ABSTRACT
Rhodes University College, or ‘Rhodes’ as it is always known, was just six years old in 1910 when Basil Scho¨nland completed his schooling at St Andrew’s. He, or at least his father, was faced with the decision as to which university this young man of outstanding ability should attend. The choice was somewhat restricted because there were not many options in South Africa at that time. Between 1873 and 1918 there was only one, the University of the Cape of Good Hope, which was simply an examining and degree-awarding body, based on the concept of the University of London, and which operated from offices in Cape Town. Its constituent colleges were the South African College in Cape Town, the Victoria College in Stellenbosch and now Rhodes University College in Grahamstown [1]. But Selmar Scho¨nland was naturally more than happy with Rhodes, almost his own creation, and so there was little doubt that his fourteen-year-old son, who had captured the headlines of the local paper and the attention of the local worthies, would pass through its portals-as inauspicious as they were in 1911. Of course, Basil’s tender years and the dominant personality of his mother will almost certainly have ruled out the possibility that he might be sent away from home.
