ANYONE WHO WENT TO SCHOOL ANYWHERE CAN RELATE
TO THESE TALESby Alex McAndrew
POTTED HISTORIES OF 2O BUSH SCHOOLS AND TWO TOWN SCHOOLS (MILTON & ULLADULLA)
REGIONAL HISTORY/EDUCATION: STORIES OF SCHOOLDAYS IN BUSH & TOWN SCHOOLS FROM 1860 TO 1940 FEATURING CONDITIONS OF LONG AGO, INQUIRIES HELD INTO COMPLAINTS ABOUT TEACHERS, PAROCHIAL ATTITUDES OF SOME PARENTS.
ANYONE WHO WENT TO SCHOOL ANYWHERE CAN RELATE
TO THESE TALES
148 A4 PAGES LIMP COVER
MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS INCLUDING 60 PHOTOS
Empire Day, Milton 1910
On Saturday September 8 1894 the Ulladulla & Milton Times featured this letter about the Milton Public School : I am sure there are many parents in this district like myself who are anxious to know if the present state of things is going to continue at our school, the same as it has been for the last two months. [Mr Robert Ashworth had taken up duty from the start of July, so it was obvious that he was the target of the salvo to be fired.] Sending our children to school now has become nothing less than a farce. For days they were not taken into school for lessons, only for roll call. So the register will look fair and square when the Inspector comes along. Just you fancy a day like last Monday was, and our children not taken into school, but allowed to remain in the playground out in the rain, and those heavy showers that fell so often ! It seems to me that this public servant, the schoolmaster, places a very low estimate on the value and the health and the lives of our children to dare to let them remain out in such weather, whilst he made himself very conspicuous by staying in the house and not in school. Sir, surely, if it is not too much trouble to send our children to school, it ought not to be too much trouble to expect this well-paid official to teach them. Then, again on Tuesday it was not till one of our leading storekeepers drew his attention to the fact he had sent his children home, for it was just on 10 o'clock and raining that the children were taken into school. And this is not the first time that parents have had to take their children home. There is one other matter I would like to refer to. I noticed in last week's issue a suggestion from your own pen to arrange an Arbor Day for our new cemetery [this refers to Mollymook dedicated in 1893]. May I be permitted to add the name of our school to that, for I feel sure that this overworked public servant, after the worry and anxious care of our children all the week, has to turn to on Sunday and chop his wood, dig the garden, and lop the public trees planted on our late Arbour Day. It was only the other Sunday that a pupil of the school was struggling for life against that terrible disease diphtheria, when the stillness of the Sabbath was unblushingly broken by our public teacher as he vigorously used his axe. When his scholar [perhaps named Pickering ?] asked who was chopping wood on Sunday, he had to be told it was his teacher! Trusting that some abler pen than mine will take this matter up when they see the injustice done to our children and the public, and thanking you, Sir, in anticipation for allowing me space in your columns,
Yours faithfully, An Observant Parent Milton, September 5th 1894.
Once again the teacher, Robert Ashworth, was officially asked to comment :
The letter signed "Observant Parent" was not evaded in my earlier report. I referred to it as "One huge libel". I did not think it needed a detailed reply, because it is written under the cover of an alias. I had already demanded from the proprietor of the "Milton Times" the real name of the author with view to his prosecution for slander. The name of Jethro Springall was given me. Legal proceedings are out of the question, since, if I take action, win or lose, the costs must be borne by myself, and that I am not in a position to do. Not only that, I am convinced that if legal proceedings were instituted, Mr Pickering would use his wealth in favour of Mr Springall to harass me. I firmly believe that these men are acting in concert to make things warm for me, which also seems the opinion of the whole of Milton. I am informed on good authority that Mr Pickering was formerly prosecuted for libel and that his opponent was non-suited on a technicality and had not the means to proceed further. On another occasion he was proceeded against in the District Court and defeated. He then carried the case to the Supreme Court and was defeated there. What is more reasonable to suppose that this man, who twice threatened to watch my actions and use my slips to my detriment, would, if opportunity offered, persecute me to his very utmost.
Springall is the chief of those who have been noticed by others than myself watching my house repeatedly from Pickering's premises and from his own. I have incurred Mr Springall's displeasure twice. First, Mr Pickering supplied me with a table to order, which was, unknown to me at the time, made by Mr Springall. It was taken to my house before I had seen it. I complained to Mr Pickering of its bad workmanship, stating " you must have a botch in your employ to turn out such work". Secondly, Mr Springall undertook to plane the floor of the passage in my residence, but did it so badly that I would not accept it. He said that it could not be done better. I took up the plane and showed him that it could. He then remarked : "Oh, you put more weight into it than I do." He has not yet completed the work and I have not paid him. Re the Sunday wood chopping : I had been in the district seven Sundays at the time of Springall's letter. On two of them I was not in town. On four others no work of any description was done by me. On the seventh, which was a bleak day, we required a log for the dining-room fire and about 5:30 p.m. I cut it with the axe. At the time I was wearing my best costume including walking coat and overcoat. That morning I was leaning against the fence meditating on school work before taking my children for a walk, and I mechanically took up the spade lying near and commenced to dig. I was aroused from my reverie by the voice of a neighbour, Mr Boake [Boag?], who told me in kindly tones I was breaking the Sabbath. We had a friendly talk and I explained my action. I desisted at once, and neither before or since have I so offended. Habitually I am an attendant at church, both morning and evening services, and I am not in the habit of breaking the Sabbath as this man Springall infers. I have lopped no trees on Sunday. There were and are no trees to lop. I cut down two saplings one evening after school, each with one stroke of the axe. They were wattles obstructing the growth of healthy young fruit trees. Instead of destroying I have planted trees here since my arrival.
As mentioned earlier there was a reply to Mr Springall's letter that must have appeared in the next issue of the local newspaper. Some wag must have written the article, as it was signed "All springing Picker", thereby revealing that the whole town knew of the collusion between Springall and Pickering and, of course, that the Observant Parent was not at all anonymous. How dearly I would love to let you read that letter to the Editor. Alack and alas, there is no preserved copy of that issue of the local newspaper. We can only imagine that it made mock of the narrow-minded complaints of that Observant Parent. Officially the Chief Inspector considered that the teacher's explanations were satisfactory, that the complainant's letter was an easy but cowardly way of making charges and of securing an investigation without the trouble of attending it. He recommended that no further notice be taken of this matter. So once again the nit-picking Pickering had been foiled in his efforts to spike the local teacher. Nevertheless the campaign had not yet finished. There was more ...
Quoted from Alex McAndrew's "TALES OUT OF SCHOOL IN THE MILTON-ULLADULLA DISTRICT FROM CONJOLA TO KIOLOA"
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