erefore, he urges "war" against
the English language. In the schools, in the Church, and "in our
family life above all," it must be considered a "disgrace to speak
English.... Who will join the war? All true Afrikanders, we hope."

Thus was the Bond, the child of Majuba, quickened into conscious being
by the fiery pen of the predikant, Du Toit. Poor Du Toit! His after
life was a strange commentary upon this early triumph of his brain,
won in the drowsy solitudes of the Paarl. Summoned to be Director of
Education in the Transvaal, he was quickly disillusioned of his love
of his Dutch mother-country by actual intercourse with the
contemptuous Hollanders whom Krueger had invited to serve the Republic.
Later, again, he was rejected by the Bond which he had himself
created, and driven to find comfort in the broad freedom of allegiance
to an Empire-state.

The object of the Bond, as stated by Du Toit in _De Transvaalse
Oorlog_, was the "creation of a South African nationality ... through
the establishment of this Bond in all states and colonies of South
Africa." Its organisation was to consist of a central governing body
(_bestuur_), with provincial, district, and ward _besturen_. The
central _bestuur_ was to be composed of five members, two for the Cape
Colony, and one each for the Transvaal, Natal, and Free State, who
were "to meet yearly in one or other of the chief towns of the
component states." The provincial _besturen_, consisting of one
representative from each of the district _besturen_, were to meet
every six months at their respective colonial or state capitals.[22]

[Footnote 22: _De Transvaalse Oorlog_, pp. 7 and 8.]

The first Congress of the Afrikander Bond was held at Graaf Reinet in
1882. In the draft constitution then drawn up for the approval of its
members, the relationship of the Bond to the British Government in
South Africa was defined with commendable frankness. In the "Programme
of Principles" was the article:

In itself acknowledging no single form of government as the only
suitable form, and whilst acknowledging the form of government
existing at present, [the Bond] means that the aim of our
national development must be a united South Africa under its own
flag.

[Sidenote: Hofmeyr's influence.]

And it was upon the basis of this "Programme of Principles" that the
earliest Bond organisations were formed in the Transvaal, the Free
State, and the Cape Colony.