University of Melbourne

“ Before Sydney could recover the effects of the emigration of those years, Melbourne was well under way, and the size and central situation of the latter city contributed no little to the success of its young university, which, under unusually politic as well as able management, increased annually in size and usefulness, until now no less than 1,500 students have graduated in its halls, and the number of undergraduates attending its lectures exceeds 280. ”

“ The University has done much to leaven Melbourne society, and has128 been fortunate in securing first-rate men, not merely in point of scholastic attainment, but in an equally invaluable social refinement. A splendid growing country like Australia should have only the best we have to send, whether as teachers or governors, nothing less is worthy of her deserts and importance as a factor in the empire. ”

“ The Sydney colleges have not at all fulfilled the expectations which had been formed about them, largely owing to the want of success of the university; but the Melbourne colleges, and especially Trinity College, which is the least richly endowed, and has the smallest buildings, are doing excellent work. The atmosphere which the students breathe in them is conducive to greater steadiness of work and exertion to achieve university honours than is generally found in the unattached student ”

“ But there is one other Melbourne institution of noble proportions and beneficent scope, that owes its existence to the wise philanthropy of Sir Redmond Barry, viz., the University. It is modelled on the Oxford and Cambridge system, and governed by a council of twenty members, originally nominated by the Crown, but now elected by the Senate, or general body of the graduates. The University has power to confer degrees in arts, laws, medicine, and music. ”

“ The Trades Hall at Carlton is the meeting-place of the trades-union societies of Victoria, and is the focus of much political influence. The Melbourne town hall contains a central chamber capable of accommodating 3000 people. The suburban cities and towns have each a town hall. The residence of the governor of the colony is in South Melbourne, and is surrounded by an extensive domain. The university is a picturesque mass of buildings in large grounds about a mile from the heart of the city. ”

“ Finally, let me express my thanks to the Faculty for having chosen me to deliver an address at this commencement of the twenty-sixth year of our academic life, and to express a hope that the vitality and vigour of the Medical School of the Melbourne University may go on increasing, year by year, until its fame is as great as that of those schools on the other side of the world, which, through centuries of thought, labour, and accumulated experience, have associated themselves with all that is good and useful in the science, which has conferred so many blessings on mankind. ”

“ Not until there is a thorough reformation in the whole style, tone, and management of the university will there be any real progress, and the centripetal influence of successful Melbourne is so strong, that I do not believe Sydney will ever be able to catch up lost ground, or even to considerably decrease the interval between itself and its rival, advance though it may, and undoubtedly will, when the present governing body has died out, and the public insists upon an entirely new regime. ”

“ In founding Trinity College, which was the first of these institutions in Victoria, four years ago, the Bishop of Melbourne may be said to have conferred an educational boon upon the colony only second to that which it owes to Sir Redmond Barry. Every year it is increasing in usefulness, and I can well understand that many parents who before preferred the expense of sending their sons to Oxford or Cambridge, will now see their way to allowing them to complete their education at the Melbourne University.
The provision for the secondary education of girls in Australia is miserably poor. ”

“ There are indeed both at Melbourne and at Sydney, Universities, which as far as I could judge are excellently managed and liberally supported, and [157] unquestionably contain professors of the very first rank of ability. But it is impossible for any colonial university, in the midst of a small society in which almost all interests are swamped in the overwhelming one of commerce, to carry education to a very high point. A few people who are particularly anxious for a good education for their sons, send them home for five or six years ”

“ Melbourne (491) , the capital of Victoria, at the head of Port Phillip Bay; is the largest and most important city in Australia; built in broad regular streets, with much architectural beauty, and containing, besides the Government buildings, a Roman and an Anglican cathedral, a mint and a university, numerous colleges, hospitals, and other institutions. Its shipping interests are very large; a ship canal enables the largest ships to reach the quays; exports of gold and wool are extensive. Melbourne is the railway centre of the continent. ”

“ The scheme of the University itself, as everybody knows, owed its inception to the late Sir Redmond Barry, who, with eyes farseeing beyond those of his contemporaries, perceived, even in the early era of this country, the desirability of an educational institution to which all others should look up as their head, and their authority ”

“ For girls wishing to enter the musical profession the premier University College, Trinity, is open to men and women alike—the Trinity College Hostel adjoining it affording accommodation for the p. 137resident students—while the women doctors and dentists hold very high place in the Melbourne world. ”

“ Hampden offered to withdraw from the appointment, but Lord Melbourne said : 'For the sake of the principles of toleration and free inquiry we consider ourselves bound to persevere in your appointment,' and on 17 Oct. 1836 he entered on his office. His opponents, however, on 22 March 1837 proposed in convocation the exclusion of the regius professor from his place at a board whose duty it was to name select preachers for the university. ”

“ The institution has been established for the purpose of teaching a system of physical education, based upon scientific principles, and taught by competent professors. Such institutions are requisite in all civilized communities, and particularly so in such a city as Melbourne, which has few or no public schools where the science of gymnastic forms a part of the course of instruction. ”

“ Melbourne is a city of fine broad streets, handsome public buildings, splendid shops, and vast warehouses. Indeed, a stranger cannot fail to be struck with its metropolitan-like character. Only forty years ago the site on which it stands was a mere swamp with a few log huts; now its population is about the third of a million souls. For this population a series of educational institutions of an unusually high character have been founded, and are in active operation. ”

“ The senses of the musing spectator are filled to saturation with the sights and sounds proper to the largest, the most highly civilised, the most prosperous city in the world, for the years of its existence. Stranger than fiction does it not seem, that in the month of April, in the year of grace 1840, we should have migrated en famille from Sydney to assist in the colonisation of Port Phillip, in the founding of this city of Melbourne? ”

“ An extensive mud swamp and tea-tree scrub seem to surround you, till the fog, in which it is constantly enveloped during the early part of the day, has cleared away, and you see the very beautiful city of Melbourne, not two miles distant, built on a gentle acclivity, well relieved by the wooded backgrounds stretched out before you. You can trace the meanderings of the Yarra-yarra as it winds through the scrub, and partly encircles the city in a tortuous course, making six miles, which by railway is barely two. ”

“ These men were the makers of Victoria, the fathers of the proud and populous city which lay widespread about us. There is no need to be eloquent about Melbourne. Too many people have sung its praises already. But it is one of the cities of the world; it has a population of over half a million; it has its churches, its chapels, its synagogues, its theatres, its hotels; it is as well furnished in most respects as any other city of its size; and these grey men yet staunch in body, bronzed and bright-eyed, were among the beginners of it. ”

“ Men and women can be trained in Melbourne for almost any profession for which they show a bent, though there is no doubt that a year or so in England, Germany, or France is of immense advantage to them, particularly in medicine. ”

“ The Australians believe that their cities should be run for the benefit of the people and they do not overlook any opportunity to this end. Melbourne owns its tramways and maintains all sorts of public institutions, such as museums, picture galleries, and baths. It has numerous night schools and a working man’s college with several thousand students. The city keeps up an aquarium and a good zoölogical garden. It has about six thousand acres set aside for parks and pleasure grounds, and its citizens have many organizations and clubs for outdoor amusement. ”

“ Sydney has a technological museum with eighty-two thousand exhibits including one thousand specimens of wool. The museum building alone cost one hundred thousand dollars. In Melbourne there is a Working Men’s College with buildings and equipment worth upward of a quarter of a million dollars. The college is open to both sexes and now has enrolled more than two thousand students. Many of its classes are held in the evening, when there are lectures upon applied science, engineering, mining, commercial law, and other technical subjects, as well as on the leading trades. ”

“ It is more settled, more homogeneous,131 more cosmopolitan than elsewhere in Australia, so that here, if anywhere, one loses the sense of a new country, which is at the same time part of its charm. The women and girls in Melbourne are also prettier, and more prettily dressed than elsewhere, and it makes a cult of charming-looking, elderly, white-haired matrons, wearing the dignity of their years becomingly. Not that pretty women and girls are not to be found everywhere, but Melbourne has a colder, more bracing climate, and is more in touch with the outside world. ”

“ They cannot criticise, they can only praise it. To a foreigner, however, who, with all respect and admiration for the excellencies of the Melbourne of to-day as compared with the Melbourne of half-a-century ago, has travelled and seen and read, and cares very little for glorifying the amour-propre of this class or of that, and very much for really arriving at some more or less accurate idea of the significance of this city and its civilization ”

“ As a rule the same qualities of mind and character that bring a man success in England will make him successful here, and for certain people it is better to stay in England. The class that really suffer in Melbourne is that comprising the man of good education, who has perhaps taken his degree at one of our Universities, but who has not any fitness for any particular calling. ”

“ But in broad contrast to these bright and cheerful centres, there are in the northeastern section of the town dirty alleys and by-ways that one would think must prove hot-beds of disease and pestilence, especially as Melbourne suffers from want of a good and thorough system of domestic drainage.
The public library of the city is a large and impressive building, standing by itself, a hundred feet back from the street, on rising ground, and would be creditable to any European or American city. ”

“ There is at this moment near Melbourne a private-venture college, which, owing to the great ability and reputation of its head, ranks with the best Victorian grammar schools. I should doubt whether the tone that is possible in a non-proprietary school can easily be brought about in a private one, but in teaching power it is certainly not inferior. With this one exception, the private-venture colleges established in each suburb of the different capitals are little better than the commercial academies of England. ”

“ Further, Professor Strong thinks that each professor in Melbourne has far too many subjects—which is fatal to specialised efficiency. He then continues—comparing his present English with his recent Victorian experience: "The great point which I notice, as different here from there, is that the professors here are looked to in every case to take the lead in education. The clerks form an association to educate themselves ”

“ Melbourne is not a cosmopolitan city. It neither lies in the direct route of globe-trotters, who will, indeed, often miss the whole of Australia and pass on to New Zealand or the Pacific Isles, nor does it possess many natural interests or curiosities. It is a level-headed place, too, and, though it amuses itself well enough, it does not cater for that class of people who will search the world over for a new sensation or exotic pleasure. ”

“ There is far more 'go' and far more 'life,' in every sense of these rather comprehensive words, to be found in Melbourne, and it is there that the visitor must come who wishes to see the fullest development of Australasian civilisation, whether in commerce or education, in wealth or intellect, in manners and customs--in short, in every department of life. ”

“ As this is the first school of the kind which has been established in Melbourne, it may be as well to impress upon persons who intend becoming subscribers, the importance in physical, even more than in mental education, of regularity in the exercises, and of abiding strictly by the advice of the conductor of the institution. Irregular and fatiguing exercises injure instead of strengthening the constitution. ”