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PROCEEDINGS OF SECTIOX J. 



leading to a degree in arts or science. They may, as in the case of 

 students attending other professional schools, enter immediately upon 

 their course of professional study. It is hardly necessary to refer in 

 detail to the many advantages which accrue to the student, the 

 schools, the university, and the community, through such a 

 connection. 



Recent discussion has brought out clearly the main principles 

 upon which the training of teachers should be based. Experiment 

 will no doubt be required to secure an embodiment of these principles 

 to suit local requirements. Especially during the first stage will 

 difficulty be found in a sparsely populated locality in securing a 

 general education of a sufficiently high standai"d readily accessible to 

 ail who can profit by it. But this difficulty is not one peculiar to the 

 early education of "young teachers. It is part of the quite general 

 problem of the provision throughout the country of adequate 

 secondaiy education. It is obvious too that the success of university 

 and of technical education depends on a supply of students possessing 

 a good general education, and to secure this a body of highly trained 

 teachers is essential. More and more it is being realised that no 

 element of the educational system is self-contained. The welfare and 

 efficiency of each is dependent upon that of all. A defective primary 

 system means defective secondaiy, technical, and university systems, 

 and no efficient primary system is possible without a body of efficient, 

 broad-minded, and enthusiastic teachers. 



2.— FIFTY YEARS OF EDI CATION IN QUEENSLAND. 



A Eeteospect and an Ootlooe. 



By J. D. STORY, Under Secretary, Department of Public Inslrxiction, Queensland . 



Seeing that Queensland will celebrate this year the fiftieth 

 anniversary of her proclamation as an autonomous colony, it seemed 

 to me that an appropriate paper for this occasion might be one 

 reviewing, briefly, the progress which has been made in this State in 

 the way of education during the past fifty years, and referring 

 sliortly to the problems which the future holds. 



Fifty years ago Australia was almost an unknown land. Even ten 

 years ago she was not regarded as a factor of any importance in 

 the world of education, and British, American, and German 

 educationists did not think that there was any feature in the 

 Australian systems of education worthy of careful study. Up to that 

 time Australia was looked upon as a land of empty spaces and 

 magnificent distances; a land of vast potentialities and hidden 

 wealth, but a land unpeopled and undeveloped ; a land unknown in 

 the realms of art, literature, science, and general culture. India was 

 known ; Canada was known ; the war had brought South Africa into 

 prominence; but Australia was not known. But during the last 

 decade Australia has been unfolding*. The opening of the first 

 Parliament of the Commonwealth on the 9th of May, 1901, by His 

 Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York heralded the birth 

 of a new nation ; the trend of Commonwealth legislation has directed 

 the eyes of the nations towards Australia ; the Prime Minister of the 



