An article in the Geelong Advertiser and Squatters’ Advocate (Vic.: 1845 – 1847) Wed 8 Jul 1846 page 1 stated the following:
In the estimation of the Christian philanthropist, there is no subject more important, than the education of the young. To train up children in the way they should go, is one of the highest duties of Parents, of Pastors, and of all in authority. In a nascent colony like Port Phillip, there is a special obligation to attend to this work.
We have been at some pains to ascertain for the information of our readers, both in the colony and elsewhere, the actual state of elementary education in the district.
Before adverting to the results of our enquiries, we may state the nature of the provision made by the Colonial Government, for the diffusion of knowledge among its subjects. That provision is made in a series of crude and ill working rules, enacted by the Governor in 1841, and which have been in force since the beginning of 1842. There is no permanent Legislative provision. During the last four years, sums of money have been voted by the Legislative Council, to be expended in accordance with the regulations referred to, but there is nothing meriting the name of a plan or system in operation, nothing that can be depended upon to last for another year.
The regulations of 1841 are to the following effect; The Government gives for the education of each child, “whose parents are not able to pay for its education,” at the rate of a penny a day, for each day’s actual attendance of such child at school; the aid afforded by Government is never to exceed the sum contributed for the support of the school, from private sources, nor is it to exceed £25 a quarter. Of the many objectionable features in this scheme, one of the worst, and most obvious, is the facility it presents for frauds and impositions of all sorts. The Government intends to give “only for each day of actual attendance,” a harsh and unreasonable regulation certainly. But what easier than to falsify lists of daily attendance? It professes “to aid the education of those children, ” whose parents are not able to pay. But how difficult it is to say who are able, and who are not.
The able are not always the willing; persons really poor, often toil hard to conceal their inability. Unscrupulous persons again, finding that some of their neighbours, really poorer than themselves, get education gratuitously, put in a claim for the same privilege, or doggedly refuse to pay. The requisition of an amount of private subscriptions equal to that claimed from the Treasury, however reasonable it may seem at first sight, works extremely ill in many ways.
The whole system presses hardly on the honest and conscientious teacher. A teacher neither honest nor conscientious, if he happens to be under the superintendence of persons not very careful, nor suspicious, may turn it to his advantage, but none other can. We have ascertained from official returns, that twenty three different schools, connected with six different religious denominations, received aid from the Government during the year 1845, some for the whole year, some for one, or two, or three quarters.
Taking the average of the different quarters, the number of children taught at these schools was
1541, of whom 535 are returned as able to pay, and 1000 as unable.
The contributions from private individuals towards the support of these schools, are returned as £1018 19s. 2d.; the payments by the Government on account of the unable, were £926 10s. 1d. The proportion of the able to the unable, varies surprisingly in different schools.
On the aggregate of the whole, it is as 100 to 189; but in one school, (Independent,) it was during the first three quarters as 100 to 2160; whilst in the following quarter, under another teacher, it was as 100 to 140. In the Baptist Infant School, the proportion was as 100 to 750: in the Wesleyan School at Collingwood, as 100 to 411. None of the other Melbourne Schools present anything remarkable, except that in the Roman Catholic Schools, where the contrary might be expected, the disparity between those returned able and those returned unable, is quite as low as in the average of the Protestant Seminaries.
The assistance afforded from the public funds (£926 10s. divided among 1006 children) is at the rate of 1ls. 10d. for each of the children attending the schools partially supported by it. This is the most scanty allowance made for education by any civilised Government on the face of the earth.
The revenue of Port Phillip during 1845, was £89,117. The sum devoted to education is a trifle more than one per cent of this, whereas the Government of Prussia – a despotism – devotes two and a half percent of its revenue to the same cause. The educational system of Van Diemen’s Land costs the Government there at the rate of £2 12s for each child in public schools. This, at least, was the rate in 1842.
In the year 1841… there was paid for education in Port Phillip, £947 l6s. 10d, a greater sum when our population was only 11,738, than now when it is nearly three times that amount.
So much for the education promoted partially by the Government. Besides the twenty-three schools already referred to … there are at least twenty-five others, maintained by the public in different parts of the province of these, nineteen are in Melbourne; three in and near Geelong, and three in the county of Bourke, Heidelberg, Cambellfield and the Moonee Ponds.
According to returns furnished by the Mayor of Melbourne, there were at the beginning of the present year, in the schools at Melbourne, Brighton, Collingwood, Richmond, and Williams Town 1692 pupils: from similar returns made by the Police Magistrate at Geelong and Portland, (which, however, do not comprehend private schools) there appear to have been at the former placed 235, and at the latter 111 children.
To these our own enquiries enable us to add 42 in and near Geelong, and 103 in and near Melbourne; making in all 2184; or say 2200 children, receiving instruction at school, in a population of 32,875, which is about 1 in 14.2 of the entire population.
Our readers will be able to judge how very inadequate a number this is, when we mention that according to an eminent French statist, Ducpetiaux, there are at school; in Prussia I in 6, in Holland 1 in 8.3, in Scotland 1 in 8, in England 1in 11, in Ireland 1 in 13.2, and in New York 1 in 4.
The number of young children among us is probably greater than in any population of the same amount in the world.
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During 2022 we saw the celebration of 150 years of formal education in Victoria.
According to the budget.com.au in 2022/23 ‘The Government is investing record funding in Australian schools to ensure that all students are equipped with the necessary skills as part of our plan for a stronger future. The Government’s recurrent annual funding for schools has increased from $13.7 billion in 2014 to $25.3 billion in 2022. Student per capita rates in Victoria in 2022 vary between $7410 and $8,689 for Primary and $9,794 for Secondary students.’ Source: (www2.education.vi.gov.au).
A far cry from a penny a day back in 1841.
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EARLY DAYS IN VICTORIA
Further articles of Interest
Yesterday afternoon … the foundation stone of the Protestant Hall and school-room was laid … the ceremony … commenced by depositing in the cavity cut for that purpose in the foundation-stone, a bottle containing the following inscription;
THE FOUNDATION STONE of the PROTESTANT HALL and SCHOOL ROOM, Erected by the Orangemen of Australia Felix, with the assistance and co-operation of their fellow Protestants, WAS LAID on the 5th day of April, Anno Domini 1847, in the 10th year of the Reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, By WILLIAM KERR, Provincial Grand Master of the Orangemen of Port Phillip.
The bottle contains a number of coins of the present and late reigns … copies of the Melbourne Argus and Sydney Sentinel newspapers, and of the well-known productions of the Poet-Laureate of the Melbourne Orangemen … impressions of the seals of the Grand Lodge … and a number of documents … connected with the occasion.
The foundation-stone was then laid with the customary formalities.
A collection was then made in aid of the building fund … £26 1s. was contributed … The National Anthem was then sung followed by three cheers for the Queen and the ceremony concluded. – The Melbourne Argus Tue 6 Apr 1847 page 2 _____________________
The death of Mrs. Emily Cock … at Sandringham, calls to mind some of the early days of the State. She was the daughter of Mr. J. M. Smith, one of the earliest solicitors in Melbourne, and arrived in Melbourne from England by the Slains Castle in 1848. She was educated at a school conducted by Miss Ainslie in Swanston street between Bourke and Lonsdale streets … Mrs. Cock’s husband and father were among the original trustees of the land on which St. Paul’s
Cathedral now stands. Smith-street, Collingwood, is named after her father. Advertiser (Adelaide, SA: 1889 – 1931), Friday 2 October 1925, page 12
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MELBOURNE
New EPISCOPALIAN SCHOOL HOUSE.
The Lord Bishop of Australia has received a communication from the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, in London, intimating that a liberal pecuniary grant would be issued … to assist in the erection of a school house in Melbourne in connexion with the Episcopalian Churches in our town. – Geelong Advertiser, Mon 13 Dec 1841 page 3
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MELBOURNE.
Moor v. Kerr —The Sheriff put up yesterday … the furniture of the defendant for sale to satisfy the judgment and costs in this cause. The whole was bought in for £350 by Mr Duerdin … The amount of the verdict, £250, less … the expenses to which Mr Moor has been personally put to, will be handed over to St. James’ Church to build a school-house. – Geelong Advertiser (Vic.: 1847 – 1851) Wed 10 May 1848 page 2
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Contributed by Dianne Wheeler PPPG Member no 1505