Part 8 (1/1)
This is not all Australia! Let us prize Our grand inheritance! Had sunny Greece More light, low, more freedom, or more mirth?
Ours are wide vistas bathed in purest air-- Youth's outdoor pleasures, Age's indoor peace-- Where could we find a fairer home on earth Which we ourselves are free to make more fair?
Just as years before my interest had been kindled in the establishment of our systeher education, so uration of the Froebel systely toafter the necessity for expert teaching in prinised, when the training of the infant mind was left to the least skilled assistant on the staff of a school With the late Mr J A
Hartley, whose theory was that the earliest beginnings of education needed even greater skill in the teacher than the higher branches, I had long regarded the policy as ed all that, and the training of tiny arded as of equal irowth South Australia owes its free kindergarten to the personal initiative and private est son of the late Hon G C Hawker I had already arten work of, Miss Nehen in Sydney, and was delighted when she accepted Mr Hawker's invitation to inaugurate the syste Septearded as a special visitation of educational experts, for, in addition to Miss Newton, the directors of education from New South Wales and Victoria (Messrs G H Knibbs and F Tate) took part in the celebrations Many interesting arten Union My niece, Mrs J P
Morice, was appointed hon secretary, and I beca the union I was proud of the fact that I was the first arten has co into an integral part of our systeress of the movement, and feel that the future itness the realization of arten to the University, as outlined in articles I wrote for The Register at that time
CHAPTER XXIV
THE EIGHTIETH MILESTONE AND THE END
On October 31, 1905, I celebratedto a friend, I said:--”I entered htieth year on Monday, and I enjoy life as much as I did at 18; indeed, intook place in the schoolroom of the Unitarian Church, the church to which I had owed soof the dark shadows of ious beliefs Surrounded by friends who had taken their share in the development of my beloved State, I realized one of the happiest times of my life I had hoped that the celebration would have helped the cause of effective voting, which had been predominant in my mind since 1859 By my interests and work in so many other directions--in literature, journalision--which had been testified to by so many notable people on that occasion, I hoped to prove that I was not a mere faddist, who could be led away by a chimerical fantasy I wanted the world to understand that I was a clear-brained, co and other political questions were as worthy of credence as her work in other directions had been worthy of acceptance The greetings of my many friends froht so much joy to me that there was little wonder I was able to conclude ” with the lines:--
With eighty winters o'er
Full as rowth and developood share of my attention
The heated controversies in theof the Rev R J Calad to be able to support in pulpit and newspaper the stand ht How changed the outlook of the world froical habit, from which no departure could be permitted!
The laxity ofWe haveaway fro theood, use of our Sundays as we id Sabbatarianism of our ancestors and the absolute waste of the day of rest inthe secularizing of Sunday Not only is churchgoing perfunctory or absent, but in all ranks of life there is a disposition to make it a day of rest and amusement--sometimes the amusement rather than the rest Sunday, the Sabbath, as Alex McLaren pointed out to iven to us
”Behold, I have given you the Sabbath!” For what? For rest for man and beast, but also to be a ress--a day for not only wearing best clothes, but for reading our best books and thinking our best thoughts I have often grieved at the sations in other churches no less than in e that those ere absent from church were not necessarily otherell employed I derived so much pleasure from the excellent and cultured ser his terht gain equally fro the young people a finer conception of the duties of citizenshi+p, which, if not finding expression in church attendance, may develop in some way that will be noble and useful to society
In the ue had been rather at a standstill Mrs Young's illness had caused her resignation, and until she again took up the work nothing further was done to help Mr
Cooan a vigorous caanda as being carried into all parts of the State Although I was then 83, I travelled to Petersburg to lecture to a good audience On the sa at Mount Galy The last great effort was h the newspaper ballot of September, 1909, when a public count of about 10,000 votes was co The difficulties that were supposed to stand in the way of a general acceptance of effective voting have been entirely swept away
Tasmania and South Africa have successfully demonstrated the practicability, no less than the justice, of the systeet to the bedrock of the objections raised to its adoption, and we find that they exist only in the minds of the politicians the, and I believe the time to be near when they will deislature in the world The one too far to be checked, and the electoral unrest which is so common all over the world will eventually find expression in the best of all electoral syste the many friends I had made in the other States there was none I admired more for her public spiritedness than Miss Vida Goldstein I have been associated with her on many platforreat, but there is little doubt that her chief work lies in helping wo for her sex Although I was the first woman in Australia to become a Parliamentary candidate, Miss Goldstein has since exceeded my achieve her visit here last May-June as a delegate to the State Children's Congress that she inaugurated the Women's Non-party Political association, which is apparently a growing force In a general way the ai resemblance to those of the social students' society, ed to the earlier association It was a hopeful sign toitschiefly in the interests of women and children Of this Society also I became the first President, and the fact that on its platform was included proportional representation was an incentive for me to work for it The education of women on public and social questions, so that they will be able to work side by side with the opposite sex for the public good will, I think, help in the solution of social probleress In addition to other literary work for the year 1909 I was asked by Miss Alice Henry to revise my book on State children in order to make it acceptable and applicable to A, but I think successful The book, as originally written had already done good work in Western Australia, where the conditions of infant land also; and there is ample scope for such a work in America, which is still far behind even the most backward Australian State in its care for dependent children
As a President of three societies, a Vice-President of two others, a member of two of the most important boards in the State for the care of the destitute, the deserted, and the dependent, with a correspondence that touches on many parts of the Empire, and two continents besides, with ood literature still unimpaired, withfor the infants under the care of the State Inspector--I find enarian more varied in its occupations and interests than ever before Looking back fro vista of years, nu upwards of four-fifths of a century, I rejoice at the progress the world has made Side by side with the development of my State my life has slowly unfolded itself My connection with many of the reforms to which is due this develop) oftentimes helpful While other States of the Commonwealth and the Doress, none has eclipsed the rapid growth of the State to which the steps of rowth has been more remarkable, because it has been primarily due to its initiation of many social and political reforms which have since been adopted by other and older countries ”Australia, lead us further,” is the cry of reforh A the birthplace of the more modern theory of land values taxation, I rejoice that South Australia was the first country in the world with the courage and the foresight to adopt the tax on land values without exe behind Tas, as the only scientific systee The fact that South Australia has been the happy hunting ground of the faddist has frequently been urged as a reproach against this State Its more patriotic citizens will rejoice in the truth of the statement, and their prayer will probably be that not fewer but lorious inheritance beneath the Southern Cross to higher and nobler heights of physical and human development than civilization has yet dreamed of or achieved The Utopia of yesterday is the possession of today, and opens the way to the Utopia of to- the people fro the toith ed down by poverty,its shadow over the future of Australia; but there is hope in the fact that a new generation has arisen untra the experience of older countries before it, and benefiting froreater opportunities afforded by a new country, gives pro the solution of the hitherto unsolved proble country life as attractive to the oes on the effect of education enerations that are to cohtened and more altruistic, and the tendency of the world will be her and nobler conceptions of hue of progress Born in ”the wonderful century,” I have watched the growth of theof the masses, froe As a member of a church which allooives womanhood a vote for the assembly, a citizen of a Commonwealth which fully enfranchises me for both Senate and Representatives, and aUniversity degrees on women, I have benefited from the advancement of the educational and political status of women for which the Victorian era will probably stand unrivalled in the annals of the world's history I have lived through the period of repressed childhood, and witnessed the dawn of a new era which has e” the most irowth of Adelaide from the condition of a scattered hamlet to that of one of the finest cities in the southern hemisphere; I have seen the evolution of South Australia froreat Coh my life I have tried to live up to the best that was in me, and I should like to be remembered as one who never swerved in her efforts to do her duty alike to herself and her fellow-citizens Mistakes I have made, as all are liable to do, but I have done my best And when life has closed for me, let those who knew me best speak and think of me as One who never turned her back, but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break, Never drea would triuht better, Sleep to wake
No nobler epitaph would I desire