The Great South Land, in extent and variety of climate and soil, offers a more fruitful field for the development of the root-qualities of the race than did any former abiding-place of the great Aryan stock. And though the average stature be exceeded, and the rugged lineaments, no longer ocean-striving, but fanned by softer airs, approximate more closely to the chiselled features of the Greek, ever and for ever more will Australia 'keep unchanged the strong heart of her sons'; for ages yet to come jealously claiming the proud title of 'Britons of the South,' and as such, when the world's war-dogs bay around the sacred standard of the Empire, eagerly emulous to be enrolled among the 'Soldiers of the Queen.'
MY SCHOOL DAYS
It savours of the improbable to assert that the life-careers of my school-comrades have proved to be mainly in development of their boyish traits of character; yet in the majority of instances such has been the case.
Sir James Martin, late Chief Justice of New South Wales, was always facile princeps among us—in every class, in every subject. He may not have posed as a too industrious worker, but, whatever his method, he mastered every department of knowledge which he essayed with unvarying success. That he, in common with most of the 'old boys,' wrote with ease and effectiveness was due, perhaps, to the care bestowed upon the study of English composition. It was a speciality of the school. Hugh Ranclaud once produced an essay so polished and scholarly that suspicion of plagiarism was aroused. A subject was given to him, 'Marauders by land or sea,' to work out under supervision. He emerged triumphantly from the ordeal. The first numbers of Pickwick appearing about that time, in green covers, if I mistake not, Martin commenced a tale, embodying a similar style of incident. I forget the title now, but some numbers were printed. It was a boy's audacious imitation, but even at this distance of time I recall the undoubted ability of his performance. Part of the action was laid in London, a city, strangely enough (though he knew more of its history and topography than many a dweller within sound of Bow Bells), that he was never destined to behold.
William Forster was much the same kind of boy as he was a man: obstinately honest, uncompromising, detesting the expedient; clever at classics and mathematics, yet with a strong leaning to poetry. He left us to go to the King's School at Parramatta, then in charge of the Rev. Mr. Forrest, Hovenden. Hely, Whistler and Eustace Smith, Moule, the Rossi Brothers, Walter Lamb, and a large contingent of Stephens were contemporaries. Alfred of that ilk and I were great chums. He was a steady worker, as were most of that branch of his family. Consett (Connie) was then a handsome, clever boy, who could learn anything when he liked, but was not over-fond of work. Matthew Henry (now a Supreme Court judge), on the other hand, was an insatiable acquirer of knowledge, and bore off a bagful of prizes, so to speak, at every examination. Frank, his cousin, was not over-eager about draughts from the Pierian spring, which led to misunderstandings between him and our worthy master; but he was famous for tenacity of purpose and indomitable resolution, qualities which served him well in after-life. Among the boys who came comparatively late was George Rowley. He must have been fourteen, at least, and by no means forward. In two years he was not far from the head of the school. The Brennans—John, the late sheriff, and his brother Joseph—David Moore, a Minister of the Crown in Victoria in days to come, David Forbes, the present judge, and George Lord were the Spofforths, Bannermans, and Massies of that long-past day—old fashioned, perhaps, in a cricketing sense, but prophetic of triumphs to come.
There were fights now and then, and 'what for no?' But these necessary conflicts were conducted with all proper decorum at the bottom of the playground. Mr. Cape, very properly, did not discourage them as long as there was no unfairness. I reminded Mr. William Crane, stipendiary magistrate, years since, of an obstinate engagement between us, in which his superior science gained the victory. I 'knocked back' or put out a knuckle of my right hand (as our schoolboy phrase was) in that or some other desperate fray. Dr. Parsons, a medical friend whom I met in the street, reduced the swelling for me. The worthy stipendiary showed a similar displacement, attributable to the same cause, as we compared notes.
Ronald Cameron was one of our leading champions, being ready to fight anything or anybody at short notice. He challenged to the combat Cyrus Doyle, a long-limbed native, big enough to eat him, with the assurance of a gamecock defying an emu. He lost the fight, of course; but no other boy of his size in the school would have thought of commencing it. He had been at sea for a year, and was thereby enabled to tell us wonderful tales of his adventures among the South Sea Islands—much after the fashion of 'Jack Harkaway,' who, however, like gas in the time of Guy Fawkes, 'wasn't then inwented.' In after-years a report was current among us that he was lost at sea. Whether true or not I am unable to say. He certainly was, with the exception of Carden Collins, the most utterly fearless boy I ever saw.
Of course, with so large a school, under masters were required. These gentlemen were excellent teachers and conscientious disciplinarians. First came Mr. Murray, the English and arithmetical master; then Mr. O'Brien, writing master and teacher of mathematics. He had a way of saying, when arrived at the Q.E.D. of a problem in Euclid, 'And the thing is done.' How well I remember his desk and the pen he was always mending! No steel pens in those days. We had to learn to mend our own quill pens and keep them in good order. If the pens were bad and the writing suffered thereby, we suffered in person. This led to the careful preparation of the obsolete goose-quill—now a figure of speech, a thing of the past.
The Rev. Mr. Woolls was for a year or more classical master. He afterwards went to Parramatta and established himself independently. A fair-haired, ruddy-faced, Kingsley-looking young Englishman was he when he first came to Sydney College. He was the ideal tutor, and most popular with us all: strict in school, but full of life and gaiety when lessons were over.
The late Reverend David Boyd, afterwards of East Maitland, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, succeeded him. He was an accomplished person if you like: a first-rate classical scholar, with a fair knowledge of French, German, and Italian—possibly Hebrew, for he knew pretty well everything, from astronomy to single-stick, fencing to comparative philology. He rode, drove, shot, fished, painted, was musical, mathematical—a mesmerist doubtless. 'Omnibus rebus et quibusdem aliis' ought to have been his motto. We boys looked upon him as a successor of the Admirable Crichton, and revered him accordingly. I was very glad when he 'followed the rush' to Port Phillip in 1842, and gave the Hammonds, Howards, myself, and a few other ex-Sydney College boys our last year's teaching. We ought to have made the most of it, for, as none of us got any more, we had to rely upon those early years of conscientious grounding for the foundation of any edifice of learning we should elect to place thereon. It has proved extremely useful to all of us, and it was no one's fault but our own if we did not imbibe every form of useful knowledge short of what university training alone could have supplied.