Account of an expedition to the interior of New Holland

by Lady Mary Fox; Richard Whately

The Southlanders have numerous schools—mostly day-schools—for boys and for girls, in all parts of the country. They are of various descriptions, suited to persons of different classes of society. There are also four universities, besides some other scientific and literary institutions partaking of that character.

The most ancient, and, at present, the largest university is in the state of Müllersfield. Mr. Sibthorpe’s notes on this subject contain but a small portion of the little he had, up to that time, been enabled to collect; as it happened that the principal vacation of all the universities is in the spring, the time of the travellers’ arrival in the country. He was, accordingly, promising himself, in the latter part of his sojourn, to obtain a much fuller and more correct acquaintance with their academical institutions.

It appears that, as might have been expected, the Southlanders have not made the same advancements in the physical sciences as the Europeans, though much greater than, under their circumstances of seclusion, could have been anticipated. They have detected and rectified the error of the Julian calendar. The alteration of their style, which was begun above a century and a half ago, was not established at once, like the reform first made in Roman Catholic, and subsequently in Protestant countries; but was effected gradually, by the simple omission of the leap-years, till the error was rectified.

Mr. Sibthorpe was particularly struck with the circumstance, that, both at the universities and elsewhere, the art of teaching is distinctly taught as a separate and most important department; regular lectures on it being given, and the pupils exercised in various modes, to train and qualify them for the office of giving instruction to others. This people are so far from taking for granted—as, till of late years, has been commonly done in Europe—that every one is qualified to teach anything he knows himself, that, from the highest to the lowest description of schoolmaster or tutor, every one is required to have gone through a regular course of training for that profession. Nor is the study of this art by any means confined to those who design professionally to engage in it; but some degree of it is considered as a part of a liberal education.

In some of the newly-settled, and, consequently, thinly-peopled districts, there are sometimes two (and, in some instances, even three) schoolhouses for one master or mistress. In such a case, the master attends at them by turns for half a week, or, if at a greater distance, a week. Sometimes the schools are kept up during the intervals by an assistant; sometimes even this is wanting; and the children remain at home half their time preparing lessons, in which they are examined when they return to school. It is held that one good master can do more service in two or three schools than two or three inferior ones. All parents and guardians are required to have the children under their care instructed. Any who may be too poor to afford the moderate cost of the humblest education are provided with it at the public charge; but it is very rare indeed that there is occasion for this, except in the case of the half-reclaimed aborigines.

The Southlanders were astonished to hear that, in what is called civilized Europe, a large proportion of the population should remain totally illiterate, “like the savages.” When they were told that some persons in England dreaded the education of the labouring classes, as unfitting them for their station, and were disposed to apply the remark of Mandeville, that “if a horse knew as much as a man, I should be sorry to be his rider,” they inquired how this was to be reconciled with the political rights which they were told were conceded to these very people; and how it could be safe to entrust power to those whom it was thought unsafe to instruct how to make a rational use of it.

“If,” said they, “you are to keep men in slavery, like the domestic brutes, it may be the safest way to keep them in as brutish a condition of mind as you can; but brutes that are not enslaved are much more dangerous animals than rational beings. A horse is kept as a slave, and, however gently treated, is subjected to restraint, and compelled to labour for his master’s service. It would be doubtless unsafe, and, what is more, unjust, to ride a horse if he knew as much as a man,—i. e. if he were a rational being, instead of a brute; but Dr. Mandeville ought to have remembered that, if a groom knew no more than a horse, he would be very unfit to be a rider.”

They require, accordingly, that any parent who, from inconvenient distance of residence or any other cause, is unable or unwilling to send a child to school, shall provide for his instruction at home, and shall bring him to the periodical examinations of the school inspectors, who are appointed to visit the schools at stated times and examine the children. On being asked what would be done in the case of any parent’s refusing instruction to his children, they said that no such case had occurred in their recollection; but that they conceived, if it should occur, it would be considered as a sufficient evidence of mental derangement. As for the right of a parent over his children, they utterly denied that his children belong to him in the same manner that dogs and cats and horses do, which he is at liberty to keep as mere pets and playthings, or as drudges, or to sell or drown if he finds himself overstocked. They hold that he has no more right to debar his children from instruction than to deny them proper food and clothing. To these last they have a fair claim—a claim enforced by law in all countries—as animals; to the other, as rational beings.

Female education also they attend to quite as much as Europeans, without confining it so much (among the upper classes) to mere showy accomplishments. Some of them laughed at our employment of the word “accomplishment,” “which,” said they, “signifies properly a completion of that which, by your account, is never begun.” They cited a maxim which, they said, had been laid down by Aristotle,—that a people whose institutions pay no regard to women and children, are neglecting the half of the present generation, and the whole of the next. And they observed, that a child whose earliest years,—whose first impressions, and habits of thought and sentiments,—have been left to a mother who is wanting in cultivated understanding, and sound principles, and well-regulated feelings, will be very far from having a fair chance of turning out an estimable member of society.

On these subjects the travellers had much conversation with Sir Andrew Knox, who holds in the kingdom of Eutopia the office of inspector-general of education, nearly answering to that of minister of public instruction in some of the European states. In his observations on the conduct of the governments of Europe,—such as they had been three centuries back, and such as many of them appeared to him to continue in some measure still unchanged,—he remarked that nothing could be more completely the reverse of a wise and honest legislature than the attempt to make belief compulsory, and knowledge not compulsory.