1 424 A L'STRALASI. I ILL L'STR. I TED. 



a generation ago will be found in the course of years to be exactly fitted to the wants of 

 the Australian people under their altered conditions of education, wealth, and the growing 

 national spirit, is one of those interesting problems that must be left to history to solve. 

 The natural resources and wealth of the colonies have been such that the task of self- 

 government has hitherto been a comparatively easy one. But every year shows indications 

 of its own that interests are growing up and rapidly solidifying themselves that will 

 make the business of politics here as complicated as in most of the older countries of the 

 world. In the earlier years of Responsible Government, these interests were in their rudi- 

 mentary stages, the mechanism of politics was in its simplest form, and the factors stood at 

 their lowest concrete expression. The political conditions of Australian public life thus 

 presented material for a curious study such as that of which De Tocqueville was enabled 

 to follow out the fascinating processes in the United States, nearly fifty years ago, and of 

 which the Australian colonies furnish just now the most interesting and instructive example. 



EDUCATION. 



\\ 7" HEN the Church and School Corporation, under the authority of the Colonial 

 Office, was constituted in 1825, the provisions of the charter were all in favour 

 of one system of education, as they were all on the side of one Church. Yet a good 

 work was commenced, inasmuch as the educational interest in the colony began, at least, 

 to take definite shape. Up to that . time the task of the instruction of the youth of the 

 settlement had been undertaken in a hap-hazard way. Here and there a minister of 

 religion, or occasionally some educated convict, might be found instructing children in the 

 crudest rudiments of what is now known as a common-school education ; still the work 

 of education as an affair of State concern cannot be said to have properly begun till 1825. 

 Dr. Lang established his Scotch College soon after, without State aid, and schools in 

 connection with the Roman Catholic body existed from a comparatively early period, but 

 the administration of the charter, solely in the interests of the Church of England, had 

 the effect of discouraging all the other denominations. The seventh part of all public lands 

 made a princely endowment to the Church of England for church and school purposes, 

 and the other religious bodies felt very keenly their exclusion from participation in this 

 appropriation. A grant of this kind had been made in a similar way for church and 

 school purposes in Canada, and when a precisely similar difficulty arose there, and the 

 question was submitted to the Courts for their ruling, it was held that all religions 

 tolerated by the State within the Dominion of Canada were equally entitled to partici- 

 pate pro rata in the grant set aside for purposes of religion and education. Up to 

 Governor Darling's time the official tendency was distinctly against the recognition of 

 any such general claim in Australia, and it was not until the arrival of Governor 

 Bourke that this matter was placed on its proper footing, both as regards education and 

 religion. In a remarkable despatch, to which we shall presently have occasion to refer, 

 Bourke dealt with both these questions together, for at that time they each formed part 

 of what was really one and the same question. He aimed, however, at dissociating the 

 two interests, and at making the educational system of the colony a State affair, without 

 the control of any one of the Churches. He therefore recommended to Lord Stanley 



