PARLIAMENTARY (/ 0P 4
LAUNCHING OF NEW FIVE-YEAR APPEAL
BY GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
GEELONG, VICTORIA 24 FEBRUARY 1969
Speech by the Prime Minister, Mr. John Carton
Mr. Southey, Mr. Headmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen:-
It is not a sacrifice, Sir, but a pleasure for my wife and
I to have been asked tonigTht to attend such a cheerful and, in a way, such
a nostalgic gathering. Indeed, it is' such a cheerful gathering that I am
touched with a little wand of doubt as to whether everybody here knows
precisely why it is they have been asked: But fortunately speaking of
course politically it is not for me to tell you, but for those who are to
speak later. I think the function that has been assigned to me, which I
notice has been said to be going to take twenty minutes, but which in fact
is going to take very much less, is to take your minds for a moment off
what those who follow me will say and to use an American football term
run interference. I said " a cheerful and a nostalgic gathering", and it is
nostalgic for me to stand here again in this vaulted hall which seems
to have changed very little, except for being elongated a little bit, since
the time when I sat here as a very small boy and was very lucky if I got
a slice of toast at breakfast as a mark of favour from one of those
handmaidens who used to wait upon us. If you got one, you knew you were
right, that she rather liked you that day. Otherwise you didn't get toast
at all. But not only does the nostalgia come from the hall itself or
from the portraits that one sees hanging opposite one here. I have seen
three headmasters of this school. Admittedly I had a brief acquaintance
with the first. But I remember him wiell, for it was he who did his best
to have me expelled at an early stage from this school. It was for what
I still believe was the relatively mild misdemeanour of having brought
down from my home a 25/ 50 Browning automatic with a full clip of
cartridges, which I was accustomed to use in the bucolic glades of Mystic
Park, and which I had no intention of using upon him or upon any master
or any boy: But it appeared to him, coming as he did from England, that
the discovery of such a lethal weapon in a locked cupboard to which,
incidentally, he should not have had a key was something which deserved
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the gravest condemnation. However, he was argued out of his intentions
and subsequently left, with no bullet holes anywhere around him, and was
superseded by the headmaster whom I suppose most of us here know, Mr.
R. Darling. Trhat was the second headmaster that I knew. Mr. Garnett
, is the third. It is my hope, and my belief, that in the years which lie
ahead of this school there will be portrait after portrait around the walls
of this great hall. And perhaps in another hundred years there will be
an indication, through those portraits, of the progress which this school
has made, just as there is an indication for those who knew the school in
the time of Dr. Brown, in the time of Dr. Darling, and now in the time of
Dr. Garnett, of the progress which has been made in the last twenty-five
or thirty years. I believe it is essential that such progress should be made
by independent schools in Australia. There are three main reasons why
I say this. We have always, I think, believed that there was a democratic
right for parents, if they were prepared to make some sacrifice themselves,
to choose the type of school to which they would send their children. They
should not be denied by any act or any law or any economic action of those
in power the opportunity always provided they would help to pay for it
themselves to choose that form of education for their children which
they believed would suit their children best.
This exercise of a democratic right is so wound up with
oreducational system and should continue to be so wound up with it
tat I myself regard it as one of the most important facets of education
W in this nation of Australia.
Secondly, Sir, there is an educational advantage in this.
By that I do not mean that this or any other school of this type is at any
9 tshpee csitfaicte . t imIe d ob entotet rm feitatend t htoat eadtu aclalt. e tIht em yaoyu nbge thaint misa ya sncoht oboel. ruInt dbeyp endsi
on the headmaster. It depends on the staff. It depends, in the case of a I
state school,* equally on the headmaster and the staff.
Nor do I mean that all new educational advances come from
schools such as this, because they don't. But. what I do mean is that when
there are two educational systems side by side, when there are schools tLtt
are run by the state and when there are schools that are run as this school'
is run, then there is more room for experiments in educational attitudes,
in educational methods, and there is less likelihood of bureaucratic control
of all curricula and education. Indeed it is this competition, if that is the
word, and I think perhaps it is, not in the sense of competition in the markel
place, but in the sense of competition for excellence which spurs both thel
state and the private school to the benefit of both. I: / 3
Were there but one system of education, were we to have
a system such as I am told exists in France where a Minister for Education
can, at a given moment, say, ttffi every school in France at this hour of
eleven o'clock in the morning, the third form is being read to from page
649 of the second volume of Proust" then we would indeed be in danger
of having a monolithic system. A monolithic system can be moribund.
One in competition cannot. And these are the educational advantages that
schools such as this bring to the community.
Thirdly, of course, though having been a parent I know it
is difficult for parents to understand, there is an economic advantage
not of course to those who have children going through the school at a
particular time, but to the community at large. Because if all those -who
attend this and other schools such as this throughout Australia were
tomorrow to have the doors shut to them, and be required to go to state
schools, then this would be impossible. The bill to be paid would be so
great that school fees would seem as nothing in comparison to the taxes
which would be placed upon you. Thirdly, therefore, there is this economic
advantage. Sir, this school is one with a long and distinguished record.
It has been a beneficiary in certain ways from Commonwealth Government
schemes and State Government schemes, but what it has also done is
something which the Chairman mentioned. It has sent out from its portals
graduates, not only to one state of this country but to Queensland, Western
Australia, Tasmania, South Australia to the whole of the nation of
Australia and they have come back here tonight from all corners of the
land to the one part of the nation which gave them education.
Perhaps this happens in other schools too. I believe it does.
I believe it will happen more and more, but it is another great advantage.
I believe that, through this medium, there should be a national outlook able
the more easily to be disseminated than would be the case perhaps in some
other schools. Now, it is not for me to talk any longer. It is for those who
are to follow me now to speak to you, but I do conclude by saying this.
Those of you who know the young of today, the young at any school, the
young perhaps at this school and those of you who know them well would
probably not, most of you, describe them by the word " meek". Certainly,
the ones I have run across could not be so described. But, Sir, meek or
not, they will inherit Australia, and they will do the better for this nation, 1K
and for the children they will bear tQ you as grandchildren, if they are
given every possible facility for education which this nation or this school
or you yourselves can provide.
It is as true today as it was true when Disraeli said in the
19th century of England that " upon the education of this country the fate of
this country depends", and it is upon the contributions that schools such as
this make to education, that the education of this country depends. That is
why tonight, with some nostalgia and great affection, I am so honoured to
have been asked to speak to you for a short time. I thank you.