143 



A USTRALASIA ILL US TRA TED. 



THE MODEL SCHOOL, MELBOURNE. 



been, in some measure, to stultify the work of the State in this connection. This was 

 recognized at a very early period, and, though a few colleges and higher schools already 

 existed, efficiently conducted by the religious denominations and by private teachers, it 

 was felt that the imperative duty of the State called for an extension of the State 

 system in this direction as well. Hence grammar schools were established in every 

 colony, but they are not all constituted on the same plan. Some of the earlier in 



Sydney were purely private institutions, though 

 one of them the King's College, at Parramatta 

 was a Church of England institution, with an 

 endowment of land. Its establishment was fol- 

 lowed, not many years after, by the Sydney 

 Grammar School, the management of which was 

 placed in the hands of trustees. This has been 

 from the first a purely unsectarian institution, 

 and receives a moderate annual endowment. 

 Lyndhurst College, a Roman Catholic institution, 

 came after. Of late years, the different Churches 

 roused themselves, and established numerous 

 colleges and grammar schools, thus increasing 

 the competition, and also the facilities for educa- 

 tion. In all the large cities of the colonies there are to be found fine buildings con- 

 nected with the various Churches notably, the Roman Catholic in which the work of 

 higher education is effectively carried on. Some of the most costly and conspicuous edifices 

 in the different .Australian capitals and provincial towns, not devoted to public purposes, 

 are thus used, and the leading colleges of the more important religious denominations are 

 really splendid monuments to the zeal of these bodies in the cause of education. In 

 point of architectural beauty and picturesque situation, the Jesuit College of St. Ignatius, 

 on the Lane Cove River, Sydney, is one of the best examples. In Vi'ctoria, there is no 

 national grammar school ; the great Churches have each established one of their own, 

 and have received grants of land for the purpose. In South Australia, too, the principal 

 grammar schools are ecclesiastical. In Queensland and New Zealand, the people have 

 given their preference to State grammar schools, and in both these colonies provision 

 has been made at the public expense for the higher education of girls as well as of 

 boys. In some of the colonies, provision is made for franking clever children from 

 the primary schools through the higher institutions, and in New South Wales high 

 schools are established at which the education is only half as costly as at the grammar 

 school. It will thus be seen, that there is no absolute uniformity in the grammar-school 

 systems of the different colonies, but in every one of them a first-class education is 

 obtainable at a moderate rate. No young person of good capacity, and with a passion 

 for learning, can want for opportunity. The means are within the reach of all who care 

 to appropriate them. The rising talent of the colony has abundant opportunity for 

 training itself. All the colonies have been liberal, almost lavish, in their educational 

 expenditure, but there is a strong, almost intense, feeling that the chances should be 

 free to the poor as well as to the rich, and that the humblest child who is willing to 



