The Commonwealth of Australia

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI EDUCATION (1) Distribution over States?New South Wales?Victoria? South Australia?Western Australia?Queensland?Tasmania. (2) Amount and Quality; Cost?Attendance?Curricula? Private Schools?Secondary Education?Technical Education ?Universities?Summary?Practice and Ideals. Primary education in Australia has passed through three phases. In the earlier States, the first scheme for education was based on the Irish National System?State provided undenominational, and subsidised denominational schools. Later, the dual system was abolished and all primary schools brought under one control, and in the third phase the system in each State has been made uniform and placed under one responsible minister. New South Wales, as the mother State, has priority in point of date, in educational as in other matters, but each State though influenced by the systems adopted by its neighbours, has developed for itself a system of primary and secondary education, as well as technical and university training. In a brief survey it is confusing to multiply dates and details. Accordingly, for the sake of conciseness, the growth of education in Australia will be described in respect of its distribution over different States; its amount both as regards quantity and quality; and, finally, an attempt will be made to put the systems in operation, to the test of modern educational methods. (1) Distribution Over States New South Wales Prior to 1848 all education was in the hands of one or other of the four Churches which received State aid? Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan. The combined efforts of these bodies were only adequateto give instruction to less than half of the children of school age. They had, altogether, 12,000 in these schools; private schools, of unequal me...