The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman

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The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman THE RURAL SCHOOL EXPERIMENT: CREATING A QUEENSLAND YEOMAN Tony James Brady BSocSc Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Division of Research and Commercialisation Queensland University of Technology 12 June 2013 i Keywords Queensland history; Rural School; rural development; history of education; agricultural education; vocational education; domestic science; manual arts; curriculum development; primary schools; progressive education; hegemony; social control; power; Nation building; State formation; school gardens; Queensland farming; yeoman; yeomanry; yeomen; home project scheme; 4H clubs; young farmers’ club; soldier settlement; closer settlement; educational history; educational development; urbanisation; public education; educational change; educational policy; education administration; experiential learning; political influences; social change; government role; school systems; mass education; Teacher of Agriculture; Inspector of Women’s Work; Stubbin (JC); Story (JD); Fisher (TG); Wilson (JT); Watt (FE); Bartlett (RG); Lane (John); Brydon (MH); McCahon (AE); Pascoe (V); Drain (DSA); Nambour; Boonah; Marburg; Gracemere; Stanthorpe; Home Hill; Gordonvale; Imbil; Clifton; Murgon; Gayndah; Beenleigh; Malanda; Beaudesert; Toogoolawah; Proserpine; Goondiwindi; Innisfail; Killarney; Atherton; Babinda; Mossman; Tully; Sarina; Pomona; Ingham; Lowood; Mareeba; Monto; Caboolture. The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman i ii Abstract In the first half of the 1900s, Queensland faced problems similar to those across the rest of Australia. These problems included how to populate the unpopulated regions, and have farmers produce sufficiently so that communities could develop around them. This same period coincided with major changes in agrarian methods brought about by the advances made in science. New techniques existed in seed selection, fertilisation, crop rotation and tillage, along with dairy stock selection based on milk and cream testing. In Queensland many primary producers were loath to change the way they had farmed, and been taught to farm, by their fathers before them. This problem needed to be addressed and the education system was seen as the vehicle to facilitate this change. Prior to 1917, the Queensland Department of Public Instruction offered little differentiation between the subjects taught to pupils in remote or rural communities and those in the larger regional locations. All children in Queensland could secure a State scholarship to secondary school if they had the ability. However, if the children did not live within convenient distance of a State run institution that provided this secondary education, then attendance at these schools dictated leaving home. The expense this involved prevented many successful scholarship candidates from rural districts pursuing a secondary education. Considerable thought and effort went into evolving a new type of school capable of providing opportunities for children in rural communities to continue their education beyond the higher primary classes whilst incorporating a curriculum that would provide training more directly aligned with their future vocations. In January 1917 this concept became a reality with the establishment of Nambour Rural School, a uniquely equipped primary school teaching a distinctive curriculum. This was the first Rural School in the State and over the next three decades twenty- nine schools followed the Nambour model. At the height of the scheme, in the late 1930s, there were twenty-eight Rural Schools spread along the Queensland coastline and the border with New South Wales. Each of these was located in prime fruit- growing, dairying or agricultural regions and each operated as a central school for the surrounding district schools, teaching domestic, commercial, agricultural and vocational classes. The Rural Schools provided the potential for children from over three hundred Queensland schools to attend classes aimed at better preparing them for a life on the land. Moreover, they taught the children and adults of rural centres citizenship; they created a ‘rural hegemony’; and built a sense of community that enabled and empowered people to stay on the land. This thesis demonstrates through extensive archival examination and historical narrative that the Rural School experiment was intended to create a Queensland yeoman capable of settling and becoming primary producers in the sparsely occupied portions of the State. The intention was to have graduates aid State development and through their generational occupation of the land stave off hostile foreign interests. It brings to light for the first time the details leading to the instigation of the scheme and the motivating factors that led to the experiment. It compares the Rural Schools to national and international attempts at agricultural education in the early 1900s and ii The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman iii some recent innovations within Australia and Queensland to reinvigorate interest in agricultural vocations among primary and secondary schools. The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman iii iv Table of Contents Keywords ................................................................................................................................................. i Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................... xi Statement of Original Authorship ......................................................................................................... xii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................... xiii INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 1 A Yeoman ............................................................................................................................................... 6 Purpose .................................................................................................................................................... 9 Context .................................................................................................................................................. 12 Thesis Outline ....................................................................................................................................... 12 Narrative versus Theoretical ................................................................................................................. 15 The Historical Method .......................................................................................................................... 16 Difficulties with Data Collection .......................................................................................................... 20 THEMATIC BACKGROUND .......................................................................................................... 23 History of Education ............................................................................................................................. 23 Compulsory Education .......................................................................................................................... 24 Historical Background .......................................................................................................................... 28 Global Pressure .......................................................................................................................... 28 Visit and Report of Viscount Kitchener. .................................................................................... 31 Agricultural Education .......................................................................................................................... 33 Closer Settlement and the Soldier Settlement Scheme.......................................................................... 35 Closer Settlement in Queensland; 1860-1917 ............................................................................ 37 Legislative Regulation ............................................................................................................... 37 Application of Closer Settlement within Queensland ................................................................ 39 Urbanisation Problems ............................................................................................................... 40 The Soldier Settlement Schemes ........................................................................................................... 42 A Failed Model .......................................................................................................................... 43 Summation ............................................................................................................................... 44 TOWARDS THE RURAL
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