Town Life in Australia

by Richard Ernest Nowell Twopeny

In the Victorian Schools, and in secondary, as in higher education, Victoria offers infinitely superior advantages to those of the other colonies combined. A feeling of esprit de corps exists; not so strong, perhaps, as in English public schools, but very strong considering the number of day-boys. In the other colonies it does not take root at all firmly, or else degenerates into party spirit--a tendency which it also shows in Victoria, where it is moulded into better form by the masters. In most schools the prefect system has been established, of course with large modifications. It has difficulties to struggle against in the democratic spirit of the country, and in the early age at which the majority of boys leave school; but in its working shape it seems to do good. This is especially the case at one or two Victorian colleges, where the masters have established a mutual feeling of trust between themselves and the boys; but at too many the natural opposition remains. The masters get too easily disgusted at what they consider the rough manners and ways of the boys, and are contented to leave them to their own devices, so long as they get through their work and obey the rules. Consequently the boys become rougher and less amenable. Another difficulty in the path of good discipline and tone throughout the schools is the too advanced age at which boys come there.

One of the greatest difficulties a head-master has to contend with is, that there are practically no preparatory schools, even in Victoria, to feed the large ones; and often, through a sudden rise of his parents' circumstances, or from some other reason, a boy is sent to school for the first time, at fifteen or sixteen, knowing nothing beyond the three R's. Others are taken away in the midst of school-work, either to go to Europe with their parents, or because times are bad, and then brought back after a couple of years with formed habits of idleness and independence which it is difficult to subdue. Looking at the last report of the Melbourne Grammar School, I find the average age of the upper sixth to be 17 1/2 of the first form 13 1/3; but I fancy that at the majority of schools the averages would be quite a year younger in both forms.

At schools, as at home, more liberty has to be conceded to Australian than to English boys, and the circumstances of their life make them more fitted for it. But masters complain that parents of day-boarders do not take enough trouble to see that their boys work, and leave them too much choice of studies. This latter defect results from the strong feeling in favour of individuality amongst colonists, which leads them to favour the idea of each boy from the first striking out a line for himself, without considering how far he is a competent authority as to his own capabilities. Where parents do not interfere, obedience to rules is generally well enforced and that, although punishments are much lighter than in England, and the cane is only brought into use for extreme offences. The staff of masters is usually fairly strong as regards ability and attainments, but, as is too often the case in England, the majority of them are neither trained teachers, nor even with an aptitude for teaching; they have simply taken to this particular profession because they could get more immediate return from it than from any other. The head-masters, or rather those of recent appointment, are, as a rule, well chosen. Their salaries run from £800 to £1,200 a year; and you can get either a first-class man, whose health prevents him from remaining in England, or a good second-rater for that sum. In some schools the council or permanent board of governors work excellently with the headmasters; but too often the Australian dislike to absolute authority in whatever shape or form is so great as to induce the council to become meddlesome; and unduly interfere with the master.

So much for the constitution of the school. The work though also modelled after the English system, diverges from it considerably to suit local requirements. English public-school training is directed to lead up to University teaching; thereby losing in amplitude and finish, but gaining in density and stability of groundwork. But here, although the majority of boys matriculate, they do not go to the University; and, to suit them, the University has itself been forced to widen its basis. It has become, to a large extent, an examining body for a kind of Abenturienten certificate, and of necessity the matriculation examination which serves this purpose has had to extend over a wider area. These two circumstances, reacting the one upon the other, have kept the school-teaching wide, whereby, of course, it loses something in depth. Thus the master of a leading school complains of the little time that is given to classics--only less than a quarter of the total school-hours to Latin, and no more to Greek, which is, moreover, an optional subject.

But before you begin to blame our system--which, I may prophesy, will soon have to be adopted in England--you must remember the central fact that nine Australian boys out of ten finish their education when they leave school, i.e. at sixteen or seventeen. Four of the nine go into business, three into the bush, and the other two directly into professions. Obviously the interests of the nine are of far more importance than those of the one, and it is for their benefit that the system of education must be arranged. As the country advances in civilization, we may reduce the proportion of those who have to face the world directly they leave school to 80 or even to 75 per cent.; but even then it is only possible to consider the interests of the minority to a certain extent. I will grant that that extent should be greater than the numerical proportion, because the aim of a school must keep a certain elevation if it intends to keep above the average of schools; but it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and the main bearings of the school must reflect the purpose for which the majority of boys come there, if it is to be of any service, or to achieve any legitimate success.

For my own part, I am not altogether inclined to regret the little attention that is paid to Latin and Greek. Mr. Matthew Arnold's complaint of half-culture has always seemed to me to savour of the pedagogue, and his school of the prig--though I use these words in the better shade of their meaning. It would, I believe, be a gain if the splitting of the educational system into denominational schools had not taken place. A school with 200 boys--the usual size of our largest--cannot give the twofold training, classical and modern, side by side, as most of your public schools are doing now; but I am not sure that what the classical side gains by such a division, is not lost by the modern side as compared with the homogeneous system.

School-work nowadays cannot be mere training and foundation-laying. It would be absurd to expect it to cover every department of the higher education, but there is a happy mean discoverable between the two. A compromise can be established by which, while a preference is given to such studies as science and mathematics, which may be held to represent the inductive and deductive training, boys may yet carry away from school a reasonable amount of practical knowledge, which, if they do not allow it to get altogether rusty, can be of use to them in its direct application to their after-life, as well as in its indirect influence. To meet some such views as these, the heads of our best schools are allowing considerable latitude of subjects in their upper classes; but in most cases it would probably be better for the man if the boy's future career, being once settled, and his own and his parents' tastes consulted, the decision as to what optional subjects he should pursue were left with the head-master, the parent, of course, retaining a right of veto.

But I am lapsing into an educational dissertation, and must hasten back to colonial school-work. Leaving out of consideration exceptionally clever boys, the average of learning at our better grammar schools is higher than in middle-class ones, which form the fairest standard of comparison obtainable, but lower than at public schools. The four or five top boys in the upper sixth would invariably be in the sixth at Harrow or Rugby: at times eight or ten would. The rest of the upper sixth would probably be well up in the upper fifth, or in what at Rugby is called the 'Twenty,' while the lower sixth would compare with the lower half of the upper fifth, and higher half of the middle fifth. Here I am taking as our standard our three or four best schools, all of which, except the Sydney Grammar School, are Victorian. The two South Australian colleges and other leading New South Wales establishments fall far below this standard.

I think I alluded before to the want of preparation for secondary education, and the interruption of the age-equality of the schools by the advent of boys of fifteen and sixteen, who have to be put in the first or second form Between them, these two causes lower the age-standard so much that one must, on the average, estimate that a colonial boy is two years behind an English one in point of education. This is most visible at the beginning of school-life, where, as you will have noted, the first form averages over thirteen years old, but is partially made up by the superior rate of progress if the boy remains long enough. At seventeen he should not be more than a year behind his English contemporary.

The setting up of the matriculation examination as a standard up to which the average boy strives to make his way, has undoubtedly had a beneficial effect. Being a reachable proximate ideal, it works strongly upon every boy's amour propre, egging on the average and lazy to work, and by a system of honours holding out hopes of distinction to the able. The practice of giving text-books for it encourages cram, and its width allows of shallowness; but, to counteract this, distinction in any particular subject is very highly marked.