Arthur Patchett Martin

“ It is not denied, even by its most enthusiastic advocates, that the free, secular, and compulsory system of education cannot be established in any country without a considerable national outlay. Could a race of headmasters of the type of Geddie Pearse be always found, no expense would be too great. But of course such a man in any profession or walk of life is the exception rather than the rule. The question then is, does the system work sufficiently well to justify the outlay in such communities as our colonies? ”

“ Now, this is the state of things that the Australians, on the very threshold of their existence as a people, have to face. So long as the Irish-Australian flocks slavishly obey their priests, there must be this great bar and division between what I have called the two races in Australia. ”

“ I will frankly concede that I have always considered it quite possible that the opponents of the State schools may, in one or other of these colonies, succeed in snatching a chance victory in a corrupt or moribund legislature, I remember discussing the possibility with a very far-seeing colonial politician, to whom I quoted the excellent American phrase to the effect that "persistent bigotry is, in the long-run, more than a match for wobbling enlightenment." ”

“ In addition to this there is no religious communion like the Anglican Church in England, which, by its numbers, wealth, and prestige, could carry on the education of the country on religious lines, to the satisfaction of even a bare majority of the people. It was the hopelessness of the task in these new countries to make the State teach religion that has impelled so many religious men, and in fact the great majority of a not irreligious community, to favour the secular system. ”

“ To recklessly use the tax-payers' money for the wanton destruction of these voluntary schools, and for the substitution, regardless of cost, of a purely secular system, seems to me, as an Australian secularist, the height of folly, and the result not of enlightenment, but of sectarian bitterness, envy, and animosity. ”

“ I hold that the great majority of human beings would be far worse citizens, as well as far more unhappy creatures, if deprived of their religious faith, and their supernatural aspirations. As I have said at the beginning of the chapter, I should be an advocate for religious education in the State schools in Australia, but for the fact that the people are so sharply divided into two races, which can only be assimilated by a common system of national education. ”

“ The Universities, like the State schools, are secular institutions; but their education is certainly not free,—neither is it compulsory. The fees are heavy, and the students limited. Despite the fact that Australian Universities owe their origin to the far-seeing political genius of Wentworth, and that throughout Australia these institutions have been favoured with an exceptionally capable professoriate, I think that alma mater is still somewhat of an aristocratic exotic in these democratic colonies. ”

“ That is to say, the work of moral instruction is being as well carried out under our strictly secular system as the work of religious instruction is being carried out in the churches; and the bulk of the people are now so well satisfied of this that, unless the clergy and their organs cease their clamour against the good work notoriously being done in large towns and in out-of-the-way bush hamlets, the respect and support accorded from traditional usage to the pastoral office will be withdrawn, and given to the class which is really furthering the spread of enlightenment. ”

“ But it is impossible for any institution, especially in these young democratic lands, to survive long on tradition alone. The next scene in the educational drama of Victoria will probably be the popularising of the University as the head of the State school system, and, strange as the phrase may sound in Australian ears, the modernising of its curriculum. ”

“ Fortunately, we in Victoria have a means to our hand which, though not consciously devised for this purpose, is partially adapted to effect it. This is the Education Act. By means of it, the youth of the Roman Catholic population is gradually passed through the State Schools, and, mixing, as it therefore does, with the young of other sects, it must inevitably cease to retain any strong feeling of bigotry or exclusiveness. ... The Education Act may be defective in many respects, and is undoubtedly a great expense to the community. ”

“ Instead of opposing the State school system which is the inevitable outcome of the social condition of the country, how much wiser it would be for the Anglicans and Presbyterians, whose zeal, learning, and piety are widely recognised and revered, to assist to widen the school curriculum, and to aid instead of thwart the State schoolmaster. ”

“ Should it be objected that the views here propounded are indicative of religious bigotry and a non-recognition of the doctrine of toleration, it can be answered that there is something more important even than toleration, and that is the peace and happiness of the people. Before toleration can work beneficially for any community, all its members must have attained a certain uniform level of intelligence and morality ”

“ But we in Australia have to begin our "nation-building" at the very beginning. We are not a homogeneous people. So great in numbers is the Irish minority that we are veritably two races. On the matter of religion, we have been compelled to organise the State on a basis of indifference—so various and antagonistic are the religious divisions of the people. ”

“ Whilst the general run of the Protestant schools were fairly efficient, and assisted in some measure to fit the future citizen to play his part in a free and, what should therefore be, an enlightened community, the Roman Catholic schools were universally acknowledged to be the worst in the land. I have known pious parents of that faith constantly in danger of the priestly ban for the crime of removing their children from their own schools, where their education was being neglected, to others, where it would be looked after with some degree of efficiency. ”

“ It may not unnaturally be asked by an attentive English student of Australian affairs, whether this system of free, secular, and compulsory education is not likely, sooner or later, to be overthrown. The fact that a large and organised minority, controlled by vigilant ecclesiastical leaders, is opposed to the State schools, is certainly a fact not to be overlooked or lightly considered. ”

“ After the broad fact of their democratic basis, the most general and most remarkable feature in connection with the social and political development of the Australian colonies is the general system of public education that has been adopted. Education has, in fact, been made a State Department, and is managed on strictly unsectarian, or, if you will, nonreligious, lines. ”

“ It may even be thought by doctrinaires to be going altogether beyond the proper functions of the State. But if, in the course of a generation, it enables us to eliminate a baneful and corrupting influence, no cost that may be paid for it can be considered too great. ”

“ These nascent nations are just now at the great turning-point of their career. In which direction their future lies, rests with Fate. But of this I am sure: the majority of thinking persons—for it is a mistake to suppose that the colonial working-classes do not think—have resolutely made up their minds, whatever the immediate cost may be, to weld the various races admitted into the commonwealth of the great Island-Continent into one people. ”

“ What, then, can be the grievance of the clergy—Roman Catholic or Protestant? Frankly, it is, so far as they do oppose the Education Act, that the teachers are forbidden to give any religious—which under the circumstances must be sectarian—teaching in school hours. [5] Can it be otherwise in a mixed community where all religions are tolerated and none are favoured? ”

“ Topp points out, we can bring the young Irish-Australian children into the State schools, to be trained and educated side by side with the children of more enlightened parents, there may be some hope in a generation or two of raising that section of the community to the necessary level of the prevailing civilisation, whence will follow their complete fusion into the future Australian people. ”

“ I know that some Catholics would go through anything rather than acknowledge that their educators borrow from the culture or the civilisation that surrounds them. But never mind that; they do. With shocking inconsistency, some of them have a positive knack of borrowing and assimilating the best educational methods of their rivals. ”

“ None of these political problems can be solved so long as we continue to regard them as so many abstract propositions. For instance, it is absurd to argue, because we Australians declined to sanction Wentworth's scheme of creating a brand-new local peerage, that we are all bent on destroying that venerable institution in the mother country. ”

“ For the British reader to be able to grapple with these Australian problems, it is, above all things, necessary that he should keep steadily before his mind the utterly different social conditions of the two communities. ”

“ And where a large staff can be got to follow up such methods in dealing with the morals of children, no man can deny that the greatest possible amount of moral culture is being obtained. What Geddie Pearse achieved in Daylesford and elsewhere is being daily attempted in hundreds of Victorian schools. There are, of course, numbers of teachers who have no higher idea of their work than that it is, according to their position in the service, a good or bad occupation as a moneymaking affair ”

“ Sir Robert Stout attempts to show by figures (1) that the churches that are loudest in denouncing secular education have the worst record; and (2) that "godless" schools have not produced so many wicked children as the sectarian seminaries. I do not question the accuracy of his statistics; but I draw a different inference from them. Mr. Hayter, the Government Statist of Victoria, has a very pithy way of summing up the vital statistics of that colony. ”

“ But the number of these bears probably about the same ratio to the number of those who are solicitous about conduct as well as attainments, as the number of money-grubbing clergymen bears to the number of those really desirous of promoting the spread of purity of life. ”