732 PROCEEDIA-GS OF SECTION J. 



individual students in attendance was 4,702. The technical colleges o: 

 (Queensland are not comparable with the technical institutes of Britain, 

 America, and Germany; and much of the work done is of a continua- 

 tion class nature. 



The importance of a highly developed system of technical educa- 

 tion has been fully realised in this State, and in 1908 a Technical 

 Instruction Act was passed. This Act provides for the establishment 

 of a central technical college in Brisbane which shall be maintained, 

 by and be under the direct control of the State. It is intended that 

 this college shall be the recognised technical institute of Queensland, 

 and it is hoped that it may ultimately be one of the leading and most 

 important institutions of the kind in Australia. The colleges outside 

 the metropolis will be affiliated with the central institution, but will 

 remain under local control. 



The foregoing account will show that Queensland has not been 

 immindful of the advantages of a good system of education. But, 

 though much has been done in the past to perfect the system, much 

 still remains to be done. Thoup'h storm clouds gather from time to 

 time, and rumours of war are flashed from shore to shore, the majority 

 of us are hopeful that the differences of nations will be settled in 

 future by the diplomacy of statesmen rather than by recoiirse to war; 

 and that international rivalries will henceforth be confined largely to 

 the struggles of commerce and manufactures, in which education will 

 be one of the main factors and war and carnage will be imknown. 



Already Nation is vieing with Nation for supremacy in education, 

 and Britain, America, Gennany, Japan, and other countries are 

 bringing their educational Dreadnoughts to a higher and ever higher 

 degree of perfection. Our sister States of the Commonwealth are 

 awake to their responsibilities, and educational reform is being 

 pursued vigorously. Queensland cannot afford to linger behind or to 

 tread the primrose path of dalliance. It cannot ba emphasised too 

 often that with her vast latent potentialities it is indispensable that 

 she should liave a good system of education extending from the 

 kindergarten to the university. Probably she has more to gain than 

 any otlier State of the Commonwealth by a thoroughly efficient system 

 of education, and possibly Queensland is in a better position than any 

 other of the States to establish a truly national system which shall 

 include every rung of the educational ladder. Primary education is 

 entirely under the control of the State ; technical education almost 

 so; and secondary education largely so if the State cared to exercise 

 its powers ; the university has yet to be established, and as the lai'ger 

 part of the funds for its establishment, equipment, and maintenance 

 must come out of the State Treasury, Parliament will have the oppor- 

 tunity of making the university the copestone of the national temple 

 of education. 



It is easy, com{)aratively, to review in a cursory way wliat has 

 been done for education in Queensland dui'ing the past 50 years ; it 

 is not so easy to dip into the future and say with certitude precisely 

 Avhat should be done during the next 50. Time has worked many 

 changes in th'is State since 1859 ; and the <Tfrcnt reaper Avill have 

 worked even greater changes l^y 1959, when most of us here to-day will 

 probably have crept silently to rest. The old lands move slowly, but 



