THEAPARTHEIDERA
sets ofwhite public schools throughout the country and made it compulso-
ry for a white child to attend a public school that used the language of the
child's home-Afrikaans
or English.
Previously, as we have seen, the government had left African education
almost entirely to the mission institutions, whose capacity to meet the
needs of the large African population was constrained by lack of funds,
despite increasing public subsidies. This was unsatisfactory to the Na-
tionalist government. It considered that the mission schools were transmit-
ting dangerous, alien ideas to their African students and turning them, in
Verwoerd's words, into Black Englishmen. As the economy expanded and
became more sophisticated, moreover, industry required more literate
workers than the mission schools could produce. Under the Bantu Educa-
tion Act (1953) the central government thus assumed control of public
African education from the provincial administrations, made it virtually
impossible for nongovernmental schools to continue, and proceeded to
expand African education while controlling it firmly. During the 1960s,
the government also assumed control over the education of Coloured and
Asian children. Verwoerd was frank on the subject of African education: