Afrika

1903 · Best.-Nr. 17495 — 1903. A Native School 1903 is a real photo postcard documenting Black education in Durban during the colonial period showing approximately thirty students ranging from young children to adults receiving instruction outdoors from a Black teacher. The image predates the creation of the Union of South Africa and was made during a period when educational provision for Black South Africans varied substantially by colony mission and institution. Contemporary educational policy increasingly connected African schooling with labor and industrial training; in the neighboring Transvaal Inspector of Native Education Rev. W. E. C. Clarke stated in 1903 that an object of Black schooling was to "Teach the Native to work" and separate primary curricula for African students followed there in 1904. Black and white real photo postcard captioned "A Native School." Durban 1903. 3.5 x 5.5 inches. The class meets beneath a copse of trees with tall grasses visible beyond the students. A Black teacher stands at a lectern holding an open book with a single chair immediately behind him. Approximately thirty Black students sit before him on chairs and on a rug spread across the ground; the group includes children adolescents and adults making the mixed ages of the class one of the image's most distinctive features. The verso is addressed in ink to Mademoiselle Mercedes de Guerrico in Buenos Aires and bears an August 3 1903 Durban postmark. The postcard records an actual instructional setting rather than a formal school building: teacher book lectern portable seating and ground covering constitute the visible classroom. Its 1903 date places it within an unsettled period in South African education when schooling for Black students remained sharply unequal and colonial authorities were developing racially differentiated educational policies. The international address to Buenos Aires additionally documents the circulation of this image of Black South African schooling through the early twentieth century postcard trade. Corners slightly worn with some foxing. Overall good condition. A detailed visual record of Black students and a Black teacher conducting an outdoor class in Durban in 1903. unknown books