This essay analyzes the contemporary understandings of, and the aims attributed to, "industrial" education for Africans which came to be strongly associated with "agricultural education" in the Cape Colony between 1890 and 1930. The author first sketches the early history of industrial education from the 1850s to show how this form of education--though partially attempted in an earlier period--was contemplated on a systematic basis for the first time at the turn of the century. The implementation of educational segregation in the Cape Colony is briefly described, since it served as the precurser to steadily widening divergences in the treatment of learners in industrial education settings based on race. Second, the essay draws attention to the links between industrial education and agricultural education with reference to the narrowing window of opportunity for African learners to obtain a non-rural education based on marketable skills. Third, an extended discussion of how the missionary fraternity understood industrial education follows. Finally, it closes with a close analysis of employers?s and landholders? views on how industrial education could affect the labor market of the Cape colonial economy, as these powerful interest groups could influence the evolution of education policy. (Contains 2 tables, 6 photographs, and 76 footnotes.)