EVOLUTION OP QUEENSLAND TEACHER. 733 



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the new lands more witli amazing rapidity, and we are hopeful that 

 Queensland's development will proceed apace. 



But dealing- with circumstances as they now exist ; analysing 

 dispassionately the defects in our system as time and experience have 

 revealed them; weighing well the further requirements in regard to 

 education which the general development of the State, the expansion 

 of her industries, and the growth of her interests have rendered neces- 

 sary ; and keeping prominently in view the progress of education in 

 other parts of the world, it is not a hard task to construct a platform 

 which will engage the attention of the most skilful of our educationists 

 for at least a decade. Thera is the general correlation of the whole 

 system — the forging of the chain of national education of which each 

 branch of education shall form an indispensable link ; the betterment, 

 if not the abolition, of the pupil-teacher system; the establishment 

 of a training college for teachers ; the amendment of the compulsoiy 

 clauses of the Education Act; the improvement of school furniture; 

 medical inspection of children; the establishment of high-grade and 

 superior schools ; the linking of secondary with primary schools ; the 

 bringing of a secondary education within the reach of a greater 

 number of children ; the fostering of continuation classes ; the develop- 

 ment and expansion of a sound system of technical education ; the 

 establishment of a university. There is magnificent work in Queens- 

 land for educationists to do ; it will be hard work ; it Avill be wearing 

 work ; it will be dispiriting work ; for difficulties are many, critics are 

 legion; and funds, alas, too often run low; but surely one of the 

 noblest works in which a man can be employed is in building a system 

 of education which shall mould the character of the children of his 

 countr}', efficiently equip them for the battle of life, and generally 

 tend to tlie uplifting of the nation. 



3.— THE EVOLUTION OF THE QUEENSLAND PEIMAEY 

 SCHOOL TEACHER. 



Bu J. J. DEMPSEY, Slate School, Junclion Park, Brisbane. 



In 1859 separation from New South Wales left us with the legacy 

 of the New South Wales systen:^ and two public or national schools 

 of our own. The Board of Education formed under the Act of 1860 

 had, at first, a difficult task. The njaterial available for teachers was 

 often of an unsatisfactory character. In public and private, the idea 

 j)revailed that only very humble and ordinary qualifications were 

 needed, and for these the board ofi'ered a remuneration sufficient to 

 attract just that kind of "teacher"' (so-called). As illustrating the 

 notions prevalent at that time, I recall the visit of the parent of a 

 classmate who asked our head master " to make a teacher of her lad, 

 for indeed, sir," said she, "he seems to be fit for nothing else." 

 Fortunately for him, fate afterwards turned him into a very successful 

 pioneer farmer. No one saw anything incongruous in that mother's 

 remark at the time. It -was made in all good faith, and accepted quite 

 as a matter of course. Recalling it after nearly forty years, there 

 seems to me to be a joke somewhere in it. [I may say it does not 

 always take me forty years to see the point of a joke.] However, the 



