1891. QUEENSLAND. FIFTEENTH REPORT OF THE SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, FOR THE YEAR 1890. PRESENTED TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT BY COMMAND. BRISBANE: BY AUTHORITY: JAMES C. BEAL, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, WILLIAM STREET. C. A. 54-1891. 1891. FIFTEENTH REPORT OF THE SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN QUEENSLAND, BEING FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST DECEMBER, 1890. To His Excellency General Sir HENRY WYLIE NORMAN, Knight Grand Cross of the SIR,-I have the honour to submit to Your Excellency the Report of the GENERAL. 1. This Report deals exhaustively with the educational work carried on contents. under the provisions of "The State Education Act of 1875," and supplies elucidatory summaries of expenditure, attendance, and other items of statistical information, with particulars respecting State scholars who have distinguished themselves by winning scholarships or exhibitions. Minister., 2. My period of office dates from the 12th day of August, 1890, when I change of succeeded the Honourable Charles Powers as Secretary for Public Instruction. system. 3. The chief feature of this fifteenth year of administration under the Act Review of of 1875 has been the thorough examination of our system, and its comparison with systems in vogue in other English-speaking countries, with a view to amendment of acknowledged defects, and a modification of administrative details. 4. The important changes recommended by the Inspectors' Conference of conference. March, 1889, were embodied in a series of new regulations drafted by the Revising Conference of December, 1889, and still remain under consideration, it being fully recognised that alterations in the working of an Act which has produced results of acknowledged merit cannot be too carefully scrutinised. caution. 5. Caution in this respect is the more essential owing to the dawning Need for probability of the establishment at no distant date of a local University, in which case demands will undoubtedly be made for the removal of restrictions in our educational system, in order that a continuity of education may be perfected which shall connect the two extremes of the system-the Infant School and the University. review. 6. Of subjects under immediate consideration-compulsory education, Subjects under kindergarten teaching in Infant Schools, re-arrangement of inspectoral duties, including the appointment of females to discharge that office, and the congested condition of the Brisbane Central Schools, are the most important matters remaining for decision. Compulsory 7. There is a growing desire for the enforcement of the compulsory clauses of the Education Act, and an application will be made to Parliament for the funds clauses. required to provide the machinery necessary to put them in effective operation. When additional legislation is submitted on this point, the present minimum of compulsory attendance-" sixty days at the least in each half-year "-required by the 28th clause of the present Act, must be largely increased. There are two classes of parents for whom stringent legislation on this matter is needed: the apathetic, careless of anything but self-indulgence and freedom from worry; and the brutally selfish, who barter their children's future welfare for the pittance they drive them to earn in the present. The State has a proprietary right in its future citizens, and must take steps to assert it, or accept the responsibility of fostering a social substratum of ignorance, poverty, and crime. There are also, of course, the unhappy waifs and strays 1 |