OPENING OF DOMINICAN SISTERS TRAINING COLLEGE
AT WATSON, CANBERRA, A. C. T. ON SUNDAY,
24+ TH MARCH, 1963.
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies
Mr. Chairman, Your Grace, My Lord Bishops, Mother Philomena,
Your Excellencies and Ladies and Gentlemen
The other day I was opening something in Canberra
and I forgot to open it. ( Lau ghter' The following day my wife
went down to a country town in Victoria in which she was born;
she took advantage of this by saying, " I won't follow the evil
example of my husband. I declare this whatever it was) open,"
and so till be prudent. I have great pleasure in declaring this
Training College open. ( Applause)
It is indeed a very happy event. There have been
references in the world of late to various ecumenical movements.
What could be more ecumenical than to have a Presbyterian Prime
Minister opening this Teachers' Training College ( Laughter) and
feeling very honoured to be allowed to do it.
The Archbishop who began life by being a scholar, and
has ended up by being a considerable builder, occasionally comes
to sec me. He is always charming; we are on the best of terms
and when he has left, I find myself almost invariably conducting
a violent alterca!, ion with the Treasury ( Laughter) ( Applause).
But it wouldn't be for me to say to him he being a great scholar
and profoundly interested in the problems of education in Australiathat
there are perhaps three aspects of this matter, two of which
are very well known and are considerably well understood and the
third of which is occasionally overlooked,
First of all, if you are going to have a great
expansion of educational facilities in the country you must have
buildings. We are in a splendid one today. Buildings bricks
and mortar, as they used to say. And then you must have equipmentnot
easy to come by, increasingly more expensive particularly on
the scientific side. And, of course, to have both of those you
must have money. Qu~ ite a few people, when they have covere. those
three items, think they have dealt with the problem and yet they
are not the most difficult of the problems, though they are not
easy. They are not easy because none of these things is in
illimitable supply; but with a struggle with some sacrifice,
with some enthusiasm1 with some joint eflort yes, money can be
found, but the remaining constituent is not so easily found:
trained and devoted and competent teachers. You may have all the
money and all the bricks and mortar in the world and provide, as
you think facilities for more and more thousands of people but
all you will do will be to conduct education on a declining level
of standards unless you meet this paramount requirement of people
who are teachers and I use that word in the broadest sense.
And what is a good teacher?
A good teacher must have, of course, skill and
skill will be acquired by study. " Jo have long since got past the
time I hope, when a university professor or a university lecturer
might be found using the notes he prepared twenty yoars before;
and yet I'va known that in my own time. There is to be a constant
study, a constant improvement of knowledge if skill is to be
equal to the task. There must also be and this is sometimes 9 as ./ 2
2
overlooked a groat capacity to expound, to impart, the
teaching faculty sometimes denied to the greatest of scholars;
the capacity for conveying to students, to pupils, what it is
the teacher desires them to understand and to remember. But
above all these things again, there must be a sense of vocation.
Teaching is not just a job. Any teacher who said, " Well, this
is a job and V1ll do it; I'll observe the rules and no more,"
would be a poor teacher. The sense of vocation and this,
Your Grace, is so admirably illustrated by so many I see here
today this sense of vocation is, I believe, of supreme
importance. I can hardly imagine any civil occupation, if
I may use a vory rough division, so important as the work of
teaching. This is a tremendous responsibility, a great
challenge, a wonderful chance to make a powerful contribution
to the fuure of the country; and when, as in the case of
so many of you, the civil merges with the religious so that
it gets the background of profound religious belief and you
pursue the vocation of teaching, thon I believe we have
something very remarkable which I, for one, hope will never
disappear from Australia. ( Applause)
Another thing I should perhaps say to you is
this. This college is being opened in the national capital;
the national capital of a nation in which the national feeling
has yet to reach its complete flowering; of a nation in
which even now too much we are inclined to be parochial, local
in our views and in our attitudes. One of the proofs to the
world of the fall national growth of Australia is being now
built around us a national capital which is, in physical
terms, going ahead by leaps and bounds. I never cease to be
astonished, day by day, at the signs of growth all around
me, But not a national capital destined, as so many are,
to be a centre of commerce, a centre of activities of the
ordinary mercantile sort, although they will come more and
more, but a capital increasingly designed to be a centre of
education, a centre of theaffairs of the spirit, a place in
which great authorities in the various churches will be found,
in which a great university will become greater and greater,
a capital in which, as time goes on schools will grow in
a setting of beauty and although ther e is not much at the
moment in the vicinity of the Lnke, it is going to be an
enormous centre of beauty by the time we are a few years older.
In a setting of beauty, this capital will develop
as something quite unlike any other city of its kind in
Australia and will therefore draw men's minds and eyes to it;
it will increasingly remind the people of Australia that they
are a nation first and foremost and that this capital, the
centre of government, a centre of religion, a centre of
education, a centre of all kinds of things that cater for
the higher reaches of the human mind, is to be looked at and
admired and regarded as setting an example to the whole of the
people of Australia, Now, it is because I believe that that
it has been my pleasure to lend considerable support to the
National Capital Development Commission under the brilliant
leadership of Mr. Overall ( Applause). It is for that reason
that my colleagues and I have for years past, realised that
a rapidly-growing capital proauces uncommon problems and that
just as they have produced unconrion problems for the State
so they have produced uncommon problems for the Church, as
the Archbishop knows he has already indicated that he hasn't
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finished with mc ( Laughter) and I have never believed for one
moment that he had. But it is for that roason setting aside
the unhappy controversies that occur here and 1here, that we,
in this place, have a responsibility in such a rapidly-growing
community to help the work of education in all its fields in
this Territory ( Applause) and it has been a groat privilege
to do it, Now I want to say no more~ thnn that, Sir. I have
given you, in a very imperfect way, some of my reaso) ns for
having a genuine pleasure in being here this afternoon. It
is a really great occasion, a splendid occasion and whatever
branchi of the Christian Church we may belong to, we must all
thank God that the work of the Church goes on and that it will
provide what to me is the essential and inevitable background
of a civilised instructional and educational course. So I
say I am glad lobe here. I have declared this College open
with great satisfaction. I wish you all well. I thank you
for all the work you have done in the past and in anticipation,
I thank you for all the work you are going to do in the
future.