Lovedale: Past and Present.

A Register of two thousand names. A record written in black and white, but more in white than black. With a European Roll. "It is nothing, if it is not truth".
Lovedale: South Africa. Printed at the Mission Press.. 1887.

First edition. 210x135mm. pp. xxiii [ibl], [5]- 642. Register 3L is missing 3M has been printed in duplicate - clearly a printer's error. Light brown cloth, lettered in black. Edges and corner worn, spine and boards marked. Head and foot of spine bumped and joints rubbed. Hinges weak and slightly cracked and foxing to title page but overall a nice copy of a book that is scarce in commerce, none appearing in the auction records.
Lovedale Mission Station was founded in 1824 by the Glasgow Missionary Society as an evangelical church mission. In 1841, the Lovedale Missionary Institute was established as a school for native South Africans boys and girls. James Stewart who had explored the Zambezi with David Livingstone, joined Lovedale in 1867 and became the principal in 1870. The education offered was truly progressive and Stewart seems to have been an inspirational figure. He dispensed with Greek and Latin on the grounds that the time would be better spent teaching English. The school was mixed race and offered technical training alongside academic studies. They farmed their own land and operated a printing press and later Lovedale expanded to include a teacher training college and a hospital. The school closed in 1979 but not before it educated figures as important as Steve Biko and Thabo Mbeki.
Lovedale: Past and Present begins with a history of the Institute, a description of the site and the school's purpose, methods and results. The bulk of the book is a fascinating register of the pupils who had attended the school or were still there. There are over 2000 names, each with a potted biography. Some of these are only a few lines but others are much fuller. Reading these brief lives of people who were given a transformational opportunity, is moving and absorbing. There are sad stories here but uplifting ones too.