EDUCATION IX qu?:ex.-?laxd. 725 



In 1895 a motion was moved in Parliament for the establishment 

 of Superior State Schools with a view to providing higher education 

 for children in towns and populous centres where grammar schools did 

 not esixt. The ultimate result of this action was the passing of " The 

 >State Education Act Amendment Act of 1897," which gave the 

 Governor-in-Council power to prescribe that anv subjects of secular 

 instruction might be subjects of instruction in primaiy schools. The 

 Department immediately took advantage of this amending Act, and 

 provided for the teaching of mathematics, higher English, and science 

 in the hfth and sixth classes. The amending Act was passed at the 

 instance of the Hon. D. H. Dalrymple, who was the Minister at the 

 time. 



So far as the resources at its disposal have admitted, the Depart- 

 ment has done what it could to bring the means of primary education 

 within the reach of the children of the State, and it may be safely 

 claimed that wherever twelve children can be gathered together there 

 exists a school. But if the children cannot be gathered into groups, 

 the Department goes to the homes of the pupils. Itinerant teachers, 

 fully equipped with buggies, camping-outfits, school requisites, and 

 other necessaries, traverse the sparsely settled districs whei-e the 

 establishment of schools is not possible. The travelling teachers do 

 not look for palatial scliools with tiled floors and frescoed walls in 

 those far western and northern lands ; they look for the homes of the 

 pupils, be those homes rude wayside inns, rough log cabins, or even 

 tents. Where the home of the child is, there the school is — be it ever 

 so humble. The Department does not claim to produce university 

 graduates under this system ; but it does claim to teach these little 

 ones to read, to write, and to count. This is one of the furrows which 

 the Queensland Department is trying to plough. 



Thi'ee years ago the Depai-tment began to appoint trained 

 teachers to the charge of all schools where the attendance exceeded 

 twelve; by this process properly qualified teachers will soon be in 

 charge of 90 per cent, of the schools of the State. One of the most 

 difficult problems which has to be faced in England, Scotland, America, 

 and also in some of our sister States, is the adequate staffing of small 

 country schools by efficient teachers. Queensland has solved that 

 problem. The day has gone by in this State when the school was a 

 haven for the storm-tossed derelict who had drifted from calling to 

 calling until he found a safe anchorage in a little school in some back- 

 water. In all the literature which I have read, and the inquiries 

 which I have made, I have not been able to discover that any State 

 has done better than Queensland in this respect, and the magnitude of 

 the task will be understood when it is realised that out of the 1,116 

 primary schools in Queensland 639 have an attendance of less than 

 thirty pupils, that some of the schools to be administered are a three 

 weeks' journey from the departmental base, and that Queensland is a 

 territory, so vast that England and Wales could be put into it about 

 twelve times, and Victoria about eight times. 



It has become almost a platitude that the well-being of a nation 

 depends upon the efficiency of its education system; but the true and 

 lasting efficiency of a system must depend upon the quality of its 

 teachers. Organisation may Be perfect ; regulations and schedules 



