Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/57

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ROBERT LOWE IN SYDNEY
25

General, afterwards Bishop of Birmingham, who, it may be presumed, favoured the national unsectarian system as a direct attack on Anglican prerogatives in the colony. Whatever may have been the cause, Dr. Ullathorne's support of unsectarian education is worth bearing in mind when we come to the subject of the State schoolmaster.

It was, however, owing to Dr. Ullathorne's support, which roused the effective bigotry of Dr. Lang, that Sir Richard Bourke's statesmanlike measure was wrecked. Subsequently, under the vigorous tutelage of Robert Lowe, Dr. Lang learnt that he had done a very foolish thing in opposing Sir Richard Bourke, and had simply played into the hands of Dr. Ullathorne's co-religionists. Dr. Lang repented in sackcloth and ashes, and from that time became a rabid "Nationalist" on the education question, and "a devoted disciple" of Lowe. In his entertaining but oppressively egotistical History of New South Wales appears the following suggestive passage:—

"I have already observed that one of the great questions which engaged the attention of the first Legislative Council, during the year 1844, was the question of education; on which there had been a