wo motionless lines stand at attention.
'Good-morning, girls! Good-morning, boys!' says the master. A chorused
'Good-morning, Mr. Morgan!' returns his salutation, and then the work of
the day begins.

"But do the scholars look upon it as work? Something over thirty years
ago Herbert Spencer wrote: 'She was at school, where her memory was
crammed with words and names and dates, and her reflective faculties
scarcely in the slightest degree exercised.' In those days, as many old
State-school boys well remember, to learn was, indeed, to work, and when
fitting occasion offered, we 'wagged it' conscientiously, even though we
did have to 'touch our toes' for it when we returned. But under our
modern educational system the teacher can make the school work
practically a labour of love.

"The morning being bright, the children are put through some simple
exercises and encouraged to take a few 'deep breathings.' Then the lines
are formed again. 'Left turn! Quick march!' and the scholars file into
the schoolhouse."

But we need not follow the school in its day's work, except to say that
the ideal always is to make the work alive and interesting. Naturally,
Australian children get to like school.

In the cities the schools are very good. All the State schools are
absolutely free, and even books are provided. A smart child can win
bursaries, and go from the primary school to the high school, and then
on to the University, and win to a profession without his education
costing his parents anything at all. When I was a boy the State of
Tasmania used to send every year two Tasmanian scholars to Oxford
University, giving them enough to pay for a course there. That has since
been stopped, but many Australians come to British Universities
now--mostly to Oxford and Edinburgh--with money provided by their
parents. There are, however, excellent Universities in the chief cities
of Australia, and there is no actual need to leave the Commonwealth to
complete one's education.

In the Bush, and indeed almost everywhere--for there is no city life
which has not a touch of the Bush life--Australian children grow to be
very hardy and very stoical. They can endure great hardship and great
pain. I remember hearing of a boy in the Maitland (N.S.W.) district
whose horse stumbled in a rabbit-hole and fell with him. The boy's thigh
was broken and the horse was prostrate on top of him, and did not seem
to wish to move. The boy stretched out his hand and