Hobart Town was very quiet, though it was the height of the season; but as the girls remarked, “What was the use of thinking of dances, picnics, or any other amusement when there were neither partners nor escorts?” there being so many ladies, and so very few of the sterner sex. The arrival of the steamer from Sydney was an event which caused half the population at least to wend their way to the wharf. The arrival of the mail was another source of great excitement; we seemed to be so far removed from Sydney then—almost as far away as England is from Australia at the present time, when there is a weekly mail, and when we can read a cablegram in this morning’s newspaper of the doings in the colonies not a day ago.
We were to leave in the beginning of May, and by that time the weather was really cold. Mount Wellington had already a little snow on its summit, and furs were in requisition.
Our friend Mr. W. H. Walsh returned to Sydney with us, and when we arrived at Twofold Bay, Maria and James came on board in the custom-house officer’s boat to see me. They were out on horseback when the steamer was signalled, and had only just time to ride down to the boat before she pulled off from the shore. We were delighted to meet again; they both thought Tasmania had benefited us considerably. They told me, had they known in time when we were in the Bay before, I could have gone to their cottage at Eden. “Yes,” said Maria, “and you would not have thought it ugly then.” It was hard to say “Good-bye”; but we all felt it would not be for long, as they hoped to be in Sydney again soon.
We had enjoyed our four months’ stay; but how delightful it was to be once more at “Hurst,” in our own rooms and with our own surroundings. The feeling of being at home is enhanced by these changes, however well conducted the lodging-house may be. We often laughed over our Hobart Town experiences and at Mrs. Mills, the owner of the house where we stayed, who would shut all the windows immediately we were out of the house, which it was my mission to open immediately we returned. When her cooking had not been quite satisfactory, and we had ordered things from the pastry-cook’s, our dear old friend W. H. Walsh, desiring to please her, praised some dish which it was high treason to have ordered from outside. All these little matters we could now laugh at, being once more at home, where life had charms not to be compassed elsewhere. Our old pursuits gained value by the change, and the old walks and drives in interest. The winter in New South Wales is very enjoyable from May until November, and life is indeed worth living, after the heat, dust, and mosquitoes, which are most trying.
Now after a year in England, without clear skies, much rain, fog, and snow, I am bound to agree with many who say, “If I were once again in Australia I would never return to this miserable climate.” I shake my head, and call to mind the many discomforts of a hot, dry climate.
My old friends were about to return to the colony and I had promised to go to them again, so my stay at Hurst was drawing to a close. It was a wrench to leave the children I had learned to love; but they were so young compared with others I had taught, and felt I was losing ground in many branches; besides, I had promised. Unfortunately Mrs. Woolley had decided on living in Sydney, so after remaining with them a few months, I had to leave, as my health completely gave way, and an attack of congestion of the lungs rendered me an idle woman for many months. This gave me time to realise what had been accomplished during eighteen years.
CHAPTER XIII
Sydney had now the University, with Dr. Woolley, a scholar of reputation, at its head. There were also many private schools for young men destined for the Church, with men like Mr. Baly, an Oxford man, and Dr. Forrest of the King School, Parramatta, and Moore College at Liverpool, to prepare them for it. Ladies’ schools were numerous; the Misses Moore, Flower, Thompson and Cooksey were doing good work, preparing young Australian women for their duties. The national school system for the masses had not yet been introduced, which, I regret to say, provides only a strictly secular education. A system which entirely puts religion aside can only end in the repudiation of that responsibility which raises mankind above the lower order of animal creation. The first lesson to inculcate in every child is obedience to God and His laws; obedience to man and his laws then becomes a part of the child’s nature. Another grave objection to the national system is, that it is not for the poorer class exclusively. Men with large incomes send their children to the State schools, paying merely the same rates as the poor man. Only imagine men with incomes of £800 a year sending their children to these schools! Those whose incomes are sufficiently large to enable them to be responsible for the cost of their children’s education should not rely on State aid. These children are taught not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but languages, mathematics, algebra, drawing, music, and drill, for a few pence per week. Some of the parents may give their children a year or two at a private school to finish them; but we venture to say the national school system has bent the “twig” in such a way as to preclude almost any hope of straightening it, except in very rare instances. Teachers too are fallible, and are liable to show more interest in the well-to-do man’s child than in that of the poor man. The Government schools have been the means of lifting from the shoulders of thriving and even rich men the responsibility of looking after the education of their children, and the poor man’s child is educated in such a way that in nine cases out of ten he despises his parents, and has gained the notion that honest labour is beneath him. Where the parents are in good circumstances and pay proper attention to the religious training of their children at home, they may not be injured by the lack of it at school; but in the majority of cases the good accomplished at home is neutralised at school. This applies to the poor as well as the rich, only as the poor are often too wearied after their day’s labour to give much attention to the religious education of their children, how much more necessary is it in their case that it should be attended to in school.
That there have always been different grades in society, that it is necessary to the wellbeing of all that it should be so, and that these grades should bear a numerical proportion to each other which can be tolerably well fixed, history bears out. Does the system of education in the national schools tend to keep up this healthy proportion, or does it upset the social economy, in which large communities can only exist with safety to the majority? Is it a healthy state when Jack considers himself as good as his master, if not better? Yet this is the effect produced by public school teaching—a system of levelling. By all means let the State provide a sound, plain education for the children of those whose means are too small to allow of their defraying the expense of it. A certain period of attendance should be compulsory, and religious instruction should not be neglected.
When every church had its day school, it was easy to get domestics, male and female, plainly educated and well trained, or youths desirous of learning a business. I know many homes in the colony now where the heads of families were so educated, who are an example and blessing to all around them, holding good positions and training their children wisely and well.