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Cultivating the Worst Form of Sectarianism

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Cultivating the Worst Form of Sectarianism “Cultivating the worst form of sectarianism”: conviction and controversy in the establishment of denominational colleges in Australian universities, with particular reference to the University of Queensland and to the centenary of St Leo’s College. A paper further developed to mark the centenary in 2017 of St Leo’s College, University of Queensland, and the continuing place of denominational colleges in Australian universities. Dr Ian Walker1 My first ‘close encounter’ with the University of Queensland was in 1997 when I was met at Brisbane airport by the now late Emeritus Professor Lawrence Ernest (Lawrie) Lyons, the first professor of physical chemistry at UQ from 1963 to 1987. A distinguished scientist and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, he had previously been a senior lecturer at Sydney University during which time he, and his wife Alison, were key figures in the formation of the ‘New University Colleges Council’ (NUCC) that established New College at UNSW, opened in 1969, and Robert Menzies College at Macquarie University, opened in 1973. I had just begun my research on the foundation of denominational colleges in Australia, and Lawrie and Alison generously agreed to be interviewed and to have me stay overnight at their home in Kenmore, along the Moggill Road. Lawrie, then 75, drove as he lived – determined to get where he needed 1 Head, Toad Hall, Australian National University (from 2010) and a Past President, University Colleges Australia. Ian Walker is a former Dean at New College UNSW (1994-2002) and Principal of The Kensington Colleges UNSW (2002-2009). From 2011-2014, he was also Head of Ursula Hall ANU. Ian completed a PhD thesis at UNSW in 2002 on the history of denominational colleges in Australian universities; he is a member of the Board of St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra, and is Chair of Trustees of the (Sir Robert) Lucas-Tooth Scholarship. He is a former Chair of the General Committee of the Bible Society (NSW) and from 2002-2009 was Chair of the Council of St Catherine’s School, Waverley NSW, the oldest Anglican Girls’ School in Australia. 1 to go, his mind racing ahead of wherever it had just been, and in all directions with no-one daring to get in the way; or, if anyone did, he would find the quickest way around! Coronation Drive and into Moggill Road was an initiation into Lawrie’s brilliant and ‘fiery’ mind and a rather breath-holding introduction to Brisbane as we weaved towards eventual safety and wonderful hospitality at their home! Lawrie formed ISCAST – the Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology – an Australian organisation dedicated to exploring the interface between science and the Christian faith; indeed, highly relevant to the topic of religion and the university and to the issues of sectarian interests and their interface with our secular higher education institutions. Of course, Archbishop Duhig, who founded St Leo’s College and was keenly interested in the sciences, set up in its first grounds an observatory; and at a dinner in the College in 1919, the Reverend Father John McCarthy, then of Red Hill, noted that no secular science was without a bearing on religion, and that the role of theology was to check the other sciences and keep them in harmony with God’s revealed truth.2 “A people’s university”: In the debates that took place in 1910 and 1911 within the Senate of the newly established University of Queensland around matriculation requirements for entry to the Faculties of Arts, Science, and Engineering, a strong opponent of proposed language requirements was Andrew Henry Barlow, then a member of the Legislative Council and Minister without Portfolio, and a former Secretary for Public Instruction. The majority of the Senate, including the first Chancellor, Sir William MacGregor, who had also been Governor of Queensland since 1909, believed that the requirements of Latin or Greek for the Faculty of Arts, and French or German for Science and Engineering, were in the best interests of the 2 T. P. Boland James Duhig University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1986, p.177 2 University if it were to acquire a status equal to that of sister universities in other states and in Great Britain.3 Andrew Barlow had been a promoter of wider opportunities of education throughout the State and was concerned that the proposed language requirements would restrict such opportunity and favour pupils of the schools within Brisbane, especially the Grammar Schools which followed the traditional English model with curricular dominated by classical subjects such as Latin and Greek. There had been some provisions made, for example, for extra matriculation classes in technical colleges that had been established by this time, but it was not until 1912 that the Government began to develop a system of free, State secondary high schools throughout Queensland. In November 1911, Barlow wrote to the then Secretary for Public Instruction, Kenneth McDonald Grant, urging him to consider carefully the matriculation requirements so that the University should be “a people’s University, that its benefits should be available to persons in all parts of the State …” He noted that “there is a certain body in the Senate who seem determined to make the University of Queensland a shabby copy of the University of Oxford … The University of Queensland is in my opinion not an Institution for the study of cricket, golf, or other athletic sports, and I have opposed the outcry for further ground in the removal of the University in order that they may get affiliated Colleges and cultivate the worst form of sectarianism.”4 Barlow further wrote to Kenneth Grant that he believed the Chancellor and others in the Senate “are restricting the University of Queensland to a University of ‘Brisbane’, by their exclusive, antiquated ideas founded on ‘precedent’ which 3 E. Clarke Correspondence related to conflict between Governor MacGregor and A. Barlow MLC, concerning matriculation standards at the University of Queensland, 1910-11 http://www.textqueensland.com.au/item/article/ebcb744b3cd234b23e6f6f79df76c95e 4 Ibid. 3 may or may not apply in old and thickly settled countries, but are not applicable here.” He noted that, with the Governor in the Chair (as Chancellor) “it was impossible to have free discussion unless you happen to agree with him.”5 Sir William MacGregor made it clear that “if the requirements of the Queensland University were reduced below reasonable University standards, I should at once cease my connection with it.”6 While the new University’s non-Executive ‘Vice- Chancellor’ and former Headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School, Reginald Roe, held similar views to Barlow and was strongly supported by him, it was clear that the majority of the Senate favoured, along with the Chancellor, the language requirements for matriculation, which came into operation in 1913. MacGregor was determined that the University would take its place and standing alongside those already established in Australia and with those of Britain, especially in its standards of research which he believed could improve the State. No contrary argument concerning matriculation would cause him to waver, as, in the words of biographer R. B. Joyce “MacGregor, with his natural obstinacy and conviction that his arguments must be right, never found compromise easy …” 7 At the time of the University’s foundation, Archbishop Robert Dunne, who had succeeded Brisbane’s first Catholic Bishop, James Quinn (or O’Quinn as he later called himself), in 1882, was in poor health, but he trusted Catholic interests in the foundation and formation of the new University to politicians Frank McDonnell and Andrew Thynne as members of the first Senate. Thynne, who later became Vice-Chancellor and then Chancellor, argued strongly against the views of Andrew Barlow.8 Archbishop Dunne, like his predecessor who in 1867 5 E. Clarke op. cit. 6 Ibid. 7 R. B. Joyce Sir William MacGregor Oxford University Press, 1971 p.90 8 Brian F. Stevenson Thynne, Andrew Joseph (1847 – 1927) Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 12, (MUP) 1990 4 had proposed a university as an examining body with teaching of a prescribed syllabus in affiliated colleges, also supported the establishment of a university and was keen that land be allocated on the university site for a residential Catholic college.9 Proposals for a university had been made since the 1860s, but the issues of school education, the projected costs and perceived “heavy drag on the taxpayer”10 involved in developing further and higher education, and the view that Queensland needed something different from what was seen as the more traditional institutions established in Sydney and Melbourne, and later in Adelaide, meant a half century of delay. There was a focus on practical needs and purposes, such as for mining and agriculture, and a suspicion of the value of the more theoretical aspects of cultural and scientific study and research. Samuel Walker Griffith, Attorney-General and later Premier, Queensland Chief Justice and first Chief Justice of Australia, played a key and influential role in promoting a university, but noted in 1875 that “no doubt there will someday be a University established here.”11 Another key player, John Douglas Story, later to be honorary full-time Vice-Chancellor12, was a pupil under Reginald Roe’s Headmastership at Brisbane Grammar in the 1880s and was recommended by Roe to work in the Directorate of Education – his application being minuted with the comment: ‘Nice intelligent look – rather small and lean and does not look robust. Brain … stronger than body.’13 He became Under-Secretary for Public Instruction to Andrew Barlow and was appointed as a Government 9 Neil J. Byrne Robert Dunne 1830-1917 Archbishop of Brisbane: A Biography Thesis submitted to the Department of History, University of Queensland, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, September, 1989, p.242 10 Harrison Bryan The University of Queensland 1910 – 1960: An Essay Towards a History Sydney 1966 p.6 11 Ibid.
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