Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe work of the denominational and national boards of education in Victoria 1850-1862( 1965)Any historian has many difficult decisions to make concerning his choice of material, for the educational historian the problem is no less difficult. Should be concentrate on the complex issue of relations between church and state which influence both education and the life of the whole community, or should he allow his educational interests to anchor him in the classroom itself, and so develop a history of pedagogies which only rarely asks what is happening in the wider community? Should he take some issue, such as teacher training or inspection, and trace it through a period of time, or should he endeavour to see the way in which various activities are carried on in a more limited period? Both these vertical and horizontal views of history are necessary, for without the one history can appear static, and without the other the interaction of various forces can often be ignored.
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ItemThe educational ideas and influence on Victorian education of Dr. John Smyth: principal of the Melbourne Teachers' College, 1902-1927 and the first professor of education in the University of Melbourne, 1918-1927( 1967)Second in authority and influence only to Frank Tate, Dr. John Smyth was uniquely qualified to interpret the ideas of the "New Education" movement for Victorian schools at the turn of the century. Instead of using a biographical approach, this thesis outlines the diverse intellectual backgrounds which together formed the basis of Smyth's ideas. His New Zealand teaching experience coincided with the beginnings of reform there and his understanding of the "New Education" was deepened through study in Germany and Scotland from 1895 to 1901. German demands for realism in education; kindergartens and the theories of Froebel and Pestalozzi; the new techniques of Herbart and Rein; the establishment of teacher-training as a legitimate function of the university; and the beginnings of experimental psychology at Leipsic, were experienced by Smyth at first hand. The philosophy of Neo-Idealism which he espoused explains his ability to synthesize conflicting elements of the complex "New Education" movement. These major influences can be seen as the thesis examines Smyth's impact on Victorian education as Principal of the Melbourne Teachers' College (1902-27) and as the first Professor of Education at the University of Melbourne (1918-27). Separate chapters develop Smyth's attitudes to teacher-training and the College's growth under his control; his direct responsibility for the creation of the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria and the improvement of Infant Schools; his idealistic philosophy translated into practice in the rural schools; and the significant contributions he made to the development of a School of Education at the University of Melbourne. A final assessment of Smyth the man reveals him as an intensely religious, dedicated educationist who had a lasting impact on the pattern of Victorian education. His relationship with Frank Tate emerges as that of an idealistic reformer unable to accept happily the limitations of compromise forced on Tate, the shrewd administrator, by a political and economic climate hostile to any but utilitarian educational reforms. Whilst Smyth’s educational ideas were not always fully implemented, the part he played in a period of educational history hitherto dominated by the name of Tate cannot be ignored. His intellectual stature and his actual accomplishments mark him as a key figure in our understanding of the development of Victorian education.
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ItemThe development of junior technical education in Victoria, 1868-1966( 1967)In 1851, alluvial gold was discovered in large quantities in Victoria and the men of the colony flocked to the rich fields believing that wealth could be gained with the minimum of effort. In the first few months about half the male population of Victoria gathered on the fields while the news of the rich strikes soon brought more diggers from across the Murray River and from Van Diemen's land.
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ItemOrigins of the Victorian Apprenticeship Commission: a history of apprenticeship regulation in Victoria 1896-1927( 1970)By the eighteen nineties, factory methods had encouraged looseness or avoidance of apprenticeship contracts. The improver system, under which employers were not responsible for teaching, flourished. Youths grew up insufficiently skilled to command full tradesman's pay, thus threatening adult jobs and wages. In 1896, following anti-sweating agitation, wages boards were established to determine minimum rates and maximum numbers of juveniles in certain seriously exploited trades. By 1900, this system was extended to other trades, but the minimum duration of apprenticeship contracts was set at only one year. Because employers resented limitation, wages boards in 1903 lost the power to fix the proportion of apprentices; but in compensation an apprentice was redefined as one bound to be taught for at least three years. Nevertheless, without adequate means of training, adequate definition of trade skills, or an adequate tribunal, the situation remained unsatisfactory. Trade classes were developed to supplement workshop experience, but they had little effect. In 1907 a Conference recommended that an Apprenticeship Commission take control of certain skilled trades and establish the numbers to be admitted as apprentices, their wages, and the goals and methods of their training, including technical education. Improvers would be excluded from those trades. Although wages boards gained power to prescribe indentures in 1909, and regained their limitation powers in 1910, when Bills to establish a Commission were presented in 1911 and 1912, both the form of the proposals and the antagonism of employers resulted in their rejection. A second Conference in 1911 recommended that apprenticeship be left to the wages boards. Between 1911 and 1921, the Federal Arbitration Court improved apprenticeship conditions in some trades; the technical school system developed its capacity, especially in preparatory work; and a Repatriation Training Scheme adopted organisational machinery similar to that proposed in 1907.
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ItemA history of technical education in Australia: with special reference to the period before 1914( 1966)In this thesis the attempts of colonial man to adapt to his environment and to train the young worker, the artisan and the technologist are discussed. Initially education in the form of practical training was merely an aspect of charitable beliefs or intellectual presumptions. The colonies relied in the main on obtaining their needed skills from overseas. But, especially after the gold rushes, indigenous technological challenges arose to which pragmatic educational response was made. Thus the transition from the mechanics’ institutes, largely agents of ‘improving’ purpose, to the schools of mines, ostensibly dedicated to the service and advancement of colonial industry. Technical education however was retained, throughout its history in Australia, a strong ideological component. Its most effective real contribution, in the period before 1914 at least, was in the field of opening opportunity to the socially and educationally underprivileged; but the general insistence was on its immediate industrial relevance. This latter was largely an illusion, but it served to nurture the technical schools while they performed multi-functional tasks and developed as poor men’s grammar schools. The hey-day of technical education in Australia was between 1880 and 1900, when it became a cause which appealed to free-traders, protectionists, the labor movement, the manufacturers, the nation-builders and many other important social groups. In this period it became a means of liberating the potential of democratic man, and thus a prime plank in the liberal platform. But after 1900 the vision became narrower, and technical education became increasingly identified with the concepts of ‘national destiny’, man as a social unit, and educational specialisation. Instead of being a vehicle for the concept of undifferentiated man, it became an excuse for a narrow and rigorous view of individual function. By 1914 the anti-liberal educational revolution had been achieved, and education in general, and technical education in particular, was henceforward conceived as being subservient to the objects of a modern industrial society. But public response was fickle, and the will to plan an industrial economy, and the educational system such an economy demanded, fluctuated. We are still affected by the ambivalent nature of the origins of technical education, still not clear in our own minds as to what our own responsibilities to the development of our own country are.
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ItemThe Point Puer experiment: a study of the penal and educational treatment of juvenile transportees in Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1850( 1954)This work is intended to present the results of research into the transportation of juveniles to Van Diemen's Land. Much of the study of necessity was centred around the station at Point Puer, the establishment for boy convicts, an adjunct of Port Arthur, which was opened in 1834. The foundation of this station reflected the perceptible evolution in the character of transportation, which coincided with changes in the relationship of the Mother Country with the colonies. Even by the mid-thirties, convicts were no longer acceptable to the colonies as human junk. The colonies, and Van Diemen's Land in particular, were increasingly demanding that, if convicts were to be admitted at all, it should be on their terms and not Britain's. Point Puer illustrates this state of affairs in two particulars. First, the emphasis was henceforth to be placed on reformation, and the reformation of youth as being the material most likely to benefit the colony. Secondly, the British Government began to modify the transportation system by the "free emigration" scheme, usually associated with the notorious "Pentonvillains", after 1840. The reformation of youthful offenders for citizenship in a new and pioneering society was an ideal stressed by several experienced leaders associated with the transportation system in the thirties. With this end in view, Booth outlined the procedure at the Point, for which he was largely responsible, in his report to the Lieutenant Governor in 1837. The reformative process was designed to centre round three aspects: religious, mechanical, and scholastic training. These were, he stressed, the three skills necessary for a balanced character.
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ItemThe educational work of the Presentation Sisters in Victoria, 1873-1960( 1965)The general aim of this study is to examine the activities of one congregation of religious teachers, the Presentation Sisters, in one state, Victoria. Within such a small world it is possible to recognise in very human terms the working out of forces set in motion by political procedures, developments which in a more general history would be dismissed in one or two rather abstract statements. Who would expect to find more than a brief reference to Dr. James Francis Corbett in a general history of formal education in Australia? Such trifles as the names and the fortunes of the nuns caught up in the stream of events would be too infinitesimal to be considered, except in so far as, for better or for worse, in some vague, shadowy way they helped maintain a system of independent schools. It is the human element that interests the writer most – the impact of events on people of certain character and temperament, the interaction of widely differing personalities, the emergence of leaders, the formation of opinions, the movements towards decisions, the careful plans, the apparently haphazard developments. The specific aims of the study are to provide a record of the work of the Presentation Sisters in Victoria from 1873 to 1960, and to show how far latter day trends, within the Congregation, are explained by its history. The framers of policy in 1873 could not envisage the scene of 1960, yet that scene can be interpreted only in terms of the forces set in motion during the early years. Those forces have gathered momentum and have resulted in the development of distinctive characteristics in the Victorian convents. Amalgamation is an interesting case in point. The two oldest foundations, Presentation Convent, Windsor, dating from 1873, and Star of the Sea, Gardenvale established in 1885, had their roots in Limerick and Kildare respectively. These Irish houses, though essentially the same, developed as separate foundations with strong local traditions. By 1960, however, there are twenty four Victorian convents amalgamated under on Mother General resident at O’Neill College, Elsternwick. Parallel to this development is the process of adaptation, as essentially European traditions have been reinforced, modified or completely changed, under the impact of the Victorian educational environment over a period of nearly one hundred years. This is not to imply that amalgamation and acculturation are developments peculiar to the Australian communities, but merely to point the fact that certain characteristics may be explicable only in terms of the Victorian educational scene. The phrase “certain characteristics’ calls for emphasis. As a religious order working within the Catholic Church in five continents, the congregation must be viewed within this wider context if its Victorian story is to have any real significance. Valuable data preserved in the archives of the twenty four Victorian Houses : there are many senior nuns who lived with the Foundresses of the earlier established houses, and who are well informed about the origin and growth of the Congregation in Victoria. As yet, no systematic attempt has been made to assemble this information for the benefit of the younger members of the communities. It is the writer’s sincere wish that this first effort may open the way for further research. This work is presented in two parts. Each chapter of Part I deals with a major chronological period: Part II is concerned with major developments in the schools, therefore each chapter cuts across the chronological periods.