POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 



1429 



the wealthier classes were always fairly well provided for in this respect, the children of 

 the working classes were in a large measure neglected. But in the sparsely-p-opl<-d 

 districts in the interior, where the indications of settlement were few and far between, 

 and children, perforce, grew up as wild almost as the kangaroos that settlement had 

 displaced, the prospect was for many years a dismal one indeed. Such teaching as went 





THE. LEADING GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OK MELliOUKXK. 



on was unskilful and in- 

 effectual, being without 

 supervision, and, of 

 course, without method. 

 The school-master was 

 ordinarily a man who 

 had failed at everything 

 else, and the person who 

 had proved his inability 

 to take care of sheep or 



of himself, was often tacitly taken to have proved his capacity to undertake the charge 

 of children. With the spread of the successive systems of State education, all this 

 passed away. School buildings, of a more or less pretentious but always serviceable 

 order, were opened in every village centre. Where the population was sparse, provisional 

 schools were opened and to-day every child in the land has the advantage of a sound 

 primary education, literally forced upon him or her by the State. 



While the principal educational work has consisted in covering the country with 

 primary schools, so that no future citizen should be destitute of elementary knowledge. 

 the higher education has not been neglected. To provide for the requirements of 

 primary education, and thus whet the appetites of the growing population for a wider 

 range of knowledge without providing adequate means for its gratification, would have 



