Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/213

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THE STATE SCHOOLMASTER
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of thinking persons—for it is a mistake to suppose that the colonial working-classes do not think—have resolutely made up their minds, whatever the immediate cost may be, to weld the various races admitted into the commonwealth of the great Island-Continent into one people. It is the only way to change a condition of things that might almost be described as a chronic state of civil war. The majority of the people see this plainly enough, and through that too often shaky and babbling mouthpiece, the politician, they have handed over the work to the State schoolmaster. Many of the clergy not unnaturally regard this bold act as an infraction of their rights, but let them remember that it need not be so if they are wise. This may read like a paradox, but it is a plain fact.

The people of Australia are quite as religious as the people of England. They will, however, instinctively turn to those religious teachers who are prepared to assist and not to thwart the essential educational movement intended to make them, as far as possible, a united and a homogeneous people. Speaking again with perhaps unpardonable boldness, I venture to assert that if the Anglican Church in Australia should develop at the critical moment