Paradigm, No. 26 (October, 1998)

In two previous papers in this journal and in a short monograph published by the Textbook Colloquium,¹ I have in some detail examined the elementary readers used from 1896-1965 in schools in the State (before 1901, the Colony) of Victoria. The aim of this paper is to examine the books used from the foundation of the Colony in 1851 until the beginning of the School Paper in 1896, thereby in this and the two previous papers covering the period from the first activities by the State in the elementary field until the Education Department ceased to prescribe readers. During this early period again only two books were used in State schools -- in the majority up to 1875 and in all after that date. Thus we may say that the Colony and State of Victoria had only four readers used in its elementary/primary schools during a period of over a century, a remarkable case of educational stability.

The presentation of the material concerning the two relevant readers will in each case take a threefold form. First, the political, social, economic and educational context within which the text was introduced will be outlined; then the content of each set of readers will be briefly described; finally, suitability and outcomes will be judged.

Context

In mid-1851 Victoria became a separate colony, no longer, as previously, a part of New South Wales (NSW). Administrative chaos reigned in education, but the minimal system inherited from NSW was initially accepted, at least as a temporary measure. In 1848 Governor Fitzroy had established separate National and Denominational Boards; the former, based on the Irish National system, was aimed to encourage locally supported non-denominational schools. These schools were to be Christian, but to avoid all denominational teaching. They were to inculcate literacy, morality and political loyalty, particularly including a respect for the contemporary hierarchical social order. In December, 1851 the Victorian Governor, LaTrobe, established a Board of Commissioners of National Education (BNE) to create and run a National system in Victoria. The few existing National schools adopted from NSW without question the already used textbooks published in Dublin by the Irish National Commissioners, as did many of the schools under the Denominational Board. In 1862 these two Boards were in effect amalgamated under the Board of Education (BofE) by the Common Schools Act. ²

When the Irish Commission of National Education had been set up in 1831 it had to solve the difficult problems of founding a school system in a country riven by religious schism. Its membership included the Anglican (Whately), and the Catholic (Murray) Archbishops of Dublin and a former Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster. It soon drew up a syllabus and in 1831-3 began the preparation of its own text-books. These were approved by all Commissioners before publication. Until 1851 when put out to tender these books were printed by the Commissioners and until the 1860s saw little change; even after then until the 1890s when their use died out no major alterations occurred.³

The graded series of Irish National Readers (INR) formed the core of these text-books. They were well produced, but cheap; thus the Second Reader was sold in Victoria in the late 1850s to National Schools at 5d., to non-National schools at 6d. and to the public at 7d. Their religious content had served the mixed Irish population without great contention and was, therefore, deemed appropriate for the somewhat similarly mixed population of Victoria. The secular content, particularly after Whately, a former Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, contributed several major sections on economic theory,⁴ paralleled the social and economic needs in the rapidly changing Victoria of the Gold Rush era and were seen to be more useful to future workers than much of the previously common religious material.⁵ These books came to be common in schools throughout Victoria.

Content

School readers were miscellanies of prose, descriptive and imaginative, and verse; in the Irish National Readers the proportion was about three parts prose to one of verse. The books were supposedly graded and assumed to be pedagogically sound by contemporary standards. This series was seen as non-denominational, but contained many passing mentions of God, some scriptural history and even theological passages by Cardinal Newman, for example, "Spiritual Blindness" (INR4). There were also, usually in poems, open and implicit moral exhortations to accept socially accepted standards of behaviour, for example, those in Cooper’s "Human Frailty"(INR3).

History was given little space except in poems like Wolfe’s "The Battle of Hohenlinden" (INR3). Ireland, the real target for this series, obviously received special emphasis -- in verse, for example, "Lady Dufferin’s Lament of the Irish Emigrant" and in prose, for instance, "The Seven Churches of Glendalough" (both ESM); there were also some descriptive sections, for example, one on "The Industrial Resources of Ireland" (INR4) and another of 37 pages on "The Christian Antiquities of Ireland" (INR5).

The main section specifically on social structure comprised 46 pages by Whately on Political Economy to be found in M4. This comprised sections entitled: Value; Rich and Poor; Capital; Taxes; and Letting and Hiring. INR5 also had 20 pages on Banks and Life Insurance. These passages aimed to show how the economy worked, but not to disturb students’ acceptance of the existing hierarchical system.⁶ Their spirit was infused with ideas found in a poem by Charles Mackay, "Daily Work" in INR3. Man should do "His daily toil for daily fee" and the worker was seen as he "Who toils as every man should toil/ For fair reward erect and free."

Outcomes

Despite their very obvious origin as text-books aimed to meet the needs of Irish society this series was exported widely. In Victoria there was initially little criticism of these readers and especially was this the case in regard to the religious material. When criticism arose it centred on two areas. The first was pedagogy, Thus, Victorian inspectors criticised the gradation of material.⁷ However, in 1861 the Newcastle Commission in England saw the wide adoption of The Irish National Readers in nearly half English schools as "almost an era in public education", though, in general, English inspectors thought the content of the books was "uninteresting", "desultory" and "dull".⁸ The Revised Code resulting from the Commission’s recommendations did occasion considerable reconsideration of the contents of text-books. Publishers ensured that material was easier and better gradated to enable students to pass the standards upon which teachers’ salaries now largely depended. Yet at the end of the decade Matthew Arnold, an inspector from 1851 to 1886, could write in the Preface of Culture and Anarchy of the "charlatanism and extravagance in the manufacture and supply of our schoolbooks".⁹

The second source of criticism in Victoria related to the unsuitability of the content, not because it was dull, but because

the chapters touching on meteorology and natural history refer to a different hemisphere, much matter is included having an interest only local to Great Britain, and much information is absent which might with advantage be conveyed to colonial scholars through their daily reading lessons.¹⁰

In fact, George Robertson, to become the largest bookseller and publisher in Melbourne, investigated the possibility of publishing text-books in Australia in 1855 and again in 1870, but did not proceed with this plan.¹¹

Thom, the publisher of the Irish National Books, offered to publish readers specially adapted to Australian conditions. Inspector Gilchrist, fortuitously on leave in Britain at the time helped to adapt the current readers. The new versions arrived in Victoria in 1871 and went into use with inspectorial approval.¹² These revisions carried an advertisement saying that they were "better suited than any other series for the use of Colonial youth." The changes, however, were not big. For example, IISM now contained twelve pages on the kangaroo; INK the most revised, gave the first 70 of its 406 pages to Antipodean material, mainly concerning the ‘discovery’ of Australia and New Zealand and also to snakes.

The religious, moral and political aims of the schools were described in the late 1860s in these words,

 

 

Christian duty and policy alike require us never to rest satisfied until the amount of ignorance and vice . . . , which is festering in our populous towns or in the scattered pastoral districts, be brought within the influence of our Common School system.¹³

The reports of the various Boards of Education showed that during this period some three-quarters of all text-books bought by schools were those of the Irish National Commissioners.¹⁴ What effect did these popular texts have? With respect to the moral aim, the moral panic born in the anarchic conditions of the gold-fields in the 1850s had given way by the late-1860s to concern about the developing cities, particularly Melbourne, but any moral improvement was probably as much due to better social conditions as to education. Certainly attendance, a measure of exposure to teaching, rose under the Common School system faster than population from 36,320 in 1862 to 60,520 at the end of 1870.¹⁵ Illiteracy in Victoria, as measured by the percentage of those signing the marriage register with a mark, was in 1870 7.33% for males and 13.97% for females. At the time this was a low figure; comparable rates for England were 21.6 and 30.00 and for Ireland 50.00 for both sexes.¹⁶ Yet Inspector Orlebar in 1857 reported that "of those attending school at least 38 percent of those above eight years of age are unable to read correctly."17 This situation seems to have changed little by 1870 when the average Inspectors’ pass rate, "a fair test of the proficiency of the schools" was 60 percent."18

Probably the safest judgement is that at a time when there were huge administrative problems in a rapidly developing colonial society and when the schools were largely staffed by untrained teachers these books enabled a very slow growth of basic literacy. Above all they did this without causing any religious controversy and this at the time was a very real achievement. But criticism had firmed among educational experts, not among politicians or employers, that the content of these readers was fundamentally unsuited to Victorian schools.

Context

In 1872 an Education Act was passed in Victoria which set up a Department under a Minister of Public Instruction (MPI). One crucial clause enacted that state schools were to be secular in their teaching. This clause had two consequences: first, the Catholics despite great financial sacrifice established a separate system, catering for about one third of the population and, second, the Education Department was always very sensitive to the accusations of non-secular teaching. Robert Ramsay, the first Minister, though somewhat critical of the Irish National Readers on the usual grounds expressed by inspectors initially adopted a policy of no change until a satisfactory alternative was found. In 1875, after "consulting with the heads of the principal grammar schools", an odd source of advice on elementary text-books, he announced his view that the Irish National Readers were "insufficient for the requirements of the colony" and himself decided to prescribe a reading series for all the elementary years in State schools.¹⁹ The chosen series was Nelson’s Royal Readers "with such alterations as may be required to meet the Act." The changes made to achieve suitability were not in the general content, for example, relating to the Australian habitat or history, but were to eliminate religious comment or content that might be deemed not to be secular.

Ramsay was a staunch Presbyterian and knowledgeable of contemporary religious feeling. His aims for the new series were really only different from those relating to the Irish National Readers in one respect, his emphasis on secularity. Though the new series was seen in 1878 by Charles Pearson, later himself to be Minister, as unobjectionable,²⁰ it was written for a Christian culture and hence Christianity was assumed throughout, "God" often being mentioned en passant. The alterations made were very specific; most were in the last two volumes. For example, the original words of a Scottish poem, "The Cotter’s Saturday Night", were slightly altered; Dickens’ tale of ‘little Nell" was cut out as too religious in tone; and a reference to Wycliffe as "the well-known religious reformer" was omitted.²¹

In this way by ministerial decision a new series was introduced for all students compulsorily, albeit "with general approbation from inspectors and teachers",²² the new books met contemporary secular feelings, but little attempt was made to correct any cultural bias in these new text-books, produced as they were in Britain for British students.

Content

The Royal Readers (RR) used much the same style and methods as the Irish National Readers. They contained the usual series of prose passages and of verse. There were line illustrations. The price was reasonably low, but the product was sturdy. There were, however, some important changes. The first related to the aim of literacy. Thus in RR2 there were word tests and questions at the end of passages and RR3-6 contained dictation passages.

There was some attempt to match the chosen material to Antipodean students. The appropriateness of material was further emphasised in 1886 as a result of agitation over the treatment of history in this series. A separate volume for senior classes, called The Empire, was published. Most of the didactic passages on British history were taken out of the basic readers and space created to include some elementary Australian history. The new text was still very Anglo-centred, as indeed was the whole series. RR3 gave 21 of 308 pages to the "discovery" of Australia and RR4 had 49 out of 338 pages on Australian explorers, but the general approach to Australia was that common in Britain: the flora and fauna were "strange and unlike those of other countries" and the Aborigines were "a very wild and savage race".²³ Furthermore, occasionally a quite startlingly non-Austrahan attitude or word usage was displayed. In a passage on rabbits the following sentence occurred, "It is a pretty sight to see wild rabbits running over the fields".²⁴

The secularity of this series as adapted for Victoria has been emphasised here. The type of mention of God permitted can be shown by words from a story, "No Pay, No Work", in which a boy helped an old man and was given no reward except "the approval of God".²⁵ Such passages easily led to moral exhortation and there was much of this in the Royal Readers. Thus in RR2 there was a poem on "Bruce and the Spider" and in RR6 a passage on "The Dignity of Labour".

By the early 1890s feelings about secularity in education had receded and in May 1892 Sir Bernard O’Loughlan, a prominent Catholic layman (ADB), moved in the Legislative Assembly,

That this House views with great sorrow . . . the continuance of the absence of the name of our Lord and Saviour from the State school books and directs the Minister to provide for the issue . . . of such books with the expunged passages restored.

After debate the motion was passed with the substitution of the word "requests" for "directs". Peacock, the Minister, replied that such a series would soon be available.²⁶ The revised versions of RR1-5 were introduced during 1893-4.²⁷ This change, however, was to be overtaken in 1895 by another, the introduction of the School Paper as prescribed reading for elementary classes.

Outcomes

There are the same difficulties as with the Irish National Readers in judging the effects of the Royal Readers. The pass rates for reading in both 1876 and 1890 were nearly the same, 84%, but the population covered was greater as both enrolments and average attendance had risen considerably over these years. Net enrolments rose to 202,681 in 1890, an increase on 1872 of 75.4%; over the same period average attendance rose to 65.5%, an increase of 5.3%.²⁸ These new readers at the very least supported the rate of literacy at a time of massive expansion of the educational system.

Two important social changes made the continuing suitability of the Royal Readers problematic. Firstly, the general feeling about the place of religion in education grew less narrow. When we know how rare had been change in generally prescribed text-books the rapidity with which the restoration of the expunged religious matter was effected in the 1890s was remarkable. It was initiated by a politician and demanded of the experts by the Minister, so that rapid change was possible within the Department.

Some in the 1880s saw moral education as a definite additional need. One commentator, Twopenny, noted in 1883, "Larrikinism is a peculiar danger already well above the horizon, against which we seem powerless to deal." But he also noted that some did connect disorderliness with the secular nature of the curriculum.²⁹ He, however, thought its origins lay outside the schools in lack of parental control. In the 1880s the Education Department reacted to this need in two ways, seemingly appropriate in this context; inspectors emphasised the work of truant officers and in 1889 both the age of compulsion and the number of days to be attended at school was raised. In other words, the Department took no curricular measures.

The second major social change concerned the growing strength of Australian national identity as the colonies moved through the 1890s towards Federation. There had for long been criticism by inspectors of the emphasis on British history and the lack of Australian material in the Royal Readers. This had been met by the small changes mentioned above, but this was a minor problem compared with the appalling ignorance of Victorian teachers of historical material. In 1896 Frank Tate, later the first Director of Education and then a country inspector, spoke of "the scanty nebulous knowledge of this subject shown by the teacher".³⁰

Conclusion

The early 1890s were years of severe economic depression in Victoria. The resources available for education declined. Nevertheless during these economically difficult years, because of discontent over the Royal Readers, there arose the next major change. This was the introduction of the School Paper,³¹ produced within the Department, and destined to be a success. This monthly journal marked a great change in that the Department now became an educational publisher in its own right and no longer an importer and distributor of overseas text-books, a move that matched the nationalism of the Federation years.³²

 1. P. W. Musgrave, 'Readers in Victoria,1895-1968, 1: The School Paper and Children's World' Paradigm, December (1994), pp. 9-22; P. W Musgrave, 'Readers in Victoria, 1895-1968, II: The Victorian Readers'. Paradigm, (May 1995), pp. 1-10. P. W. Musgrave. To be an Australian?, (The Textbook Colloquium, Paradigm Papers 1, 1996).

2. A. G. Austin, Australian Education 1788-1900. Church, State and Public Education in Colonial Australia. 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Pitman, 1965).

3. D. H. Akenson, The Irish Educational Experiment (London: Routledge, 1970), pp. 227-40.

4. J. M. Goldstrom 'Richard Whately and political economy in schoolbooks, 1833-80', Irish Historical Studies (September, 1966) pp. 131-46.

5. J. M. Goldstrom, The Social Content of Education 1808-1870 (Shannon, Irish University Press, 1972).

6. Goldstrom, 1966.

7. Board of Education Reports 1854 and 1855, p. 69 Parliamentary Papers Victoria. Hereafter BofE

8. Royal Commission on Popular Education, 1861, 1, pp. 252-4.

9. Mathew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869), ed. J. Dover Wilson (London, Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 10.

10. BofE, 1869, xiv.

11. J. Holroyd, George Robertson of Melbourne, 1825-1898: Pioneer Bookseller and Publisher (Melbourne, Robertson and Mullens. 1968), p. 20.

12. BofE. 1871, xxix.

13. BofE, 1867-8, p. 13

14. e.g. BofE, 1866, p.24.

15. ME. 1870, xxii.

16. BofE, 1870, ix.

17. Board of National Education Reports I857, p. 68. Parliamentary Papers Victoria. Hereafter CNE.

18. BofE, 1870, xxx.

19. Ministry of Public Instruction Reports, Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1875-76, viii. Hereafter MPI.

20. C. Pearson, State School Books, A Report. Parliamentary Papers Victoria, paper C17, (1877/8) pp. 1-2.

21. Victorian Parliamentary Debates 69 (Melbourne. Government Printer), pp. 282-92. Hereafter VPD.

22. MPI, 1876/7, xvi-xvii

23. Royal Readers, 3, p. 306. Hereafter RR.

24. RR2, p. 42

25. RR3, p. 186.

26. VPD, 69, pp. 282-92.

27. MPI, 18934, xvi.

28. MPI, 1876/7, ix; 18901, v and xvi.

29. R. Twopenny, Town Life in Australia (Ringwood, Penguin, 1983), p. 100.

30. MPI, 1895-6, p. 68

31. Musgrave, 1994.

32. Musgrave, 1997.

---

Paradigm Catalogue Textbook Colloquium