The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1910. TWO DREAMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15457, 8 November 1910, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1910. TWO DREAMS.

Tnr announcement that a teaching university for South Africa is to bo established at Groot Schuur will remind the British peoplo of tho debt they owe to the great Imperialist who first suggested such an institution. Cocil Rhodes in his later life dreamed of two splendid projects. One of them has boon realised, a generation earlier than ho can have deemed possible, and tho Prime Minister of ,'i united South Africa resides in tho mansion of tho Groot Schuur estate, on tlm slopes of Table Mountain. Now a sum of £500,000 lias boon made available for tho erection and endowment of a university, which will bo placed on a part of the same cstato. In March, IS9I, Cecil Rhodes made a remarkable speech before the Congress of the Afrikander Bond at Kimberley, and tho insight and significance of his words aro mado clear to-day, “It took mo twenty years to amalgamate tho diamond mines,” ho said. “That amalgamation was done by detail, step by step; attending to every'little matter in connection with tho people interested; and so your union must ho done by dotail, never opposing any single measure that can bring that union closer, giving up evon some practical ndvantago for a proper union, educating your children to tho fact that it is your policy and that you must and will have it; demanding that they should never abandon the idea.” And then lie developed before the eyes of his audience the conception of a great South African University. “ I said to myself,” ho continued, “ that if wo could got a teaching university founded in the Cape Colony, caking the people from Bloemfontein, Pretoria and Natal, having the young men going in there from tho ages of eighteen to twenty-one, they will go back to the Free State, to the Transvaal and to Natal-—lot mo even snv they will go hack to Mashonaland—tied to ono another by the strongest feelings that can ho created. Jf wo had a teaching, residential university those young men would go forth into all purt-s of South Africa, prepared to nmko the future of tho country, and in their hands tin’s great question of union could safely be left.” Cecil Rhodes offered a magnificent site and a vast endowment if the South African colleges would unite to give effect to Lis project, but the forces of separatism prevailed, and he turned to tho, development of his scholarship scheme in connection with Oxford University. Tho land he offered is still available for its original purpose, however, and tho old opposition is not likely to have survived tho proclamation of tho Union. If the scheme materialises South Africa will have additional reason to appreciate tho rare genius and great heart of Cecil Rhodes.