadership, as portrayed lorexample in Eric, or mtle by /ittle by Dean Farrar(1858), theschools' aims had become, as Mangan (1985: 117) puts it,'to create habits of respectfulness, obedience and loyalty.

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8

Individuality was suspect, non-conformity was discour­aged, esprit de corps was exalted.' He points out how, tothe educators in the colonies, 'Educational aims valued sohighly at other times and in other contexts, such as thedevelopment of an inquiring mind, independence ofthoughts and the questioning of established orthodoxies,were unacceptable in an environment of primitive back­wardness.' Honey (1975/76: 25) has shown how theelitism of the system, which was embodied in exclusiveadmissions, 'houses', prefects, competitive games, mili·tary cadets and the old school tie network, took naturalroot in South Africa because it was 'functionally appro­priate to the existing social and political system of SouthAfrica'. Today the central role of organized compulsorysport in white schools is probably unique among stateeducation systems throughout the world, and the insti­tutionalized violence of corporal punishment, which isextremely prevalent in both primary and secondaryschools, certainly sets South Africa apart from the rest ofthe Western world. Thus South Africa finds itself today stillsaddled with a brutalizing, anti-intellectual educationalsystem which is a distorted descendant of what was itselfan aberration in the history of the development ofWestern education - a particular version of educationwhich was developed to serve a small section of theBritish population during the short period that it had toprovide the rulers 01 the largest empire the world has everseen or is likely to see again. To what extent thiseducational system has produced South African societyas we know it today, or has simply lasted because it servesthe interests of those who are inclined this way for otherhistorical, cultural and religious reasons, is debatable: theanswer is probably something of both.

ENGLISH

However, it is obviously an oversimplification to allegethat all South Africans who have gone through our state orprivate schools have been moulded according to thedegenerate public school model. The schools havedemonstrably also produced intellectuals, aesthetes,rebels, socialists, liberals, conscientious objectors andindividualists. Perhaps there is another thread of edu­cational philosophy running through South African edu­cation in the twentieth century. I take as a case studysome aspects of English teaching: an analysis of historyteaching would probably be just as enlightening.

English teaching was dominated by British expatriates forthe first few decades of this century. Lanham (1979)considers their influence to have been so strong that theysuccessfully retarded the development of a typical SouthAfrican English accent until the Second World War.English teachers' first concern was to make their pupils as'English' as possible. Their task was not easy. This is howSouth African white boys were seen by Montague J.Rendall, former Headmaster of Winchester, who workedto preserve public school ideals in the British Empirethrough the Rhodes Trust and as Chairman of the SchoolsEmpire Tour Committee from 1926·1939:

If I were to design a medal for one of these School­boys the superscription might be 'Child at the Sun';the obverse a figure of 'Independence wlth a Shield',or perhaps 'Venator Intrepidus' like Pisanello'smodel of Alfonso the Magnanimous, where a naked

boy is riding astride of a fearsome boar; but a lion toreplace the Boar, and the reverse should be just abright Star to symbolize the Sun, 'radlatum insignedlel'. The rest at the field would consist of severalRugby footballs and a scanty heap of books. ForIndeed, truth to tell, this wholesome brown boy, withkhaki shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of rough shoes,who looks straIght at you tram rather wild eyes half­hidden In a mat of hair, is Just a Child of the Sun ...They are by nature Children of the Sun, Sun-wor­shippers, and Culture has little meaning for them.Why should parents and schoolmasters disturb thishappy dream? Why worry the boys with Culture? Wel"this Is the plea of all children sInce Cain and Abel firstworshipped the Sun In the morning of the world, aplea urged with childish ImpertInence and Irresistiblegrace; but these Schools are not meant for Mowgli(Quoted In Mangan 1985: 31-32).

Equally despairing was G.H.M. Bobbins, the only com­mentator on English teaching in South Africa who waswriting before World War 11. (He obtained his doctorate onthe subject at the University of Cape Town in 1936.) Hisviews on the decay in standards of English are encap­sulated in the title of his collected essays, The twilight ofEnglish. published in 1951.

But teachers could not deny the South Africanism of theirpupils forever. The solution was to tack a bit of localcolouron to the traditional British syllabus, resulting in what Ihave called the 'Bushveld syndrome' (Jenkins 1977). Tobe South African, a topic had to be rural. Huntingadventures and debates on farm life versus town life weresafe topics lor pupils to write or speak on. When VictorPohl's Bushveld adventures. an extremely prosaic col·lection of reminiscences, was published in 1941, it wasseized upon as a book worthy to be read at school: firstprescribed for Std 9 and 10 in 1946, it was still the mostfrequent source of passages for comprehension tests inthe Std 8 internal examinations set by Transvaal Edu­cation Department teachers in 1972, As a topic for oralcomposition for Std 8, 'How to make buller' appeared atleast as far back as 1942 in the Transvaal syllabus, and itwas still there in 1959(Jenkins 1973). It is encouraging tolearn from an analysis of the essay topics for aU the 1986Senior Certificate examination papers that this fashionappears now to have died out (Jenkins 1987).

NEW INFLUENCES

World War II saw not only the espousal of the bushveld,but also the demise of part of the traditional, 'British', coreof the English syllabus. In 1943, the year after Lanham'sdate for the advent of the new South African English. theTransvaal Education Department prescribed for the lasttime its double-bill of texts on the history of Englishliterature. The desks were being cleared for South AfricanEnglish teachers to be introduced to the new criticism ofLeavis, the romanticism of D.H. Lawrence, and theadvocacy of creative writing by David Holbrook.

Atlthree of these innovations had theeHect of bringing anindividualistic, solipsistic element into the formal schoolcurriculum which contrasted with the philistine athle­ticism and conformity which prevailed. Since leavischanged the nature of English studies from being an

imitation of classics or foreign language teaching to beinga search for authentic meaning, English teaching hasoften been the troublesome conscience in educationalinstitutions In the English-speaking world, includingSouth Africa, fUlfilling the rote described in Postman andWeingartner's Teaching as a subversive activity (1969).The impact of these new influences began to be felt InSouth African schools in the 1950s. A dissertation onEnglish teaching written at the University of Cape Townduring that decade by M.1. Honikman (1959) givesevidence of the change. She saw English as a humanisticdiscipline, and in fact she equated it as a school subjectwith literature. which had to be taught by means ofpractical criticism. The emphasis on 'sincerity' as acriterion of excellence in literature was transferred toofficial expectations of what pupils' own writing should belike: the rubric of the Transvaal Education Department'sSenior Certificate paper was changed in 1968 to exhortpupils, 'BE SINCERE' (sic) (Jenkins 1973: 82). Pupils wereencouraged to write in response to sensory impressions('kipper sniffing' as it was called), or to write intro­spectively, and Hemingway was held up as the stylisticmodel (for example, by Armstrong 1977). Through thereading of D.H. Lawrence teachers encouraged theirpupils to respond directly to their instincts, and to findfulfilment in response to unspoilt countryside, naturalmaterials and hand-made textures.

It is only to be expected that the climate created byEnglish teaching of this kind should encourage childrento give expression in writing to a counter-culture, par­ticularly when they may choose their own subject matter.Most of this writing is unlikely to reach a wider public thanthe teacher, as it is too dangerous to appear in officialpublications. The Transvaal Education Department, forexample, has instructed schools not to allow the use ofschool publlcationsfor'sensitive or controversial' matters(Brodrick 1986). In spite of all the sifting and censoring,some material does eventually reach a wider audience,such as the following two pieces from publications of theSouth African Council for English Education.

Kathleen Dey writes a devastating indictment of the malechauvinism which dominates South African society, andDerek Mosenthal, in a passage of stream-of-conscious­ness produced at a week-end SACEE writers' workshop,attacks the rugby fetishism of a boys' school. In writingwhich becomes power1uUy metaphorical, both writersconvey the stifling effect of the hypocritical prudery andfalse manliness- the girl 'trembling in his unbearably hotjersey', the boyfeeHng the 'rugby jersey clasping my soul'- and underlying the veneer, they suggest, lies theperversion.

A Woman's Place

We had been swimming naked in the sheltered poolright at the northern end of the gully. In gloriousabandon we had thrown off our clothes and plungedinto the icy stillness, shattering the glassy surfacewith our small brown bodies and splashIng up shredsof glittering water. Yelling and shouting we swamright to the bottom and became evil crocodilespreying on fish before our breath ran out and we shotupwards again.

Afterwards we lay in the sun, the five of us Indis­tinguishable with our short hair and strong arms andfast legs. Adam and Joe tried to bully us because theywere eight and we were all only six but there werethree of us so we won that skirmish. Soon after thissatisfactory diversion, Mr Lemmins, Adam's father,offered to take us fishing. Eagerly we piled into theback of his car and were taken to the trout pools,dressed In our shorts only because of the heat. Imanaged to catch three small fish of unknown originand Adam and Joe each caught a trout but they werehelped by Adam's father. We pooled our catch and Igloated over my three, looking to my brother for hisopinion.

'Quite good,' said Joe, grinning.

'For a girl,' said Adam.

There was a short silence. Mr Lemmins stared at me,and suddenly terrified, I stared back. His mouthdropped open and he said, or rather Whispered, 'Youare a girl?'

I nodded. He was furious. He made me wear his jerseyand all the way home in the car he shouted at me forbeing an 'Indecent little girl' and how ashamed Ishould feel In front of the boys.

Trembling in his unbearably hot jersey I huddledagainst Joe. All the boys stared silently out of thewindow.

I never understood his angerthen. But my mother didand she was angry wIth him.

Kathleen Dey (English Alive 1983: 17)

The Game

The game, supposed to think about the game, sup­posed to be glad; made the team. God, it's all soborIng; they do all get excited though. Rugby, ruff tuffand jolly. Was It really formulated for closet homo­sexuals? I have to play though. 'Don't do enough lorthe boarding house,' you know- housemastersaid so.Why did Ijump through that window anyway? I'd justbeen caught bunking assembly. God, he really mustthink I'm lazy. I am, but he isn't supposed to know. I'lldefinitely have to play. I told him I'd planned to try forthe team all along. Quick thinking, the thought hadnever crossed my mind_ GOd, what am I doing here?Rugby jersey clasping my soul. How bloody romantic;It's really a tight fit. Why am I so out of It? Ha ... thethought amuses me, I want to bea freak. Gotto get oldand fat, lie in same groudy bed all day, take Valllum,see an analyst. Perhaps a few wrinkles, a sweatypurulent face, moggy eyes, the occasional sniff. Whyare my hands so blg1The rest of me Isso small. Scrumhalf! I'm a scrum half, small, a mouse; be able to catchthe ball with these spades for hands. No, I won't,haven't played for years. Wantto hide, run away. I'd becaught though. 'Oh, Derek's trying to be differentagaIn,' they would' chant, beaming. God, they'reboring. Boarding school.

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The game, s,upposed to think about the game, per­haps a little anger, a little aggression. God, how I sellmyself, choking, can't breathe, being ravaged.

The game, aggro.

Derek Mosenthal (Karee 1983: 12)

Although David Holbrook would consider that 'creativewriting' such as 'The game' is validated by its catharticeffect for the writer (see, for example, Holbrook 1961), itcan be criticized for excessive introspection. However,the kind of teaching that encourages this kind of writingalso allows scope for pupils to engage with politicalissues. Here is a Johannesburg girl writing in 1978:

We (she and her friend) talked about NIrvana and thepUland discovered Lawrence and supported abortionand found delight In criticizing the 'system'. We criedout against social Injustices, as wethoughtwe shoulddo. Remember how we were virtually Inebriated by theturbulent crescendo of our Ideas sprin91ng fromwithin? We were Incensed by our own banality, by theway our minds erupted whIle our bodies lay dormant.We were trapped within the confines of a societywhich took us for granted. We talked of how one daywe would have the courage of our convictions andfight and agitate and help to change.(Jenkins 1980: 50)

Somehow, a liberal political awareness has been keptalive among teachers. Recent concern within each of thethree English-language white teachers' associationsbears witness to this (Gluckman 1982; Natal Teachers'Society 1986; South African Teachers' Association1986/87), and one may assume that these attitudes havebeen tolerated, or even passed on, in some classrooms.

As the violence in South Africa grows, the young whilecontributors to English alive can be seen trying to copewith their guilt and helplessness:

A thousand fists are clenchingour skies are still quietbut the T.V. and newspapers burnwith news of their flaming hearts and skiesand we close our eyesfor it is enoughthat our skies are quiet

Robyn Hirsch (English Alive 1986; 13)

Increasingly, in recent issues they turn to exercises inempathy in an attempt to understand what Black peopleare thinking and feeling; but the most powerful pieces arethose that simply register shock: the 'individual sensi­bility' responding to a world that can no longer beignored.O

Written during the State of Emergency

These things must be recordedTickle the words into the desert-white sand, gentlyChiding them for their ignorant forgetfulness.Poke the mud to knowledgeWith a stick, draw in the wide-shadow eyes.Scrape a pebble of its dignitycarve at the blackness of a rock in your desperationScreamat the cliff clill clillOnly to have that dark face turned from youAnd stare past you.Though Time chisels at the mute cragand its ash drillsand is dispersed across the land;Still these things will be remembered.deep scratches in the mind.

Cathy Boshoff (English Alive 1986: 12)

Vista University, Mame/odi

Rele.ence.Armst,o"ll E.M. t977 'The wrili"ll of Engll.h'ln JenkIns E.R.led) The '''''chlng 0'English u IifSI 18ngu8g. In SChOOI& P'oce&<!lngs of the NaUon8t Conlerence.PielermerltzbufV, English Academy 01 Soulh AI,ica, 71·16.Ashley, M. 1976 'Th. Brillsh Influence on &<!UCIIllon In South Africa'. In de V1l11efSA. (ed) English·spe~~lng Soul~ A',;c~ ,0<1.1" proceedings 01 r~~ n.,lon81 con­lerence july 191~. C.pe Town, Odon:l Unlverelly Press 1o, the 1820 SelliersN.lional Monument Found'llon, 241-261.Bobbins G.H.M. 1936 'The Inlegrel study of English'. P.". 1 and 2. unpub!lshedPhD Ihflsla, Unlverslfy 01 Cape Town.BobbIns, G,H,M. 1951 T~e I ..,light 0' English. Cape Town, Mukew Mille',B'odrick. J. 1988 'The ca.e ag.inst cen90rshio', Jo~.nnesl>urg,Jeppe Soys' HighSC~oolM.g8zjne, 13.F."a,F.W. 1858Ert<;. o"11/1e bylmle, Edlnbufllh, Ad.mA Charles Black. F.cslmi!erepflnt by Gafland PubIIShl"llInc., New yo,k A london, 1976.Gluckm.n, H. 1982 'Allilude. 01 le""he", In Enlliisto-medium ""hools.nd lertl.ryeducetlon In.tltutlons In Soulh Alrica to educalion', Soulh African /Ourn.' 0'educ.flon 2(1-2), 36-40.Holb'ook O. 1961 En911.h lor m81uflly, cambridge. cambridge UnlvefSity""..Honey J.R. de 5.1975176 'A,nolds 01 Ihe bushveld'. Symposium 22-25, 15.Honikman M.1. I 959 'The tellChl"ll 01 English IIle,elu,e In Soulh Africa lodeyat IheSChoo~lea,""lI end Unlverslfy Enl'ance le.....r. unpublish&<! BEd dissertation,UnlvereJly of Cape Town.Jenkins E.R. 1913 'The nalu ... 01 English High" 19 a secondary ""hool subject InIhe Trensva.l, 1942-1972', unpublished "lEd di"""fIatlon, Joh.nnesbu'g. Un~",rslly of the WllwSlefSfand.Jenkins E.R 1977 'The bushveld syrnl,ome In South AI'lclIn E"lII;"h teechlnq'.CRUX 1 I :4, 17-22.Jenkin. E.R. 1980 'The wOrld of young While Soulh African" • study of some...."'I"lI by Engllsto-spe.klng .<Iole""enls·, unpubllsh&<! D. lilt at Phi! thesis.Pfeto"', UniversITy 01 Soulh AlfIca.Jenkin. E.R. 1987. 'Compo,rebillfy 01.t8nda,d••nd contents of the 1985 Senlo'Cartillcllle E"lIIiSh O'iglnal W"ti"ll examinaTIon papera', Educ81km bull~"1l,

Augu.1 1967, 5-11.lenham l:W. A MecdonaldC.A 1979 TIle "8nd.rdin Soulh Afric8n English .nd Ussoc/.' hislOry; Am.tel'dam, Gmos.Mang8n J,A 1966 TIM g8mes ethic n., Imperi8l1sm. Ha,mondsworth, Viking.Natal Teechera' Soclefy 1986 5epenulon orlnllf1'8t1on, N8t81 TnchefS' Soc/erymembers' .Wt,,""s to "o......cl., educelio" Supplement to Manto, 68:1, April1988.Pol'll V. 1940 Bush"!d .d",,'ure& Jotlanne.bu,g, APe Publishers.Po.lman N. AWelng.nne, C 1969 Te.chlng 8' 8 .ubvarsi.e 8cllvlfy. New Yofk,Oel.cone,Soulh Afric.n Council ro' English Education English .,i.e l.nnu.Q Klfae1963.Soulh African Teeche,s' Msoclalion 1966161 '()pen echoo(s - Ihe solution?Report on open schools', Trsns...' educ.tlon81 n.... (Part One) LXXXXV: 10,No",mbe,'Oecembe' 1986, 6·1 l,lPart Two) 40:1. January 1981. 6, 17, 22.

Note:An 'eaflle' v.fSion o! Ih.. pape, w•• dell"",&<! .1 Ihe confe,ence 01 the A8&OCi.tlon0/ Unlveraily EngliSh TeechefS 0/ Soulhem Alrica, July 1967.