626 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



J . Simons, of Western Australia, who recently took forty Australian 

 boys for a 40,000 mile tour through America, Canada, and Eng- 

 land, speaking on his return, said, " One of the saddening things- 

 of tlie trip was the finding of so much Australian brain power 

 working in other lands for the development of those other coun- 

 tries, instead of for their own — men with brains who had gone 

 abroad to get what was denied them in Australia." I think my- 

 self that it is the adventurous spirit more than the denial of oppor- 

 tunities in Australia that takes such men abroad, but the Austra- 

 lian travelled cannot but be struck wilh the success of his country- 

 men elsewhere in very varied lines of life. Perhaps it is because of 

 these qualities that there is no better follower than the Australian 

 boy. He may not respond to tlie word " go " so readily as other 

 boys, but he always will to The word " come," if said in the right 

 tone of voice. But to get the best of him, you must be careful 

 not to give tasks beneath his capacity. You must work him up to 

 the collar, or he will deposit his mind in a corner of the class-room, 

 and put it to sleep. So much for the good side of the material 

 with which we work; there is, of course, an obverse. 



(i) Our boys are too often brusque in manner — a defect, per- 

 haps, of their qualities. 



(ii) Want of culture. Those who have to do with schools 

 cannot fail to notice the want of cultured tastes among boys, and 

 it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the homes must be 

 htld mainly responsible for this. Here we compare very badly with 

 England and with other countries. 



(iii) Want of veneration for the opposite sex. It has been fre- 

 quently said that our boys are lacking in reverence and respect for 

 their elders. I have tried to show that in part this is not intended. 

 But it cannot be denied that the average Australian boy is lacking 

 in chivalrous respect for girls of his own age. Nor is he wholly to 

 blame in this matter. There has taken place a gradual, and 

 recently even a rapid breaking down of the old formalities of inter- 

 course between the sexes. The life of camps and beaches so much 

 discussed lately is only symptomatic of the change which has been 

 going on in our social system. Whichever sex may be at fault later 

 on, I say without fear of effective contradiction that, in adolescence, 

 it is almost always the girl who commences the casual acquaintance- 

 ships made in public places, if not by actually accosting the boy, 

 then by what may be mildly termed " the look of encouragement." 

 Nothing is more socially amazing than the way in which parents of 

 respectable position allow their daughters to roam the streets un- 

 cliecked, adding scaljjs to their belts in an unwholesome rivalry 

 of seeing who can pick up the greatest number of chance acquain- 

 tances. Then follows a correspondence, almost invariably started 

 by the girl. A recent correspondent to a morning paper, after 

 dttailing the huntress methods of such girls, pathetically asks 



