BY J. BROWNLIE HENDERSON. > 418 
education wou!d gladly supply the necessary funds and do 
the work. The raising of the funds could be done as in 
America and e'sewhere, by selling State lands, or by direct 
taxation, and I am certain that an educational tax would 
be as littie unpopular as it 1s possible for a tax to be. The 
incidence of the tax could best be decided by those experi- 
enced in such matters, but for this object the ancient and 
venerable tax on bachelors might be hinted at as a fruitful 
and of recent years unexploited field. 
And now having summarised what is being done in 
Queensland, I would like to make a few suggestions as to 
what I think are weak points in our present methods. And 
first of all let me state clearly that I do not desire to make 
any reflections whatever on our Education Department. 
Any one who knows anything of Queensland and its back- 
blocks, and its far North, can have nothing but admiration 
for the educated men and women who go there and endure 
the extremes of heat and drought and isolation, without 
any prospect of “making a pile.’ No teachers in the 
British Empire have, I believe, more hardships to endure 
than those in Queensland, and none endure them more 
cheerfully. And the Department in its new syllabus has 
certainly taken a step in the right direction, and is probably 
now as far advanced in primary education as any of the 
Southern States, except in one point—the training of the 
teachers. At our late Nature Study exhibition, one of the 
senior teachers remarked to me, with reference to Nature 
Study, “I know nothing about natural sciences, and so 
far as I can see, neither do any of my assistants, although 
some of them are reading it up. How am I to supervise them 
or teach Nature Study myself?” That is the weak spot 
in the scheme. A new subject has been introduced, few of 
the teachers have previous knowledge of it, and now they 
have to teach it. That is one of the arguments in favour 
of a training college, if arguments are required for such an 
obvious necessity, and the establishing of the University 
would at once supply the greatest need of the teachers of 
Queensland. The question sometimes forces itself on one, 
are all these States going on the right road to education ? 
What do we ultimately aim at? Why this enormous 
annual expenditure ? I suppose we expect that by our 
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