# The Three Colonies of Australia/Part 2/Chapter 27

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London: Ingram, Cooke and co., pages 302–309
CHAPTER XXVII.
RELIGION, EDUCATION, LAW.
THE provisions made for the promotion of religion and education are nearly the same in New South Wales and Victoria, having been finally settled before the two provinces were divided. In South Australia the system of the old colony seems to have been taken as a model. In all three colonies the law is, with a few local exceptions, the same.
We have already mentioned the circumstances under which a bishop was appointed in New South Wales. By the munificence of Miss Burdett Coutts a bishopric was endowed in South Australia; this led to the appointment of a bishop of Melbourne, and perhaps to the creation of the second bishopric in New South Wales, the diocese of Newcastle, which extends to the northward, the residence being at Morpeth.
The assistance afforded to the building of churches and the support of religious ministers in New South Wales and Port Phillip is at present regulated by the act passed by Sir Richard Bourke, described at page 109.
By an act of the Legislative Council of South Australia, passed 3rd of August, 1847, for promoting the building of Christian churches and chapels, public money was issued, under the sanction of the governor and Executive Council, in proportion to the amount of private contributions; the grants in aid of building to range from 50 to 150, and toward the stipends of clergy and ministers from 50 to 200 a year. One-fourth of the sittings in places of worship so assisted must be free.
The Congregationalists and Baptists have always refused to receive aid from the state; and there exists in the three colonies, especially in South Australia, a party opposed to all state assistance to religion. In our opinion, although religion and education may be sustained in towns with a large floating population by the voluntary system, the inhabitants of the interior, without government assistance, will remain to a great extent in a state of practical heathendom altogether, without the advantage of religious rites and ordinances. The state of life in the bush is, or ought to be, patriarchal: churches are an impossibility: every father must be the pastor of his family. To establish the voluntary system is to decree that the long lines of rivers shall never be visited by a minister of religion.
​It is a pity that a few thousands cannot be tithed from the vast sums spent on hopeless missions to the heathen for the support of itinerant missionaries to our emigrant countrymen: missionaries who would not disdain to be also schoolmasters. The collection of bibles in many languages in the Great Exhibition was a fine, an impressive sight; but still it is to be regretted that men of piety, rank, wealth, and influence, do not pursue rather the positive and possible than the impossible, and begin by taking care that every child in the bush of Australia shall have and know how to read a bible before sending missionaries to perish in Patagonia, or attempting an impossible Church of England Utopia in Canterbury, New Zealand.
The following are the numbers of the various religious denominations in New South Wales: Church of England, 93,137; Church of Scotland, 18,156; Wesleyan Methodists, 10,000; other Protestants, 6,472; Roman Catholics, 56,899; Jews, 979; Mahomedans and Pagans, 852; other persuasions, 740. The churches which receive State support are the English, the Scotch, the Wesleyan, and the Romish. The respective amounts paid for the year 1850 were as follows: The diocese of Sydney, £12,015 17s. 4d.; the diocese of Newcastle, £4,028 7s. 10d.; the Presbyterian Church, £3,378 1s. 1d.; the Wesleyan Church, 850; and the Roman Catholic Church, £8,159 0s. 9d,; in all about 30,000. In South Australia the places of worship of the Church of England are seventeen; of the Roman Catholics, six; Church of Scotland, seven; Methodists, twelve (having 1,300 Sunday-school scholars); Congregationalists, nine; Baptists, three or four. The Germans have six pastors, and five places where they meet for worship.
Up to 1836 education was as much neglected in Australia as in England, until Lord Brougham commenced the agitation compromised by the establishment of the miscalled national schools. A large proportion of the colonial population consisted of adult convicts, who arrived as ignorant as vicious.
We have already described in Chapter X. how Sir Richard Bourke carried through the Legislative Council, at the time that the church and school lands were surrendered, a measure for founding schools throughout the colony, on the plan of Lord Stanley's (now Earl of Derby) Irish national school system. But the opposition on the part of the late Bishop of Australia was so hot and effective that the local act remained a dead letter, and the moderate per centage of education afforded to the working classes was distributed through denominational or sectarian schools, aided by colonial funds. The result ​was, that many country districts were left without schools, whilst two or three were established to educate forty or fifty scholars. At Camden there were three schools, none of which had more than twenty scholars.
In 1844 a committee of the Legislative Council, appointed to investigate the subject of colonial education, of which Robert Lowe, Esq., was chairman, reported strongly in favour of the Irish national system, observing:—
"There are about 25,676 children between the ages of four and fourteen years: of these only 7,642 receive instruction in public schools, and 4,865 in private ones, leaving about 13,000 who, as far as the committee can learn, receive no education at all. The expense of education is about 1 a head. This deficient education is partly attributable to the ignorance, dissolute habits, and avarice of too many parents, and partly to the want of good schoolmasters and schoolbooks, but a far greater proportion of the evil has arisen from the strictly denominational character of the public schools.
"The very essence of a denominational system is to leave the majority uneducated, in order thoroughly to imbue the minority with peculiar tenets. The natural result is, that where one school is founded two will arise, not because they are wanted, but because it is feared that proselytes will be made. It is a system impossible to be carried out in a thinly-inhabited country, and, being exclusively in the hands of the clergy, it places the state in the awkward dilemma of either supplying money, whose expenditure it is not permitted to regulate, or of interfering between the clergy and their superiors."
The committee further recommended the formation of a board, to be appointed by the governor, consisting of persons favourable to the plan, and possessing the confidence of the different denominations, "with a salaried secretary."
The Lord Bishop of Australia and the Roman Catholic Archbishop were both examined before this committee; both were strongly opposed to the Irish system of educating different denominations in one school, and expressed their adherence to the denominational system. The Bishop of Australia would countenance no schools in which the dogmas of the Church of England were not taught; the Roman Catholic Archbishop, in like manner, insisted on having exclusive Roman Catholic schools for the members of his church. They were both excellent, charitable, and pious men; but either was evidently prepared, if he had ​the power, to enforce the dogmatic teaching of his own church in all the schools, and to leave those who did not agree with it without any teaching, moral or educational. They were not satisfied with a compromise system, by which the duties of truth, chastity, honesty, charity, forgiveness of enemies, and thankfulness to God, should be inculcated, with reading, writing, and arithmetic, unless the questions of the number of sacraments and the right line of apostolic succession were also expounded according to the views of each; and sooner than either would give way, they were content to leave infant minds to gather all their learning from the blasphemy of the streets.
The vigorous opposition of these two prelates, and others of their mind, aided by many who, really worshipping nothing, except what the Americans rather profanely call the "Almighty Dollar," yet loved a party cry, temporarily suspended the carrying out of the recommendations of this report.
But the Stanley National system of instruction is the only system possible in a colony where the divers religions were so evenly balanced, and made and is making progress. In the principal towns where denominational schools were in existence in 1844 they are still maintained, but in new districts Lord Stanley's system is introduced.
In pursuance of the recommendations of Mr. Lowe's committee, a board has been formed on the principle of the Irish Board of Education; and a normal school for training teachers on the Irish system has been established.
Throughout the "Three Colonies" great anxiety prevails among all classes for the extension of education, and a willingness to bear taxation for that purpose.
The normal school of Sydney affords one of the many comical anecdotes afloat illustrating the mode in which officials in England attend to colonial affairs.
In consequence of the suggestion of Mr. Lowe's committee, after the heat of the educational question had toned down, application was made to the Colonial Office for a master acquainted with the Irish school system, and capable of taking charge of a normal school for the instruction of masters in that system. For nearly four years the Colonial Office slept on the application: at the end of that time, by ​some chance, the "order for a schoolmaster" turned up. Earl Grey, it is presumed after some inquiries, selected a Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson received a letter desiring him to call on Earl Grey, in Downing-street. He went, was congratulated, favoured with a little of the good advice of which great men keep a stock for the benefit of the small, and then handed over to Mr. Benjamin Hawes, the late Under-Secretary for the Colonies, who in due course handed him over to Mr. Gairdner, the chief clerk, who transferred him to a stylish young gentleman, name unknown, who stood with his back to the fire, a pot of stout in his right hand, and delivered himself something in the following strain:—"Well, you're appointed to this berth in Australia? Consider yourself lucky; you'll make your fortune. Now, these colonial fellows are in a deuce of a hurry, so you must lose no time. Let me see the shipping list. Ah! here's a ship sails on Friday for Adelaide. This is Monday—you must go on Friday—your passage will be paid, and all right."
Mr. Wilson remonstrated on the shortness of the time, but it was of no use: the colonists were in a "deuce of a hurry." He suggested that Adelaide was a considerable distance from Sydney. The objection was pooh-poohed—knowledge of colonial geography is not an indispensable qualification for colonial office. Poor Mr. Wilson was hurried off by the ship to Adelaide. Arrived there, he had to wait nearly a month for a conveyance to Sydney. Arrived in Sydney, and installed in his office, he was questioned as to the latest improvements in the Irish national system. He knew nothing about it, had never heard of it, had never seen any of the books; he had been master of an excellent Church of England school. So, after four years' delay, in desperate haste, the Colonial Office had sent off the wrong man, to the wrong place!
In justice to Mr. Wilson it is right to add, that, being a clever and conscientious man, he applied himself to the study of the Irish schoolbooks, and has performed the duties of his office with credit to himself and advantage to the colony.
In South Australia, by an act of the Legislative Council, passed in August, 1847, the governor is authorised to appoint a board of education, who shall have power, under his sanction, to make regulations for giving effect to the ordinance. No aid to be given to schoolhouses. The salaries issued to teachers will be in proportion to the children taught, not less than twenty, between six and sixteen years of age, £20 being the lowest and £40 the highest sum. The governor to appoint visitors and inspectors. The reports to be laid before the Legislative Council, and one public examination to take place yearly. ​The boards, previous to the introduction of an elective Legislative Council, consisted of the judge of the Supreme Court, the advocate-general, the colonial chaplain, a dissenting minister, and a layman.
The University of Sydney, established by an Act of the Legislative Council, was opened in October, 1852, on the following scale and plan:—A fee of two pounds must be paid on matriculation, and two guineas for each course of lectures. All students matriculated the first year, were required to attend the lectures on classics and mathematics, and to be attired in academical costume. Six scholarships, of £50 a year each, tenable for three years, have been established.
The candidates for matriculation in October, 1852, were examined in Mathematics: in the ordinary rules of Arithmetic, vulgar and decimal Fractions; the first four rules of Algebra, and the first book of Euclid. In Classics; in the sixth book of Homer's Iliad; the first book of Xenophon's Anabasis; the first book of Virgil's Æneid; the Bellum Catilinarum of Sallust; and in the History and Geography connected with those portions of those works. In the same session the Principal lectured to the Upper Divison on Thucydides, Bk. 1; Sophocles, Antigone: Sallust, Bell. Jug.; Horace, Epistles. To the Lower Division, on Xen. Anabasis, Bk. 1; Horn. Iliad, Bk. 1; Cicero de Senectute; Virg. Æneid, Bk. 6. The Professor of Mathematics lectured on Euclid, first four Books; Arithmetic, and Algebra. Lectures were also delivered daily on Chemistry, Natural and Experimental Philosophy, by a third professor.
The following are the subjects on which the candidates for scholarship were examined:—Mathematics: Arithmetic and Algebra, as far as Quadratic Equations inclusive; first four books of Euclid; the popular Elements of Statics and Dynamics. Classics Greek: The Medea of Euripides; Xenophon's Anabasis. Latin: First six books of Virgil's Æneid; Cicero de Amicitia; Roman Antiquities; Translations from English into Latin; Questions in Ancient History connected with the foregoing works.
It is much to be regretted that no provision has hitherto been made for founding professorial chairs of English Literature, Modern History, and Moral Philosophy. Some such counteracting influences are needed in a country where at present public libraries are unknown, literary influences do not exist, and wealth and official rank are the only recognised distinctions.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales consists of a chief and two puisne judges, who exercise the powers of the three Courts of Queen's ​Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer at Westminster, and have criminal jurisdiction. They go on circuit twice a year to Bathurst, Goulburn, Maitland, and Brisbane.
In common law the "new rules" of pleading are in force.
One judge sits in equity (by delegation) with the powers of a vice-chancellor, and there is an appeal from his decision to the Supreme Court.
The proceedings are by bill and answer. The equity rules of 1841 are in force; but in 1849 a reform was introduced, by which the proceedings for obtaining a rule nisi in a common law court, by affidavit, and a defence by affidavit, were, in a variety of instances, substituted for the tedious complication of the old chancery system.
The Supreme Court also exercises, in the person of one of the judges appointed for the purpose, those functions as regards the validity of testamentary dispositions, letters of administration, &c., which in England are performed by the Ecclesiastical Courts; but no court exists for deciding on questions of divorce, alimony, &c.
The Master in Equity presides over an Admiralty Court.
The Supreme Court exercises jurisdiction in bankruptcy and insolvency. One of the judges presides, exercising powers similar to the commissioners in England, with an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Estates of insolvents are vested in official assignees.
A person can be made a bankrupt or insolvent either by petition of creditors or by his own petition.
A Court of Conscience, presided over by a single commissioner, who decides, not according to law or evidence, but according "to equity and good conscience," like the courts which have been superseded in England by our County Courts, is held for the metropolitan county of Cumberland in Sydney, and one for the metropolitan county of Bourke in Melbourne, which has jurisdiction up to £30.
The magistrates, paid and unpaid, in the other districts have jurisdiction up to £10 absolutely, and up to £30 by mutual consent in cases of simple debt, but not in actions for damages or disputed rights to land, &c.
Under the enactments of the "Masters and Servants Act," two magistrates can decide on disputes as to wages and service: they can commit a servant refusing to perform his written agreement, and levy a distress on the property of a master or his agent if wages are unpaid; and, by a recent law, this power extends to contracts made in England.
The division of barrister and attorney is maintained in the colonies.
​English barristers and Scotch advocates are admitted at once to practise.
The judges appoint a board of examiners, and admit any man of good character to practise as a barrister, after passing an examination in classics, mathematics, and law.
Attorneys and writers to the signet are admitted to practise of course.
Persons who have served their articles and not passed in England may be admitted in the colony. The result is, that parties who have been or would have been rejected in England, in consequence of tainted character, are able to practise in New South Wales.
Three important law reforms are due to the exertions of Robert Lowe, Esq., now member for Kidderminster, during the time he was a member of the Legislative Council, and practised at the bar in Sydney:—
1. The substitution in 1849, in the Colonial Equity Court, of the common law proceedings on application for a rule nisi instead of the tedious delays of bill and answer.
2. The abolition of imprisonment for debt on final process. In Australia to commit a man to prison virtually amounted to destroying all his property.
3. Arrangements for admitting gentlemen to the bar without proceeding to England, provided they are able to pass an examination in classics, mathematics, and law, before examiners appointed by the judges. The sons of Australian gentlemen, for want of friends accustomed to the state of society in the universities, are usually ruined.
In South Australia there is a Supreme Court, composed of one judge, who also presides in the Vice-Admiralty Court, a commissioner in the Insolvent Court, and three police magistrates.
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