The Results of German Methods
In Cameroon a Government Proclamation of April 25th, 1910, made school attendance obligatory for all native children, instruction in German from the first class was made law, and the punishment for a child who left school before completing the whole course was fixed at a fine of £2 10s. or a flogging. Although children generally were anxious to attend school in order to qualify for service with Europeans, truantry appears to have become more popular after obligatory attendance was introduced, and the native police were kept busy in bringing back absentees. School children, who were distinguished by the wearing of brass-buttons and cockades, showed a tendency to become denationalised: few of them returned to the family farms when they completed their school course, which had the effect of causing them to lose touch with their own tribe and families.
It is impossible, after reading Herr Missions-Inspector Schlunk’s report, to refuse admiration to the thoroughness of the German system of instituting these inquiries, or to the care with which the Germans lay themselves out to Teutonise their native subjects. Their organising ability, as revealed in their methods of imparting instruction to the natives and preparing their minds for the reception of kultur, is amazing, but as Hanns Vischer shows in his analysis of this informative publication, contributed to the Journal of the African Society, their method has its disadvantages. “Little love and scarcely any respect for the native,” he comments, “are to be found among the various reports. No mention is ever made of the natives’ national feeling. Natives are taught German history and the names of the German Emperors, and they can sing German patriotic songs. From every colony we hear that the boys who have been to school seldom or never return to their own surroundings, and although this is regretted, as being detrimental to the interests of a peasant community, no mention is made of the breaking-up of the native family and the inevitable harm which must follow. The importance of practical instruction is everywhere recommended to teach the native to work, but no mention is made of the natives’ own industry and love for work which might be developed.”