Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemJohn Thomas Lawton (1878-1944): biography of an educational and social reformer( 1978)John Thomas Lawton (1878-1944) was a pioneer of progressive education in Australia. His school, St. Andrew’s College, Kew, (1921-1933) trained a generation of students into new ideals in education of truth, individual freedom and self-government. Through his school, Lawton sought social reconstruction, following the trauma of World War I. He was convinced that human nature is perfectible in an imperfect society and that the youth of the country must assert their strength against the demands of industrial society with its exploitation and materialism. Apart from his educational experiment of the Twenties, Lawton was a broad social reformer with radical views. He was quick to espouse the new psychology from Germany and America and the social idealism from Britain, Europe and America. His originality lay not in the ideas but in his application of these in the emerging Australian nation. As a Presbyterian minister, his radicalism led to serious opposition from his clerical colleagues and a personal disillusionment. To some extent he withdrew from direct involvement with the Workers’ Co-operative Movement and the Movement Against War and Fascism. He took the stance of a Christian Socialist and avoided all contact with the Communist Party of Australia in order to keep his Ministry. Lawton came from a strict Presbyterian pioneering family in an isolated bush setting of the Western District of Victoria. He was a product of the 1872 Education Act, precariously implemented by consistent community pressure to open a school in the area. He suffered the repressions and stern social and family conventions of the Victorian era in Australia and his childhood presents us with the curious mixture of freedom and independence, physical hard work and initiative and a mother's driving ambition for her children to escape the harsh and alien environment which held little future for her large family. Lawton responded to his mother's ambition, excelled scholastically as a pupil-teacher and pursued his studies in Melbourne. Lawton's own personal drive and ambition can surely be traced to his bush childhood. He was consistent in his ideals but moved readily and somewhat impatiently into new areas of social reform. His educational experiment lasted only eleven years and he soon realised that social reform through education is necessarily a long term proposition. Returning to the Ministry, he took up new causes for peace and social and fiscal reform. He died relatively young during the Second World War. Lawton was earnest and sincere, strong willed and, at times, dogmatic. His commanding stature and eloquence of speech and manner made it possible to attract a large following of forward-thinking people of all social classes and, although he did not live long enough to see the fruits of his labour, his influence can be clearly discerned to-day in those who knew him and in the better society which has developed from the past.