224 Australian Life 



the courses in such subjects as assaying and min- 

 ing engineering are of sterling practical worth. 

 To these schools Australia owes the very 

 thorough and up-to-date methods of mining in 

 practice on all the more important gold-fields. 

 Indeed, education in Australia has a basis that is 

 nothing if not practical and commercial. At the 

 universities, this side is ever uppermost, the ma- 

 jority of the students attending lectures for the 

 sole purpose of qualifying for professions. As far 

 as the men students are concerned, this statement 

 has almost a universal application: their object 

 is to obtain the necessary degree as quickly as 

 possible, and to begin at once the practice of some 

 profession. Some of the women students who sit 

 in the same lecture-rooms are probably less com- 

 mercial in their pursuit of knowledge, and in 

 them the professions find their ideal pupils, who 

 follow learning for learning's sake alone. But if 

 the Australian universities are hampered in their 

 aspirations by the practical and utilitarian nature 

 of the young community in which they exist, it 

 must also be said that they make little or no 

 effort to reach the classes who might be inspired 

 by a genuine desire for higher education. They 

 exercise as little influence as could be expected 

 from conservative institutions in a democratic 

 community, and have become strangely out of 

 sympathy with Australian life and Australian 

 ideals. 



The Australian Press is an educational force 



