Native Education in the Belgian Congo

Abstract

BELGIAN CONGO BEFORE THE WAR The Belgian Colony of the Congo was occupied by an independent State for twenty-five years and during that period, prior to 1908, there was little opportunity for the education of the native nor any clear need of it. Communication was so difficult that when Stanley described the best method of land travel he concluded with the statement: By following this method one can expect to make 4,000 miles a year. The natives were savages and had to be to accept the foreign domination. The Arab slave raiders were powerful and active and were only defeated after long and expensive campaigns. The economic resources were available only if the natives would regularly and continuously work, and this involved such a drastic change in their habits that the effort to make them do it caused much criticism from foreign sources. In 1908 the Independent State became a Bielgian colony. There was much improvement in the condition of the natives. The forced labor was abolished, the brass wire currency demonetized, coinage was introduced so that a single payment of nine francs once a year took the place of twenty-six bi-weekly contributions of rubber or other materials. Trade was introduced, and foreign goods could be bought for native products-oil, copal, ivory. Missionaries dotted the map with their stations and continued to preach and to teach. No other schools than theirs existed for many years. They have been carried on continuously and have grown in numbers, but until very recently were entirely ancillary to the Christian propaganda. Even now there is the conviction on the part of many of the missionaries, in some instances whole societies occupying great river basins, that the missionary money must be spent and the missionary energy used to teach Christians to read their Bibles, and that the economic aspects of education should receive attention from other sources. A change in this point of view in the Protestant Council is growing in favor, and three higher institutions are planned for three important urban centers. The languages of the Congo are very many and mutually unintelligible. This makes the problem of education very difficult, for none of the languages has a literature, and it would be an impossible task to create a literature in them all. The French language is perhaps the eventual answer but it will take many years to raise up a body of teachers competent to conduct the schools in a foreign tongue as yet totally unknown to the mass of the people. For some fifteen years the colony existed with no great change internally. During this period the World War was fought, and while no armies clashed on the soil of the colony, many thousands of the natives were sent to the front in German East Africa, including laborers as well as