The schools in the colony were few and far between. The chief were the Sydney Grammar School, Normal Institution in Sydney, and the King’s School, Parramatta; the latter being a boarding-school for boys, where most of the young Australians were educated. Dr. Forrest, one of the early principals of the school, from all I have heard, was a second Arnold. One of his pupils in later days filled his former master’s place worthily and efficiently, after working some years in a country parish. He only resigned his position a few years ago, when a master from England was appointed, but since I left Australia last year another change has been made, and a new master has just arrived there. Only one ladies’ school of note had been established at this time.
The schools certainly were of the best, and conducted by men and women who understood their duties, and I have often questioned whether the advantages of the present system of education in the colonies is an improvement on the past. Everything is now made so easy, books of all kinds and on all subjects doing away with any necessity for thought, and therefore any special talent or genius in the pupil may wither or die for want of the stimulant to exertion, and this generation, I am afraid, like our Australian parrot, will only repeat the words of others.
Our family were to a certain extent for a time independent of schools, as both our parents were above the average in intellect and knowledge of books. My father was a great reader, especially on all subjects connected with natural history, a great lover of the stage, and an enthusiastic entomologist, having a splendid collection of English specimens in two cabinets he brought to Australia. My mother was also a great reader, well informed in history, biography, and all the writers of the day. Shakespeare was a household word, and most of his plays I have heard read by both, each taking part. All the chief poets’ works were well known to them. We had Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, Rogers, Shelley, Pope, and Moore as our guests of an evening: Bulwer, Thackeray, and Dickens, the latter personally known to my father; in fact, all the best writers of the day were our teachers. I have always been a quick and insatiable reader as long as I can remember, and having a good library to gratify my desires, I only required some one to direct me and talk over the books I read to finish an education begun early in England. My mother soon found a French lady to teach us French, music, and singing, so for the first year we only attended her classes.
Sydney and its suburbs to-day are, I need scarcely say, very different from what they were when my mother thought “Redfern out in the country and a dreadful place.” When we were at Liverpool she drove out to Redfern one day, and it was unfortunately after a bush fire, so that for some miles nothing but dark charred trees were to be seen. It was her first and last visit beyond Parramatta, which could be reached by water; she never would go into the country again. Since those days I have often sat by her grave, on the highest part of the Church of England Cemetery in Elizabeth Street, and thought, as I looked on the panorama spread before me on every side, “What would she think of the city of the Golden South now?” What has been done in only forty years since we left her there is marvellous; then there was only just a fringe of civilisation and progress on its coasts. No railways, few churches; the interior of the country almost uninhabited, reached only through mere tracks or roads, nearly impassable, only traversed by that band of pioneers, the squatters,—a terribly maligned people—who had explored and made the country. Only those who have lived amongst them on far-away stations can ever realise what the squatters had to endure before “the desert blossomed like the rose,”—losses by fire, drought, floods, and the raids of the Blacks and bushrangers; roads impassable, drays with supplies kept weeks on the roads, while anxiously looked for. Famine sometimes stared them in the face, for delicate women and children could not exist upon meat alone. Just before our arrival things were in a terrible state; my father could have bought thousands of sheep at sixpence a head, and this price included homestead, improvements, horses, and lease of land. I have sometimes heard later colonists say: “The squatters want it all their own way.” If they do, surely they have a right to a large share of the cake they certainly made under most trying conditions.
I have often ridden through townships, the nucleus of which was the homestead of some early settler; or in later days whirled in the train in a few hours to what once took weeks to reach, for sometimes drays would be delayed for months through the rivers being up. Then even though money was made, consider the isolated life of the squatter. Once a year a visit to Sydney to sell their wool and purchase supplies. It was my good fortune to meet many of these squatters, and certainly, I must say, better informed, more intellectual, and often accomplished men, I have never met. Certainly some were quiet in manner, owing, no doubt, to the nature of the lives they were leading away from mixed society. Many were from the old country, and sons of military and naval men. I need scarcely say, though they were unused to the society of ladies, their behaviour was always gentlemanly. I have heard at times in town “they were a little wild”; but who can wonder, after months of solitude, without any softening and refining influence, that the old Adam should become master! Well, well, the noble, hospitable, single-minded, real squatters will soon die out, but their children, in their native country, or settled in other lands, should never be ashamed to own their fathers or country. I fancy I hear some say, “But how about the first colonists; who were they?” To this I will answer in the words of Him who was the truest and holiest teacher, “He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” How many men and women were there in the days I write of amongst all classes, and in every station, who were as guilty and sin-stained as those referred to, but were not found out? In my long sojourn in Australia I have met with some of them, and many of their descendants, but, with very few exceptions, have found them kind, generous, and clever, like other folk—in fact, better than many who have emigrated. Above all, fond and proud of their native land—the land that gave freedom to their ancestors, and in most instances an independence which they could scarcely have attained to in the old country. No wonder an Australian is proud of his country, which appears to me the most wonderful example of the determined energy of the Anglo-Saxon race. When I used to wander through the Exhibition of 1880, this was always present in my mind, “Less than one hundred years ago this country was untrodden by the white man. Where this beautiful building now stands, there were only the Gunyahs or homes of the poor savages. That glorious stretch of ocean unknown, and now—— but words of mine can ill express the change.” But, my fair Australian maidens and stalwart sons, remember, though your fathers helped to make this change through determination and energy, and the lessons learned in the older and more experienced land of their birth, the danger of thinking, “We can do without England,” I cannot advise you too strongly to guard against, as it is both unwise and ungrateful. Your country is a very beautiful one, but not faultless; it has one feature to prevent it from becoming quickly populated—want of rivers that are permanently navigable. In this it is so different from America, where water carriage is generally practicable and cheap. But the children, like the country, are young, and youth is always a little unreasonable. With this warning I will finish this chapter, only adding, be strong to write, each one a page of your life’s history, to improve the present, and adorn the future annals of your country.
CHAPTER III
My eldest brother, visiting Sydney from the station, thought we had better go to school for a year. Fortunately one was found where there were only eight boarders. The lady principal was the daughter of an English clergyman, and her brother, also a clergyman, had charge of the parish in which she resided, about forty miles from Sydney. She was a highly educated woman and a true Christian. We were treated as her own daughters, guarded from everything that could possibly sully the pages of our dawning womanhood. I have often thought what a wise thing it was that my brother suggested our going there. No poetry or novel reading now; more solid food for the mind helped to leaven what might have proved dangerous. My chief amusements were music and singing, and even in “The Golden South” I remember getting up in frosty weather to practise by candlelight with mittened hands and chilblained fingers. These schooldays were very happy. The large brick house with verandahs and balconies all round: the garden only divided from the river-bank by a thick hedge of aloes, and on the other side the high wall of the recreation ground of the Liverpool Asylum: this wall was the only one I ever saw fruit trees growing against as in England. Liverpool was certainly just the place then for a school, as we might walk from one end of the township to the other without seeing a single individual; but unfortunately for Madame’s peace of mind there were two residents who had large families of boys; however, as they were always absent from home during the week, and we never went out on Sundays except to church, she felt relieved. Our dear Madame never thought that her girls occasionally found boyish epistles written on aloe leaves. On Saturdays we were never allowed out of the grounds, so on these mornings attended to our wardrobes, and in the afternoon had a delightful time in an old weatherboard cottage in the garden roasting cashew nuts, of which delicacy Madame had a large quantity brought from the West Indies by a friend. We used to make presents of these, when properly prepared, to our friends.
One Sunday evening a great event for us happened. As usual we went to church, but being a cold dark night, no one was religiously inclined, so the Rev. Mr. Duffus, I suppose, thought “his sister and her schoolgirls were not sufficient congregation,” and adjourned to his house opposite. We with Madame followed, and I for one thought it a very good idea, as we with his children spent the evening before a splendid log-fire in their nursery. This and going there on Her Majesty’s birthday were the only occasions I remember anything like amusement away from the school. Being an exceedingly loyal people, the birthday was kept up by a huge bonfire in the paddock after a girls’ picnic in the Bush, on which occasion I saw a snake for the first time in Australia. Bessie D—— and I having gone at my suggestion to wander about in couples to see “who could find the most curious thing,” came upon an enormous carpet snake, decidedly the most curious find. We ran away screaming; but Madame soon came to the rescue and killed the dreadful creature. Only two of that band of girls are now left; one in her native land, and the other writing this near a small village in Hampshire, with a bitter north-easterly wind blowing.
That year at L—— was truly a resting-place for me before the real battle of life began, and it was well spent, for it drew together the threads, a little tangled, of a rather exceptional education. The dear Madame, who joined warp and woof so gently yet firmly, I can never cease to love. She has gone where her work will follow her; loved by many here, and in “the world beyond the stars” may have met some of her children again who have lived to call her blessed. This is a digression; but having finished my education and lived the greater portion of my life in the colony so many people despise and throw stones at, I feel bound to let my readers know that such things were more than forty years ago. Yet I cannot help adding that Sydney in the forties was in many respects not a comfortable place to live in, especially to those who had only been accustomed to all the luxuries of London life. Tradesmen were not over civil, domestics were scarce, and what there were, very incompetent. The older colonists were in this respect far better off. I knew a family who had a splendid estate about sixty miles from Sydney. The owner was a retired major who had at least forty servants, many living in huts near the house, among them a carpenter, blacksmith, and shoemaker, and also a large store on the property. One of the men, an Italian, taught his sons and daughters music, the flute, violin, cornet, and piano; he also formed a band of musicians from the men on the “Height.” There was also a theatre and billiard-room; in fact, this place fifty years ago was like a large manor-house with every arrangement for comfort and amusement. The owner once had the whole of one side of George Street south offered to him for a few hundred pounds, which he refused, as he wanted to add to the “Height.”
His eldest son and two daughters were amongst the dearest friends of my youth, the two eldest most accomplished musicians on piano and flute; I have often spent hours listening to them playing together. As was the case with many others of the early colonists, not a rood of land ever came into the possession of their descendants. In this case part of the estate was sold for a trifle to a friend of mine, who was having it put into partial repair when, by a strange fatality, it was burned down on the same night that the major’s eldest son died many miles distant. Some years after the youngest son bought back a piece of the old estate, intending to build a cottage residence on it: the plans were completed and all arrangements made when he died from a neglected cold. They are all gone now. The sons never married, so the name has died out, except that the estate and one street in Sydney still bear it.