black.56
Missionaries presided over "an enormous benevolent empire" that
reached into every African reserve community. In 1928, forty-eight mis-
sionary organizations were operating in the Union of South Africa. They
employed over 1,700 white missionaries, teachers, doctors, and nurses and
over 3°,000 African clergy,laypreachers, and teachers.57 Receivinggrants-
in-aid from the provincial governments, the missions ran virtually the only
institutions where Africans could acquire the literary skills necessary for
effectiveparticipation in the industrializing economy. In 1935, they regis-
tered 342,181 African pupils. Over half of them were in the elementary
Standards, and most of the rest were in Standards 1 to 6. Only 1,581
Africans were in Standards 7.and 8, and a mere 193 were in Standards 9
and 10, which culminated in the matriculation, or school-leaving, exam-
ination and corresponded with the eleventh and twelfth grades in the
United States.5 8
Most teachers in the mission schools were Africans, who, being under-
qualified and poorly paid, could provide no more than a rudimentary
elementary education. Somewere responsible for as many as eighty pupils.
Several high schools, however, were staffed by relatively competent peo-
ple-notably,