Christian Education in South Africa: Potchefstroom University Bill Passes Second Reading in Parliame

The Bill introduced in the House of Assembly to change the name of the Potchefstroom University College to the Potchefstroom University College for High Christian Education (against which the South African Jewish Board of Deputies submitted a petition to Parliament-as reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of March 15th.-), has passed its second reading with a Nationalist (Government) majority of 63 votes to 45.

Mr. Morris Alexander, one of the Jewish Deputies, in opposing the Bill said:

The Potchefstroom College comes under the Act of 1916 and 1917 under which no test whatever of religious belief can be imposed on any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to be a professor, lecturer, teacher or student of the University, or of his holding any office or emolument or exercising any privilege therein, and it is laid down that no preference shall be given or advantage with-held from any person on the ground of his religious belief.

We belong to a small minority, and we regard that provision in the Act of 1917 as the magna charta of the religious minority of this country. We say that this is the thin edge of the wedge. The next step will be the abolition of the conscience clause, and the next step will be that this will be an institution for certain people of certain religious denomination.

I am not speaking for myself, but for the organised Jewish Community of South Africa, representing 140 Jewish institutions and congregations throughout the Union, and I speak on behalf of the whole of the Jewish Community of South Africa, who feel alarmed about the example this Bill would be setting to others who want to bring in similar legislation.

WHAT POSITION MIGHT WE HAVE BEEN IN IF INSTEAD OF 95 PER CENT CHRISTIAN MAJORITY JEWS WOULD HAVE HAD 95 PER CENT. MAJORITY MOVER OF BILL ASKS

The Rev. Mr. Fick, a member. of the Nationalist Party, said: The most important objection which will be seriously raised in the House is a protest from the side of our Jewish friends. Our Jewish friends consider that we are by the insertion of the word “Christian” insulting the Jews, that by that word we are going to boycott the Jew from the institution, and that we are going to render it impossible for the Jew to make use of the institution. I can thoroughly appreciate the fact that the Jew is not fond of the word “Christian”, but it passes beyond my comprehension that the Jew should be nervous of the inclusion of the word “Christian” in the name of the institution. I regard it as an insult that the Jew can have such a suspicion of the Afrikaner.

If the Jew has that suspicion of us, then we on our side also have the right to have a suspicion of him. If the Jew wishes to harm us thereby, he must bear in mind that by so doing he will get the worst of it in this matter. He must not touch that tender chord with the Africaner by saying that he is afraid of the word “Christian”.

As the Minister of Education, Dr. Malan, has said, 95 per cent. of our population have Christian tendencies. What position might not we have been in if the situation had been reversed, and if the Jews had a 95 per cent. majority?

Mr. Hofmeyr, former Administrator of Transvaal, and one of the leaders of the South African Party headed by the ex-Premier, General Smuts, spoke in opposition to the Bill.

Let us keep our Universities, he said, as places where the difference of language, nationality and religion can be co-ordinate, and where there will be an opportunity for the cultivation of a proper, real feeling of unity. Let us regard them as the most effective measures we have for the building up of the indivisible South African nation. And therefore we must not take steps which will lead us in the direction of separate Universities for separate groups, and eventually separate schools for separate groups. It is in the interest of that feeling of unity, and also of the freedom of conscience of our Universities that I ask this House to reject the Bill.

I think that the public will rub its eyes a bit when it reads that one actually has to plead in this House for the acknowledgment of the word “Christian”, Dr. N. J. van der Merwe, said, and still more that a person like Mr. Hofmeyer strongly opposes it. The word Christian has such a general meaning in South Africa that it has become the basis on which our whole political life has practically been established. We acknowledge the Christian Morality for the State as well. Every afternoon when the House meets, a prayer is read here which is a Christian prayer. I do not know whether our Jewish friends have any objection to that.

There are, as is here indicated, students at the Potchefstroom College who are Jews. There has never yet been any complaint that violence has been done to their consciences. That word ought really to be in the name of every University College in South Africa, and without its being a denominational test, simply because our people are a Christian people and because they want the spirit of our Universities to be of a Christian character.

Mr. Morris Kentridge, another Jewish Deputy, opposing the Bill, said that he saw the Bill as the beginning of a movement to amalgamate State and Church, to the detriment of both.