The front of this charming old house was no less beautiful than the back. It had been built long ago by convict labour, and was heavily barred and shuttered against their possible depredations. The bedrooms looked out over the harbour, a beautiful view of never-ending kaleidoscopic fascination. Beneath the trees under the window large steamers came, and the busy traffic of smaller craft slipped soundlessly to and fro. It was a scene of continual colour, movement, and life, with its silent background of wooded hills.
Sydney, with the exception of two days of heavenly blue skies, was unpropitious in its weather during our stay; when it wasn’t raining, which it did intermittently with great violence, it was blowing up clouds of dust, in preparation for the next shower, and no amount of rain seemed really effective in laying its stinging, swirling clouds. However, we set off after lunch to visit the University, and walked down a steep lane to the little pier where the steamers call for the Circular Quay, whence the different boats run to one and another point in the harbour. It is a charming little journey from Kirribilli Point, by which musical native name, with its characteristic reduplications of the vowel sounds, our temporary home was called; Old Admiralty House lies picturesquely among its high gardens, and on the opposite shore, on a green mound with two sentinel trees stands the little fortress-like building where the first governors of the colony lived.
A tram from the Circular Quay runs up the principal street of Sydney, past the Town Hall and the Cathedral to the University grounds. We made a dash through the pouring rain to the University buildings, which stand on high ground, overlooking the town. The University was founded in 1850, though its scope has since been greatly enlarged. It comprises faculties of arts, law, medicine, and science. As at Melbourne, denominational colleges, of which the principal ones are Church of England and Presbyterian, have been established and incorporated with it. A woman’s college, undenominational, has also been built within the University grounds, as well as a hospital, where medical students and nurses are trained. The fees for tuition are fifteen guineas a year in the Faculty of Arts, and twenty-seven guineas a year in the professorial schools; but though these fees are hardly more than nominal, pupils from the Government High Schools or Registered Schools, can be awarded exhibitions on the result of the Leaving Certificate Examination of the Department of Public Instruction, which give the privilege of free education during the University course. These exhibitions are, however, limited in number.
The handsome University main building will eventually form the front of a proposed quadrangle. There is a large hall for examinations and public meetings, and lecture-rooms for general subjects; but the Science and Medical Schools are separately housed. The general educational system of New South Wales, primary and secondary, is established on much the same lines as that already described in Western Australia. Only those children are admitted to the secondary schools who have obtained a qualifying certificate. Every precaution has been taken to render the technical education of the colony as efficient as possible. Conferences, attended by both employers and workpeople, discussed and drew up a course of instruction. Trades schools were established that should lead up to the technical colleges, and by a wise provision, without which the whole fabric of technical education is rendered nugatory, an “entrance qualification” for the trades schools was made compulsory. In some trades, by arrangement with the employers, apprentices attend a trades school during working hours. Every precaution is taken that the children in scattered, outlying districts shall not elude the benefits the state provides. Wherever central schools are possible, children are taken to them free by coach, or in the coastal districts by launch. “Bush” children have “Provisional” or “Half-time” schools,[17] provided for them. “Caravan” schools visit scattered families. “Flying Camp” schools accompany railway construction.
CIRCULAR QUAY, SYDNEY.
It is claimed that New South Wales exhibits the most perfect existing system of centralised educational administration. All state education is controlled by the Public Instruction Department, and the whole cost is paid out of consolidated revenue. There is no educational tax or local rate.
It seemed to us, as we assimilated all these facts, that first day in Sydney, that our colonies were doing things while we talk about them; but it must be remembered that they have to form, while we have to reform, and the first is much the easier task.
We got back to Kirribilli Point, eluding the heavy showers as far as possible, but Sydney looked as miserable as all towns on a thoroughly wet day, producing a confused impression of chilly damp, streaming shop windows, jostling umbrellas, and liquid mud. The next day was better, fortunately, as the Governor of New South Wales was giving a garden party.
Government House, itself an unimportant structure, is charmingly placed on a point of the harbour, with gardens sloping down to the water. Towards evening the sun shone out, and gave us the first impression of the real Sydney, and our host seized the opportunity to show us something of the place as it ought to look. We motored to South Head along a road, where verandahed and balconied houses clustered in gardens on the hills above the harbour, clinging, as it were, to the rocks, which crop out everywhere among the short grass, smoothed and weathered by time. Graceful grey pepper trees grow in many of the gardens, drooping over the fences. The road, which ran up and down hill, ended abruptly in a boulder. We got out, and walked along to the edge of the South Head, the southern extremity of the entrance to the harbour, where the purple Pacific booms in the cavities of the high sandstone cliffs. This view from the South Head is one of the most beautiful in Australia. The blue waters of the harbour are guarded by sentinel cliffs, and misty range on range of low hills stretch away inland.