Slight as is the division between the middle-class and the wealthy class, I ought perhaps to say a few words on the latter. Practically, as well as theoretically, there is no aristocracy in Australia, and the number of leisured men is yet too small for them to form a class by themselves. Still every day their number is increasing; and although they almost all do a certain amount of work, it is rather because, if they did not, they would find time lie heavy on their hands, than because there is any particular need for it. The wealthy squatter--which low-sounding word has in Australia become synonymous with aristocrat--spends the greater part of the year in supervising his station, although generally employing a manager, whose work bears much the same relation to his own, as that of the permanent head of a department does to that of his political chief. Whenever there is a race meeting or any other attraction, the squatter comes down (notup as in England) to town and spends a few days or a few weeks there, as the case may be. If he is a married man he probably keeps a town house, where his wife lives the greater part of the winter, which is the 'season;' if a bachelor, he lives at his club, which supplies him with lodging as well as board.
But he finds it hard work to spend any lengthened period in town. The clubs are deserted for the greater part of the day; everyone else has his or her work to do, and a lounger becomes equally a nuisance to himself and to his friends. With no tastes for literature or art, and little opportunity for their gratification if he should chance to possess them, he is thrown utterly on his own resources, and these rarely extend beyond drinking and gambling. Both these pursuits are more fitted for gaslight than daylight, and if indulged in too freely during the day, pall in the evening, so that he has literally nothing to do from breakfast till dinner. He cannot race or play cricket quotidianally, so that he soon returns to his station, where he stops till the next race meeting.
The wealth of Australia has not yet passed beyond the first generation. The majority of the wealthy have themselves made their fortunes, and are not inclined to let them be squandered by their sons, at least during, their lifetime. The number of young men with no regular employment is at present very small. And it is well it should be so. Else we should feel all the evils of a plutocracy, purified neither by education nor public opinion--evils which have already made themselves apparent in the political system of Victoria.
The Australian aristocrat has the greatest contempt for politics, and thereby has forged a collar for his own neck. The 'Berry blight,' as it is called, which has fallen over Victoria, is, to a great extent, a reaction against the selfish and inconsiderate policy of the squatters when they were in power. In such a crisis the mob has no time to be just, remembering only that the aristocracy were never generous. Politically, I fancy that the squatters will never again obtain power, except under conditions which will make a return to the oldrégimeimpossible. Socially, there are yet evil days before Australia.
There is a great deal of truth in the old saying--that it takes three generations to make a gentleman and there is no doubt but that the second is infinitely the worst of the three. Shortly the country will pass through a period when an unearned increment will fall into the hands of a half-educated class, whose life has nurtured in them strong animal passions; but I see no reason why we should not pass through the social as we are passing through the political crisis, and obtain a modified aristocracy in the third generation, which in the fourth should become as profitable to the country as an aristocracy well can be.
At present the old squatter drinks and gambles; his son will drink less, gamble more--though it was not a young man who recently lost £40,000 in a night's sitting at a club in Melbourne--and lead a wanton life; but he will probably have the sense to educate his children thoroughly, instead of taking them away from school at seventeen, as was done with himself; and the grandson will obtain some cultivated tastes which will make a fight for it with those he has inherited. In the fourth generation there should be an aristocracy, with as much similarity of character and disposition to the existing English aristocracy as the different circumstances of the two countries will permit.
The life of a wealthy woman in Australia isennuyeuxto a degree. If she is a lady by birth and education, she must necessarily feel that the advantages which wealth bestows are squandered upon such provincialism as she is perforce subjected to. To reign in hell is, after all, a very low ideal, and one which can only be entertained by an inferior nature, so long as heaven remains within reach. There are, of course, advantages in being rich even in Australia; but the wealthy lady will naturally draw comparisons between these and those which the same amount of money would procure for her in London or Paris. She can import dresses from Worth's, and carriages from Peters', but she cannot choose them for herself; and if they should be really admirable, who is there to appreciate their superiority to the surrounding fashions?
'How on earth am I to get on in Adelaide,' said a musician of considerable merit to me, 'when, as you know, there is no one with whom I can provoke comparisons?' The very superiority of the man was fatal to his success. And so it is with the Australian lady of taste. Nor does the misfortune stop there. Unless she makes frequent visits to centres of taste, I will defy any woman to retain her appreciation of good taste. Her own taste gets dulled by the want of means of comparison. You will perhaps say that taste in her surroundings is not everything which wealth can bring to a woman. But if you come to reflect for a moment, you will see that in the more comprehensive meaning of the phrase it is. Dress is but one example of the surroundings which a woman covets. I have chosen it because it is perhaps the commonest, though of course not by a long way the highest,
But wealthy ladies 'to the manner born' are not so numerous in Australia that I need dwell long on the drawbacks of their position. It is at any rate happier than that of theparvenue, unless the mere fact of beingarrivéeconfers any special enjoyment. At what has she arrived? At carriages, at dresses, at houses and furniture, and at servants of a style she is totally unaccustomed to and unfitted for. When you tremble before your butler, and have to learn how to behave at table from your housekeeper, wealth cannot be unalloyed pleasure. Without education and taste, theparvenuehas small means of enjoying herself except by making a display which costs her even more anxiety and trouble than it does money. Wiser is the rich woman who contents herself with the same style of life as she was accustomed to in her youth, adding to it only the things that she really wants--a more roomy house, a couple of women-servants, and a buggy. Thus she can feel really comfortable and at home; but unfortunately for their own and their husbands 'peace of mind' these poor women are too often ambitious to become what they are not. Even leaving aside the discomforts which are always allied to pretentiousness, the poor rich woman has a hard time of it. What can she do with herself all day long? She has not gone through that long education up to doing nothing which enables English ladies of means to pass their time without positive boredom. She has no tastes except those which she does not dare to gratify, and becomes a slave to the very wealth whose badge she loves to flaunt.
The Australian working-man is perhaps too well paid to suit us poor folks who are dependent upon him; but, for all that, comfortable means bring an improvement in the man as well as in his condition. It is very trying to have--as I recently had--to go to four plumbers before I could get one to do a small job for me, and still more trying to find the fourth man fail me after he had promised to come. Such accidents are of everyday occurrence in colonial life, and they make one doubt the advantages of a wealthy working-class. But, independent and difficult to please as the colonial working-man is, his carelessness is only a natural consequence of the value set on his labour. Provided he does not drink, you can get as good a day's work out of him as at home. He will pick his time as to when he will do your job, and hesitate whether he will do it at all; but having once started on it, he generally does his best for you. Too often the sudden increase of wages is too much for his mental equilibrium, and a man who was sober enough as a poor man at home, finds no better use for his loose cash than to put it into the public-house till. But as a class I do not think Australian working men are less sober than those at home. Those who are industrious and careful in a very few years rise to be masters and employers of labour, and are at all times so sure of constant employment that it is no wonder they do not care about undertaking odd jobs. If their manner is as independent as their character, I am far from blaming them for it, though occasionally one could wish they did not confound civility and servility as being equally degrading to the free and independent elector. But when you meet the man on equal terms in an omnibus or on other neutral ground, this cause of complaint is removed. Where he is sure of his equality he makes no attempt to assert it, and the treatment he receives from manyparvenuemployers is no doubt largely the cause of intrusive assertion of equality towards employers in general. Politically he is led by the nose, but this is hardly astonishing, since, in nine cases out of ten, his electoral qualifications are a novelty to him. He carries his politics in his pocket, or what the penny papers tell him are his pockets; or, if he rises above selfish considerations he is taken in by the bunkum of his self-styled friends. But in what country are the free and independent electors wiser? Happily for Australia, his Radicalism rarely lasts long, if he is worth his salt. He becomes in a few years one of the propertied class, has leisure to learn something of the conditions under which property is best preserved and added to, and thus--according to the admission of the leading Radical paper--Conservatism is constantly encroaching on the ranks of Liberalism. Except under very rare circumstances poverty in Australia may fairly be considered a reproach. Every man has it in his power to earn a comfortable living; and if after he has been some time in the colonies the working-man does not become one of the capitalists his organs inveigh against, he has only himself to blame.
Of the three sections into which the working-class may be divided--old chums, new chums, and colonials--the first-named are, on the whole, the best. For the most part they began life with a superabundance of animal spirits, and a love of adventure, which have been toned down by a practical experience of the hardships they dreamed of. They certainly drink most and swear most of the three sections, but with all their failings there are few men who can do a harder day's work than they. Barring pure misfortune, there is always some good reason for their still remaining in the class they sprang from. Though this is not always strictly true, since a good many of them began life higher up in the world than they are now. Still I prefer them to the pepper-and-salt mixture which has been sent out under that happy-go-lucky process--free immigration. When the colonies were so badly in want of population, they could not stop to pick and choose. Hence a large influx of loafers, men who, without any positive vice, will do anything rather than a hard day's work, and who come out under the impression that gold is to be picked up in the streets of Melbourne. Under the name of 'the unemployed' they are a constant source of worry to the Government, whom they consider bound to give them something light and easy, with 7s. 6d. or 8s. a day, and give rise abroad to the utterly false impression that there am times when it is hard for an industrious man to get work in Australia. Of course many of our immigrants have become first-rate workmen, but such men soon rise in the social scale.
The best workman when he chooses, and the most difficult to get hold of, is the thoroughbred colonial. Being able to read and write does not, however, keep him from being as brutal as Coupeau, and, except from a muscular point of view, he is often by no means a promising specimen of colonization. It is from this section of the community that the 'larrikins,' as they are called, are recruited, roughs of the worst description, insulting and often robbing people in Melbourne itself, and moving about in gangs with whose united force the police is powerless to cope. Sometimes they break into hotels and have 'free drinks' all round, maltreating the landlord if he protests. In a younger stage they content themselves with frightening helpless women, and kicking every Chinaman they meet. On all sides it is acknowledged that the larrikin element is daily increasing, and has already reached, especially in Melbourne, proportions which make it threaten to amount to a social clanger within a few years. Of late their outbreaks have not been confined to night-work, but take place in open daylight,coram populo etpolice. No one exactly knows how to meet the difficulty, and What shall we do with our larrikins?' is likely to replace the former popular cry of 'What shall we do with our boys?' to which some ingenious person furnished the obvious answer, 'Marry them to our girls.' Corporal punishment for corporal offences is in my opinion and that of most of the serious portion of the community, the only remedy which is likely also to act as a preventive; but however desirable it may be acknowledged to be, there is a difficulty in bringing it into use in communities whose sympathies are so essentially democratic as those of Victoria and New South Wales--for in Adelaide the police has still the upper hand. The votes of these very larrikins turn the scale at elections. Their kith and kin form a majority of the population, and therefore of the electorate. However much a member of Parliament or a Minister may recognise the necessity of meeting a social danger, he can hardly afford to do it at the expense of his seat.
At the time of the Kelly trial practical demonstration of the latent sympathy with crime in Melbourne was afforded. Thousands of persons, headed by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Assembly, actually agitated for the reprieve of the most notorious, if not the greatest, criminal in the annals of Australia, a man whose murders were not to be counted on the fingers; and all this because for over two years he had set the police at defiance, and after a life of murder and rapine had, shown the courage of despair when his only choice was between being shot by a policeman or hung on the gallows. In many respects, as, I have elsewhere intimated, our free political system makes the social outlook here far more promising than in Europe; but larrikinism is a peculiar danger already well above the horizon, against which we seem powerless to deal. Some set it down to the absence of religious teaching in the State schools, but its real point and origin seems rather to lie in the absence of parental authority at home and the unpopularity of the old proverb: 'Spare the rod and spoil the child.'
My last letter was necessarily, from the nature of its subject, a little flaky--a charge to which all these notes must more or less plead guilty. Though the heading of this one differs slightly, it must practically be a continuation of the same subject.
The first social relation, like charity, begins in the family circle, and was incidentally touched upon in my last. Between husband and wife the relations in Australia are, on the whole, probably as satisfactory as in any other part of the world. Both generally marry from love, and whatever may be the general effect of love-matches, it cannot be denied that more than any others they tend to promote pleasant relations between the 'two contracting parties,' as the French would call them. Amongst the wealthy, as everywhere else, there cannot of course be the close marital intimacy of the middle classes; but not only is infidelity less common than in London, but moreover, the proportion of the wealthy who keep up the style which produces the quasi-separation of domestic life is far smaller. Husband and wife have grown rich together; they have taken counsel together, and lived an open life, as far as each other are concerned, ever since they were married. Against this the usages of society, dressing-rooms and lady's-maids are of little avail. You may chase the second nature out by the door, but it jumps in again at the window.
In the middle and lower class the comparatively cribbed, cabined, and confined existence is also of the greatest service to that community of thought and action upon which conjugal happiness to so large an extent depends. Domestic occupations also occupy the thoughts of the wives, and business those of the husbands, so continually, as to leave few moments of mental vacuity for Satan to introduce mischief into. Of an evening the clubs are almost deserted, and their few occupants are nearly all bachelors, or married men who have left their wives in the country, having come down to town themselves on business. Drink must be recognised as a factor on the opposite side, and a by no means unimportant one; but there are many women who have no objection to their husbands drinking, so long as they either drink at home or come straight thither from the public-house.
I wish I could give as favourable a view of the parental relations. They are undeniably the weak point of family life in the colonies. During childhood a certain obedience is of course enforced; but public feeling is strong in favour of the naughty boy and wilful girl, looking as it does upon these qualities as prophetic of future enterprise. So many of our best colonists, it must be remembered, were eminently wild in their younger days, that it is no wonder they think 'there is something' in the self-willed child. Their own life has been too much of a struggle for them to be able to appreciate at their true value the gentler qualities which in themselves would have been of little worth, the victory in their earlier days having been to the physical rather than to the intellectual. The child is naturally--for surely disobedience is an 'original sin' with nine children out of ten--only too disposed to take advantage of the views held by its parents, and gradually as it grows older, disobedience passes into disrespect and want of respect into want of affection. Such a thing as perfect confidence, in the French sense of the word, between a parent and his or her grown-up child is most rare. 'Everyone for himself, and devil take the hindmost, is the motto of the young Australian. He cares for nobody, and nobody need care for him, so far as his thoughts on the subject are concerned. Maternal affection cannot, however, be easily quenched, and consequently the child gets all the best of the bargain.
Social relations are wider, therefore less easy to speak about decidedly, than family relations. In the early days there were but few social distinctions. Everyone was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone else, and the common struggle merged all differences of birth, wealth, and education. In a charming little work called 'Some Social Aspects of South Australian Life,' which was published in Adelaide about two years ago', a most realistic description is given of the sympathetic mode of living of the first settlers; and as it has never been reprinted in England, I extract a few sentences here and there, which may give some idea of the primitive existence there described:
'The necessaries of life were produced in abundance, the comforts were slowly reached, and the luxuries had to be done without. There was very little difference in the actual circumstances of different classes--some had property and some had none' (this was before the gold-fever); 'but property was unsaleable for money, and barter only exchanged one unsaleable article for another' (and yet these are the people who nowadays groan aboutmoneygoing out of the colony, and would measure its prosperity by the excess of exports over imports).* [* The parentheses are my own.] 'Nobody employed hired labour who could possibly do the work himself, and everyone had to turn his or her hand to a great deal of miscellaneous work, most of which would be called menial and degrading in an old community. . . Thus gradually the financial position of the colony improved by means of the well-directed industry of the settlers, and they owed much to the helpfulness and good management of the wives, sisters, and daughters of each household. . . Perhaps, never in any human society did circumstances realize the ideas of the community of labour and the equality of the sexes, so fully as in South Australia in its early days.' Youth and love, hope and trust, were the only stock in marriage of young couples, so that a new-comer is said to have remarked, 'Why, it is nothing to get married here! A few mats, and cane-bottomed chairs, and the house is furnished.' A wife was not looked on as a hindrance or an expense, but as a help and a comfort,' says Miss Spence. 'Girls did not look for establishments; parents did not press for settlements . . . There was only one carriage in the colony for many years, which though belonging to a private person, was hired for such as wanted to do the thing genteelly . . . .' Social position depended on character, and not on income.
The same writer lays herself fairly open to the charge of beinglaudator temporis actiin her description of the present as compared with the past social life of the colonies, though I am quite prepared to agree with her remark, that 'in proportion as the conditions of life become more complex, they should be met by more ingenuity, more culture, and a deeper sense of duty;' and that 'the suddenness of our accumulation of wealth has scarcely prepared our little community for some necessary modifications of our social arrangements.' Therein lies the whole source of both what is best and what is worst in the present social life of Australia. Marriage, though still almost entirely an affair of love, has yet learnt to take £. s. d. into consideration, and none but the lowest class would be satisfied with the kind of furniture described above. Education has improved and is improving still more, far as it yet is from being up even to the English standard. More leisure has also produced novel reading with its consequent affectation of aristocratic ideas and prejudices and disproportionate estimate of essentials and superficials.
Already each Australian capital has its 'society,' distinguished from the [Greek characters] almost as clearly as in London or Paris. In its own way, indeed, these societies are more exclusive than those of the older metropolises, which from their very size obtain a certain breadth of view. For obvious reasons the component parts are not altogether similar, but their governing idea is as much the same as the difference of circumstances will permit. It would be difficult to define exactly what opens the doors of Australian society, but is the shibboleth any more definite in London? Distinction of some kind or other must be presupposed. If that of birth, it must either be allied to rank or have strong local connections. Is it not the same in London, though, of course, on an infinitely larger and grander scale? If that of wealth, it must storm the entrance by social expenditure and pachydermatousness to rebuff. Wealth is, of course, the predominating factor here, as rank in London; because while in the latter case birth calls in wealth to furnish it with the sinews of war, in the former wealth calls in birth to teach it how to behave itself. Position is of small account, though the line is always drawn at shopkeepersin esse. Provided the candidate has cut the shop and opened an office, he can be admitted on payment of the social fees, but only gradually and laboriously unless his wealth is beyond criticism. The man who sells you a dozen of wine in the morning sits by your side at Government House or Bishop's Court in the evening, and the highest officials are not unfrequently the least esteemed socially. A happy consequence of this social jumble is, that with certain exceptions, which are, of course, getting more numerous as we advance in civilization, a gentleman can do anything here and still be considered a gentleman, provided he behaves himself as such; and the semi-menial employments of distressed gentlewomen do not bring with them one half the loss of social position that they generally entail in England. The smaller community is more narrow-minded than the large, but its sight is keener and more accurate in details. It is true that art, science, and literature are entirely without status in Australia, but then personal distinction of whatever kind is far more get-at-able than at home.
If it strikes a visitor as utterly ridiculous that a society, the greater part of whose members are essentiallyparvenus, should assume the tone and mode of thought of an old-world aristocracy, we must yet acknowledge that that society keeps up a great many traditions of refinement which are in great danger of being lost sight of in colonial life. The outward and visible sign may be absurd, but the inward and spiritual grace is none the less concealed within it. That Australian society keeps up a number of social superstitions which might with advantage have died out during the journey across the ocean is undeniable, but it is also true that it preserves at least an affectation of higher civilization. It contains the majority of the gentlemen and ladies by birth and education in each city, and they go far to leaven the whole lump. Theparvenuhas the merit of seeking after better things, and his imitation of aristocracy, if it necessarily falls far short of the mark, at least removes him a step or two above the way of thinking common to the class he sprang from. His daughters, with that superior adaptability inherent in women, are quick to catch the manners of the gentlewomen who move in their circle, and become infinitely superior to their brothers, even when the latter have been sent to finish their education at Oxford, or Cambridge. It is wonderful how much more easily a lady can be manufactured than a gentleman.
Of the hospitality of 'society' in all the towns it is impossible to speak in too high terms. The stranger has but to bring a couple of good introductions to people who are in society, and provided he be at all presentable, the doors of the most exclusive houses will be opened to him. Young men of education and manners are everywhere at a premium, and the colonies are still small enough for it to be a distinction to have just come out from England. Unless you know your company it is always wise to avoid asking questions about or making reference to the earlier days of the people you meet. For all that, you will hear everybody's history, often, I suspect, with additions and exaggerations. In such small communities everybody knows everything about everybody else, and the man who has gone down in the world naturally delights in telling you of the time when he bought half a pound of sugar at Jones's shop, or when Brown worked in his garden while Mrs. Brown was his scullery-maid, Jones and Brown being now two social leaders.
Amongst men social distinctions are very slight. It is lawful to be friendly with everybody and anybody in town, so long as you do not visit at his private house. And yet for very obvious reasons gentlemen are--except amongst the rising generation--much more common than ladies. A number of wild young men of good family and education have been poured out of England into Australia ever since 1852, and many of them have become amongst the most useful and respected colonists. But until recently there was a paucity of ladies, and the majority of gentlemen had but the choice between marrying beneath them or not at all. Hence frequentmésalliances. You meet a man at the club, and are delighted with him in every way. He asks you to his house, and you find that his wife drops her h's, eats peas with her knife, and errs in various little ways. I am purposely thinking of no one in particular, but fear at least a dozen of my acquaintances will think I am writing of them in making this remark. And it is a sad sight to see a man dragged down in this way, for very few men who marry beneath them can keep up the manner and mode of living to which they were born and educated, while those who do generally retain them at the expense of their own married happiness. Nowadays there are certainly plenty of young ladies in the towns, but for all that one constantly hears of the sons of clergymen and army officers marrying the daughters of grocers and farmers who were quite recently day-labourers. With every freedom from caste prejudice, I am yet unable to see anything but harm to the persons directly concerned in these ill-assorted matches, whatever the good result to the community may be.
The centre round which society revolves is naturally Government House, but a great many people go to Government House who cannot be considered to be in society. To have been to a Government House ball is no more,mutandis mutatis, than to go to a Court ball at home. Neither will give you admission into the inner circle; and though that circle may not offer any but specious advantages and have but little to recommend it in preference to three or four other societies in the town, admission into it is coveted, and inclusion within its boundaries is as much a reality as if its walls were of stone. In Melbourne the scattered position of the suburbs and the extent of the population splits up theéliteinto several local societies, but there is yet onecrême de la crême. In Sydney the same thing takes place, though the local societies are less numerous; but in Adelaide there is practically only one 'society', the local aggregations of individuals not being deserving of any more dignified name than 'cliques.' Of the three societies, that of Sydney is on the whole, I think, the best. At Melbourne there are probably a larger number of cultivated persons, but the distance between the suburbs and the more extravavagant mode of living limits their sphere. The Adelaidians are perhaps the most English of all in their way of thinking, but they are also by far the most narrow-minded. For pure Philistinism I don't think I know any town that equals it. Shut up in their own little corner, they imagine themselves more select than Sydney and Melbourne circles, because they are necessarily smaller. And yet for kind-heartedness these gossip-loving Philistines are not easily to be surpassed. As long as things go well with you they will talk against you; but no set of people are less open to the charge of neglecting friends in misfortune.
Class relations are, on the whole, excellent; and this is the more to the credit of the lower classes, because the plutocracy is utterly selfish in character, and does not interest itself in those social duties, which are proving so effectual a prop to the nobility and landed gentry of England. A certain animosity subsists between the squatters or pastoral lessees and the selectors who purchase on credit from Government blocks of land, which were formerly let to squatters. At times this breaks out in Parliament or at elections, but in spite of a determined attempt by a section of the Victorian press to pit the 'wealthy lower orders' against the horny-handed sons of the soil, class feeling rarely runs high for any length of time. The reason is, that the working-class are too well off for the occasional high-handed proceedings of the rich to affect them sensibly. For an agitation to be maintained there must be a real grievance at the bottom of it; and the only grievance that the Australian democrat can bring forward is, that having obtained the necessaries, he cannot without extra labour obtain also the luxuries of life.
From figures I have already given as to rents, wages, and prices in general, you will have gathered that the cost of living is, broadly speaking, cheaper than in England as regards the necessities of existence, but dearer in proportion to the complexity of the article. Anything that requires much labour, or that cannot readily be produced in the colony, is, dearer; but, on the other hand, it should be remembered that money is more easily obtainable. Protectionist duties and heavy freights form an effectual sumptuary tax; and as most of the duties aread valorem, first-class articles are heavily handicapped, and a premium put upon the importation of shoddy. The wine-drinker finds that he has to pay ten shillings a gallon on all he drinks, which should certainly entice him to drink good wine; but the only practical result discoverable is the small quantity of wine drunk as compared with beer and spirits. If few people keep carriages, there are buggies innumerable in every town; and for every man who keeps a horse in England, there are, proportionately to the population, ten in Australia.
But perhaps the greatest element in the cheapness of colonial life is its comparative want of 'gentility.' The necessity to keep up appearances is not one-sixth as strong as in England. The earthen pot cannot altogether flow down stream in company with the tin kettle, but it can more safely get within a shorter distance of its metallic rival. Rich men live in miserable houses and wear coats which their valets would have nothing to do with at home; struggling men are less ashamed of struggling, and are not made to feel the defects of their condition so keenly. In a society, the position of whose members is constantly changing, the style of life is of less importance. The millionaire of to-day hadn't a sixpence yesterday, and may not have one again to-morrow. His brothers, sifters and cousins are impecunious, and in small communities poor relations are not easily got rid of. Constant intercommunication is thus kept up between class and class, rich and poor; they learn better to understand each other's position, and a clearer understanding generally leads to mutual respect.
Again, the distribution of wealth is far more equal. To begin with, there is no poor class in the colonies. Comfortable incomes are in the majority, millionaires few and far between. This is especially the case in Adelaide, where the condition of the poorer class is better, and that of the richer worse than in any of the other colonies. In Melbourne the masses seem worst off, and the display of riches, if not the actuality thereof, is most noticeable. In Sydney the signs of wealth are not wanting to an examiner, but a superficial observer would say that there were not half as many wealthy men as in Melbourne. Few South Australians get beyond the comfortable stage, and, on the other hand, a greater number reach it. 'Squatting,' of course, supplies the largest section of the wealthy class; but, especially in Melbourne, gold-mining and commerce have contributed a large quota.
In no country in the world is the legal freedom of conscience more firmly established than in Australia. All Churches and sects are absolutely equal in the eyes of the State; and any attempt to upset this equality would be resented, not only by the united forces of all the other denominations, but even by a majority of the only two Churches--the Roman and Anglican--who would ever dream of aiming at supremacy. But thorough as is the repudiation by the great majority of the community of the principles of State aid or control of religion, the two Churches which I have just mentioned occasionally raise their voices against secular education by the State, and make spasmodic appeals for State contributions to their denominational schools, which, however little likely to succeed, are not altogether without a rational foundation. But this is the utmost limit which State recognition, or rather the cry for it, is ever likely to reach.
In times past the Church of England has struggled to regain the position she formerly held in the older colonies; but now whatever efforts she makes in that direction are confined to the ambition of beingprima inter pares--a position which is vigorously and even bitterly attacked by the other Protestant sects whenever she either tries to assert it or has it thrust upon her. These ex-Dissenters have a lively remembrance of the yoke they endured in the old country, and even now that the spirit of supremacy has so completely died out, they spring up to do battle against any formality that recalls it to them. Thus, a few years ago the whole colony of South Australia was convulsed on the question of the Bishop's right to follow the Governor and precede the Chief Justice at official ceremonies, and peace amongst the devout was only restored by the Bishop's graceful relinquishment of a position to which his legal right was undeniable. Even now the title 'My Lord' as applied to Bishops acts as a red rag on many ex-Dissenting bulls, and they are as jealous of the slightest official preference of the Church of England as if their dearest religious liberties were therein involved.
Legal and even official equality do not, however, always mean social equality; and the Church still retains a superior social position, a shadow of her departed State authority, which to some of her old competitors--especially the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Wesleyans--is the more galling because they are totally destitute of the means of assailing it. Happily, through the wise conduct of the Bishops of Adelaide and Melbourne in meeting ministers of other denominations on a common platform, whenever the cause of Christianity or of good and right in any way can be served thereby, and in showing sympathy with them in a multitude of ways, this unreasonable jealousy is losing ground and a better feeling springing up; but there are yet too many colonists that have felt the disabilities of Dissent in the old country who are unable to put on the armour of forgiveness, or rather of forgetfulness in the new. The enemy has lost his sting, but they will not allow him to live on the remembrance of his past greatness without a reminder of his present impotence.
This impotence is in all ways, except socially, a certain reality; for while the ex-Dissenting bodies have thriven and waxed numerous and powerful upon the bread of independence, the Church has languished for want of her accustomed prop. Accustomed, not only to support their own ministers, but also to pay tithes and Church-rates for the benefit of their rival, the ex-Dissenters have simultaneously had their burden lightened and, for the most part, their incomes increased by the change of country. Besides this, they have to a certain extent felt themselves put upon their mettle to show their superiority to their old master, and thus they have put their best foot foremost, with the good result which always attends such efforts. Their ministers, better paid, and holding a higher social position than in England, have naturally become a superior class of men as a whole to those in the old country. Every day they are advancing, towards a higher standard of education and manners. Nor has the gain in education and position been accompanied by, as far as I can see, any loss in earnestness or deterioration in work. No one sect is sufficiently preponderant to admit of that.
The friendly competition between them has been beneficial to them all; and, in spite of rivalry, the spirit of toleration between Protestant sects is thoroughly observed. Unfortunately, this toleration is not extended to the Roman Catholics. Their doctrines are so directly in opposition to the prevailing democratic and Protestant spirit of the community, that they have come to be regarded as Ishmaelites, if not as Amalekites, occupying ground which ought to belong to the faithful. An Anti-Popery cry would at any time command success; and numerous and influential as the Catholics are, directly they begin to assert their influence all the other religious bodies unite to counteract, and end by suppressing it. For a spice of intolerance in this respect, and for a general Philistinism in its views on all subjects, Australia is indebted to the middle-class Protestant sects, who form the most important element in the community; but to them also, in a large measure, it owes its political and social stability, and all those standard moral qualities which are the only safe foundation for a superstructure of intellect.
Because I have spoken so warmly of the good influence which the ex-Dissenting or Protestant sects have exercised in Australia, it must not be supposed that the Church has been altogether a laggard. Probably no section of the English clergy has worked harder and more manfully than that which has been stationed in Australia. It is no fault of theirs if their sphere has been limited and their good influence less effective than that of their rivals. But they have been labouring under the misfortune of being unsuited to the people and circumstances amongst whom and which they live and work. Their sphere has lain almost entirely amongst the upper and lower classes, and it is neither of these that governs Australia. Where they came into contact with the middle class, the power in the land, they have been placed in the position of the round man in the square hole. The men of the middle class have asserted their social equality to, if not their superiority over, their clergy; and this an English gentleman finds difficulty in admitting, still more one who considers himself the minister of God to the people, rather than of the people to God. The Thirty-nine Articles do not admit of his recognising the orders of his nonconformist brethren as equal to his own, and this has been set down to pride. Altogether, the Anglican clergyman has been put in a false position, to extricate him from which is taxing all the tact of so politic a prelate as Bishop Moorhouse.
The habit of paying no direct stipend to their clergymen in England has led to a reluctance to contribute good salaries for their support out here, where they must rely solely upon such support; and the lowness of salaries, if not the hardness of the work, has made the Anglican clergy in Australia as a class inferior to their English brethren. Of course the clergy still contains a large proportion of gentlemen within its ranks, but on the score of ability I fancy the ex-Dissenters have the advantage. Recognising this, Bishop Moorhouse is endeavouring both to shame Churchmen into raising the stipend of their clergy, and to procure for the congregations not only English gentlemen, but as far as possible hard-working, practical, broad-minded men. He has a difficult task before him, for already there are plenty of colonial clergymen who are either inferior to nonconformist ministers in cultivation, or stubborn adherents to arégimewhich is impossible in Australia. These weeds must be pulled out before you can sow fresh seed; and yet it is hard to call men weeds who are serving the Church according to the best of their lights, faithful, hard-working men, or conservative old gentlemen, who are doing or have done a great deal of good work, and whose failings cannot be attributed to any fault for which you can morally reproach them.
The Church is slow to adapt itself to colonial life. Amongst a preponderating lower middle-class element Nonconformity, or rather what is better known as Protestantism, is very popular. Low Churchmen find they can get a better sermon at the chapel, and can be hail-fellow-well-met with their pastor in these extraneous denominations. Thus the Church loses many of its former adherents, and while Anglicanism still remains the religion of the upper class, it can in no way pretend to be that of even a majority of the community.
The Roman Catholics are on a different footing. For them no compromise is possible, and they cannot as Roman Catholics but be a state within a state. From time to time the priesthood incites them to aspire to political power, but hitherto none of these aspirations have borne practical effect, except in strengthening the hands of their adversaries. At present they are agitating more or less vehemently in each colony for State support to be given to their schools, declaring that it is monstrous that they should be made to pay for a secular education of which their religion prevents them from taking advantage.
At first a section of the Anglican party, comprising nearly all the clergy, joined in this cry, but it became so evident that the bulk of the population was determined not to return to the old system, that they are beginning to desert the Catholics, and are now more wisely and with better chance of success attempting to amalgamate with the other Protestant bodies to obtain the admission into the State schools of religious teaching on a broad Protestant basis; i.e., of all the doctrines which are held in common by all Protestant denominations (except the Unitarians), to the exclusion of all doctrines on which the different sects differ. The bulk of the Dissenters are, I fancy, indifferent to any junction with the Church of England, and would just as soon have no religious teaching as what they call a 'pithless jelly-fish' religious teaching. But on this point I think public opinion is undergoing a change, and the formation of a Protestant party probable. The Catholics would consider such a concession as infinitely worse than the existing purely secular system. The omission of true doctrine would, as regards them, amount to an assertion of false; and on their side in opposing the Protestant party will be the Jews, the Freethinkers, and a large number who would rather have no religious teaching than any quarrel over it, and who are fairly satisfied with the existing state of things. If the Protestants ever become strong enough to win the day, it can only be at the expense of establishing a Catholic grievance so strong as to be exceedingly dangerous. The fact that all parties are now out in the cold, satisfies a rough-and-ready conception of justice with which the politician has always to reckon, but that all the Protestants should get a concession, of which it is impossible for the Catholics to avail themselves, would be manifestly unfair. Political expediency and justice seem to be alike against the claims of the Protestant party, unless it be resolved to grant aid to Roman Catholics and Jews only, which is a possible, though not very consistent, solution of the question.
Ritualism is unknown, though the word is often applied to the one or two High-Church services in the capitals where the choirs wear surplices, or, worse still, where there are candles on the altar--a word which is almost as much objected to as priest. Broad and Low are decidedly the prevailing phases of Churchmanship, and every year the Broad is gaining upon the Low; the Low element consisting of those who were brought up in England, the Broad of the generation which has been born in the country. As this begins to predominate, the barriers between the Anglican Church and the other Protestant denominations will be lowered, and in course of time the differences between them will be reduced to preference in the mode of conducting service. The first step towards this was taken by the Bishop of Melbourne some two years ago in forming the Pastoral Aid Society, the object of which is to provide religious services in outlying districts in the bush, where there are not sufficient settlers of either the Episcopalian or Presbyterian Churches to make it possible to supply a minister of either. The Society arranges that services should be held in these districts alternately, according to the rites of each Church, and that they should be visited alternately by ministers of each.
This system has proved of enormous value in keeping religion alive in the bush, and paved the way for an experiment not long ago in Melbourne itself, which has met with such general approval, that it may be said to mark the commencement of a new era in the Church of England, and even in ecclesiastical history. With the consent of the Bishop and of his church-wardens, Canon Bromby invited a Presbyterian minister--Rev. Chaos. Strong-to read the service and preach in St. Paul's Church, he himself taking Mr. Strong's pulpit. This precedent is certain to be largely followed; and it is easy to see that the courtesy which is extended to Presbyterian ministers will before long be extended to those of the other Protestant denominations, and that exchanges of pulpits between them all will become frequent.
Churches abound in every Australian city, especially in Adelaide, where they are so numerous as to excite the ridicule of the less devout Victorians. I forget how many there are; but, at any rate, they bear a very small proportion to the public-houses, against which I think they may fairly be pitted. Still, there are plenty of them; and no sinner will easily be able to find an excuse for not going to church in the non-representation of his particular sect. When I say 'churches,' I am using the term in the official and colonial sense, for the word 'chapel' stinks in the nostrils of a Dissenting community, and many of these churches are not much bigger than an ordinary dining-room, and, having been built for profane purposes, have no external odour of sanctity beyond a black board, whereon you are informed, in gilt letters, that the building belongs to whatever sect it does belong, and that Divine Service is held there by the Rev. So-and-So at certain hours on the Sabbath. But from this you must not suppose that the two older churches have a monopoly of the religious buildings which can properly aspire to that name.
For the most part, ecclesiastical architecture is rather a weak point with these newly-confirmed religions; but in Melbourne, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, they possess far the finest churches, and in Adelaide and Sydney their edifices are at least imposing. The Roman Catholics., however, carry off the palm. In both Melbourne and Sydney their cathedrals are of grand proportions. In all three cities their other churches are large and lofty. The Anglicans have small cathedrals at Sydney and Adelaide; but, in spite of their including a majority of the wealthiest individuals in the colonies, they find a great difficulty in raising money for building purposes.
As far as my experience goes--and I have 'sat under' the principal ministers of each denomination in each town at least once--the preaching is, for the most part, very poor. There are certainly two or three exceptions; but 'what are they,' one is irreverently apt to exclaim, 'among so many?' The shallowness and often halting pace of these discourses is doubtless due, in large measure, to the colonial love ofextemporepreaching. For sermons read out of a book public opinion of all denominations in Australia has the greatest contempt. Like English lower middle-class communities, again, they like a good pronounced type of doctrine from the pulpit. The lower regions are popular; but most successful is the denunciation of the people over the way who bow down to wood and stone, and commit sundry other iniquities for which Protestants are in no fear of being indicted.
As you notice a man's general appearance and manner before you can form any idea of his character, so I have described churches and denominations before entering seriously into the question of religion. If Churchmen--who will probably form the majority of my readers--cannot but be grieved at the picture I have drawn, of the condition of the Australian Church, they may at least take comfort when I state that the preponderating feeling of Australian cities is essentially Christian, according to the received meaning of the word. The citizens are, for the most part, of a distinctly religious turn of mind. They may not be, and--except in Adelaide--are not, such good church-goers as at home; but they have not drunk of the poison of infidelity, nor eaten of the sweets of indifference. Amidst the distractions of colonial life this could hardly have been the case, but for the Puritan origin of so many of the more influential among them, and the healthy competition between the various sects, as well as the freedom from State control and interference already alluded to.
As in social matters Melbourne may be regarded as the extreme type of Australia, so in religious matters Adelaide affords the easiest text to preach upon. Essentially lower middle-class, Nonconformist and Radical in its origin, South Australia might well claim the title of the New England of the Antipodes. Even to the present day, it preserves signs and tokens of the Principles on which it was founded: its progress having been the gradual and healthy growth of a Pastoral and agricultural colony, undisturbed by the forced marches of gold-mining. In Adelaide middle-class respectability is too strong for larrikinism, and imparts a far healthier social and moral tone than obtains in either Melbourne or Sydney; but for these advantages the little town pays the small but disagreeable price of Philistinism. Want of culture, Pharisees, and narrow-mindedness find a more congenial home there than anywhere else in Australia; but, to my mind, these are a cheap price to pay for the piety and real goodness which they cloak.
The Adelaidian may be unpleasantly conceited and self-satisfied in religious matters, but then he is kind and hospitable, religious and moral, and not so sophisticated as the Victorian, who is probably a more agreeable person superficially. Yet in neither Melbourne nor Sydney can religion be said to be wanting. It is kept more in the background than in Adelaide, and there is not so much of it as in the smaller town; but the religious character of all three, taken either singly or together, will, I think, compare favourably with that of any other modern city or cities.
Sabbatarianism is fast on the decline. The Sabbatarians are still noisy and determined enough to keep the majority of our public libraries, picture galleries, etc., closed on Sunday, but this is more from public indifference on the subject than from any general feeling that they ought to be shut. This becomes evident from a visit to the suburbs on a fine Sunday. All the world and his wife in private carriages and buggies, carts and omnibuses, even on Shanks's pony, come away for an airing; and if the weather only allows of it, there are many of these holiday-makers who make a day of it, leaving their homes early in the morning, with but a few who return to evening service.
On the other hand, the Sunday is soberly kept. In the less strict families music is allowed, but never cards or games of any kind. The man who proposed such a thing in Adelaide would beanathema maranatha. The general feeling, is, that the Sunday was made too wearisome in England to be supportable in a common-sense community; and Sabbatarianism is gradually losing ground day by day, as fast as the keeping up of appearances will allow. There was a great outcry on one occasion because the Governor of Victoria travelled on a Sunday; but this was rather because there is a general feeling that unnecessary labour should as far as possible be avoided on a Sunday, than from Sabbatarianism in the ordinary sense of the word.
Morality has so long been connected with religion that it is difficult to treat of the one without more or less trenching upon the province of the other. But there still remains something to be said on this score. The commandments which are most freely broken in Australia, arepar excellencethe third, and then the sixth, in its minor sense of crimes of violence in general. Young Australia makes a specialty of swearing. High and low, rich and poor, indulge themselves in bad language luxuriantly; but it is amongst the rising generation that it reaches its acme. The lower-class colonial swears as naturally as he talks. He doesn't mean anything by it in particular; nor is it really an evil outward and visible sign of the spiritual grace within him. On the prevalence of larrikinism I wrote at length in a former epistle.
Drunkenness comes next on our list of vices. That Australians as a nation are more drunken than Englishmen, I do not believe to be the fact; but what is undeniable is, that there is a great deal of drunkenness amongst those who may claim to be considered the upper classes here. An English gentleman of the present day, whatever his other sins may be, does not get drunk, because it is 'bad form,' if for no better reason. If in Australia we were to exclude as 'outsiders' all the leading colonists who are in the habit of intoxicating themselves--to say nothing of the chance customers--'society' would dwindle down to nearly two-thirds its present size. But there has been a very appreciable improvement in this respect during the last half-dozen years, and the tone of public feeling on the subject is gradually approximating to that of English society. The old colonists are not of course expected to change their habits in their old age, but with the young generation there is less tippling, and port, sherry, and spirits are being replaced by claret.
Of drinking as apart from drunkenness I have already said enough. The seventh commandment is one of those unpleasant subjects which one must deal with, and which one would yet prefer to leave alone. Generally speaking, one may say, that while our upper and lower classes are, if anything, rather worse in their morals than in England, we make up for the deficiency by a decided superiority amongst the middle--both upper-middle and lower-middle--class. Conversation is perhaps coarser here; but whatever may be the reality, the moral standard generally accepted is superior to that of London. Such immorality as exists is necessarily of a coarser and more brutal type. In Melbourne, especially, the social sin is very obtrusive. Sydney has of late been acquiring an unenviable notoriety for capital offences, and it is not advisable for ladies to walk alone in the streets there at any time of the day. On the other hand, in Adelaide no woman who does not give occasion for it need ever fear that she will be accosted.
Larrikinism is certainly a troublesome phase to deal with; but burglaries are exceedingly rare, and it may fairly be said, that life and property are more secure in the Australian capitals than in any European towns of the same size. As in all large cities, the scum or dregs of the population gradually localizes itself, and thus becomes easier of control, even though it may increase in amount. And here, Adelaide has an advantage in being seven miles distant from its seaport, which naturally retains a large portion of the noxious element. Melbourne has two disadvantages, which tend to make it the sink of Australia--firstly in its metropolitan character and central position, and secondly in the admission of a large number of bad characters at the time of the gold-diggings. Sydney, of course, retains traces of the old convict element--an element, however, which must be acknowledged to have contributed to the good as well as to the bad qualities which are peculiar to New South Wales.
That very profound saying about the victory of the German schoolmaster has not been without effect even in this distant land. During the last decade education has been the questiondu jourhere; not that we have studied it physiologically and psychologically and culture-logically, as you have been doing in England. Theologies are a little beyond our ken, and we leave it to the old country to discover, by a harmonious combination of deductive and inductive teachings, what education really is. Our educational crisis has been merely legislative and administrative; but it is no small transformation for us to have emerged from the chrysalis state of clerical and private-venture instruction into the full butterflydom of a free, compulsory and secular national system. And that not before it was time. Whatever may be the demerits of uniformity, State-interference, secularity, etc., etc., it does not leave room for the same incompetence in teaching and ignorance on the part of the learner, as frequently occurred in the old happy-go-lucky fashion of schooling. Australian children have all now the chance of learning the three R's according to the latest and most approved fashion, and if their parents choose they can also get a smattering of history, geography, and one or two other things into the bargain.
The history of our educational evolution is perhaps worth summarizing. In the early days of colonization the Church of England spun an educational cobweb, which it has been very difficult to sweep away, and which still remains in a fragmentary state as an evidence of past good service. When the education of the first settlers was in danger of being altogether neglected, the Church put forth the greatest energy to meet their wants, raising funds both here and at home to provide schools and teachers. The Catholics, and later on other denominations, followed her example; and thus, at a time when the State was fully occupied with attending to more primary wants, an education was provided which, considering the circumstances and viewed according to the lights of those days, was highly creditable. The State subsidized these schools, as well as others which were established by private venture in townships where no denomination was sufficiently powerful to establish a school at its own cost. Boards were appointed to control the subsidies and roughly estimate the teaching of each school, and in New South Wales these boards had also power to establish national as opposed to denominational schools wherever opportunity offered. You can easily imagine how inefficient and extravagant this subsidizing arrangement proved. In small townships where a single State school could have given a good education to all the children in the district, there arose two or three denominational schools, all drawing money from the public purse, and yet each too poor and too small to teach well. At last in 1873 Victoria led the way in discarding the denominational schools, and starting at enormous expense an official system of free, compulsory, and secular primary instruction throughout the colony.
In 1876 South Australia followed suit, though in that colony the schooling is only free to those who cannot afford to pay a fee of fourpence per week for children under seven, and sixpence for older children. Finally in 1880 New South Wales also threw off the yoke, which she had only borne longer than her neighbours because her old system was far superior to theirs. Here, too, a weekly fee of threepence per child is demanded, but no family may pay more than a shilling per week, however large in number, and in cases of inability the fees are remitted.
All three Education Acts agree in their main bearings, though differing considerably on points of detail. The system of district and local boards of advice is largely made use of in all of them, but the compulsory clauses have never been properly enforced, principally on account of the great difficulty of doing so in thinly populated districts. The word 'secular' admits of different variations in each province. In Victoria moral truths form the limit. In New South Wales an hour a day is set apart for religious instruction from the mouth of a clergyman or other religious teacher, if the parents do not object. In South Australia Bible reading is permissible, but comment on the text forbidden. It is yet too early to pass a definite judgment on the new systems, but it is already evident that the teaching in the State schools is much better than in those denominational schools which survive. Vigorous efforts are still being made by the Roman Catholic Church, with some aid from the Anglicans, if not to upset the new schools, which has become impossible, at least to regain a subsidy for their own, but, I fancy, with less and less chance of success every year, in spite of the fact that in Victoria the agitation is at present especially strong. The fact is, that while a large number of people agree that purely secular education is to be deplored, no feasible scheme can be propounded for introducing religious instruction into the State schools which will satisfy the demands of the Catholics. The Protestant denominations might without difficulty agree upon a common platform, and it is on the cards that they may, in spite of the Catholic opposition, succeed in introducing a modicum of religious instruction into the State schools. The Catholics maintain that false religious teaching is worse than no religious teaching, and will be satisfied with nothing less than a subsidy to their own schools.
In spite of the yearly immigration of a number of children too old to learn to read and write in Australia, statistics show that in 1878, out of 100 boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 21, no less than 93 could read and write--a result which must be considered creditable to the old 'arrangements.' But what the statistics cannot show is the meaning of that phrase 'read and write.' It is in quality far more than in quantity that the teaching of the State schools is superior. To my thinking, one of the best superficial proofs of their success is the number of middle-class children who are sent to them even in the towns. Previously these children had often grown to be nine or ten years old without schooling or teaching of any kind, and even now much of the time of the secondary schools is wasted in teaching simple primary subjects, which ought to have been at the boy's fingers-ends before he came to them.
With the exception of an experimental higher school for girls, recently established at Adelaide, the State in Victoria and South Australia takes no part in providing secondary education. In New South Wales it has begun to do so, but as yet only on a very limited scale. To meet the wants of the colonists in this respect, two classes of schools have been established: denominational and private venture. The first class have often got good foundations, and taken as a whole they may be compared to the middle-class schools, which have recently been established in several parts of England, the two or three best rising decidedly above the level of the best of these, but not being able to reach that of English public schools even of the second class. Nor in spite of the vigorous efforts that are being made in some quarters will a public school tone ever be possible in Australia, so long as the majority of the boys attending are day-boarders. In all day-schools the authority of the head-master is necessarily impaired by that of the father, and the discipline of the school by that of the home; but here this is more than usually the case. The parents even go so far as to trench upon the schoolmaster's domain, reserving to themselves the right of deliberately breaking the school rules, whenever it is convenient to them to do so. 'Some parents,' writes the head-master of what is probably the nearest approach to a public school in Australia, 'keep their boys from school for insufficient reasons, and without leave previously obtained, to carry a parcel, or to drive a horse, to have hair cut, or to cash a cheque, or simply for a holiday.' Being an old English public-school boy and master, and fresh to colonial ways, he writes thus in his report for 1875; but in the report for 1880 he has to acknowledge that he cannot maintain the rule he had introduced, that no boy should be absent from school except on account of ill-health or stress of weather or after obtaining the leave of the head-master,'because I have not received adequate support.' 'The school cannot, single-handed,' he continues, 'press the point, if parents do not like it. The strain upon me, individually, is too great, if I have to remonstrate with a parent, or to punish a boy, on an average about twice a week.' The boys cannot be got to come back to the school on a certain day, or prevented from leaving before the term is over, many parents being of opinion that little is done the first week, and that therefore they may as well keep their sons at home.
How hard this is for the schoolmaster who has his heart in his work, it is easy to see; and I was quoting an instance where a man of great resolution and perseverance had made an attempt under circumstances perhaps more favourable than could be obtained in any other school in Australia; for the school was certainly the best in the colonies from a social standpoint, and very nearly so intellectually at the time he took it. He himself, too, was summoned from England with the avowed purpose of introducing the public-school system. In no other Australian school would a five-years struggle of this kind be possible. Nor would this be a solitary instance, for though naturally one cannot gather it from published reports, the whole existence of a schoolmaster in Australia, who wishes to do his duty, and understands what that duty is, must be, on many important points of discipline and sometimes even of teaching, one continual struggle with the parents. In too many schools the parent not only uphold their boys in direct disobedience to their masters, but even encourage them in it out of personal dislike to them. In a small community, the master who dares kick against the parental goads soon finds the town too hot to hold him. He has but one choice, either to sail with the parental wind, or to lower his canvas altogether; and though a man of tact may make some progress by trawling and tacking, at the best he must feel disappointed at heart and his interest in his work half gone.
Turning to the schools themselves. The divergence is so considerable, that any remarks I make can have but a very general application. At the best, the social tone is better than at your middle-class schools; at the worst--I am still only speaking of grammar schools and denominational colleges, the highest class of secondary schools--it is no worse; while the moral tone never falls to so low a level, and in some cases almost rises to that of second-rate public schools at home. The Church of England grammar schools are naturally the best in social tone, the boys being drawn from a better class of parents; and I am by no means sure that the morals and manners of boys do not, to a certain extent, go together. In the special sense of the word 'morality,' the best colonial schools can, I think, challenge comparison with your, public ones; but the regard for truth needs strengthening. On the other hand, theft is almost unknown. The same master from whose reports I quoted above, tells me that he finds colonial boys quite as tractable and amenable to discipline as English, when the authority over them is paramount; but in most schools this is far from being the case, the fault often, no doubt, lying with the master's want of tact. I still have a lively remembrance of the difficulty I had in keeping discipline on an occasion when I helped to examine a well-known college; but then, even at the best English public schools, the upper forms have a disposition to 'try it on' when a new hand is set over them, as my own reminiscences tell me.
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 ofesprit de corpsexists; 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 ofAbenturientencertificate, 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 themainbearings 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.