THESEGREGATIONERA
College at Fort Hare in the Ciskei, which was founded by the Methodist,
Anglican, and Scottish missions with government support in 19 I 6. By
1940, Fort Hare had 195 students, primarily Africans but some Coloureds
and Indians. Even so, because they were preparing students for public
examinations controlled by white South African educators, students in this
system were obliged to conform to officially prescribed syllabuses. The
history syllabuses and textbooks, in particular, expressing the dominant
assumptions of the period, treated the history of South Africa as the record
of white settlement and had no empathy with African culture, the African
side of conflicts, or the condition of Africans since the conquest. In his
memoirs, Z. K. Matthews, an African who became a lawyer and received a
master's degree from Yale University, recalled his time as a student at
Lovedale and Fort Hare:
Our history, as we had absorbed it from the tales and talk of our elders, bore
no resemblance to South African history as it has been written by European
scholars, or as it is taught in South African schools, and as it was taught to us
at Fort Hare. . . . The syllabus for matriculation emphasized South African
history, so ...