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Between 1891 and 1892, she gained Third, Second and First Class Pupil Teacher status. In January 1893, she was transferred as Pupil Teacher to SS 1976 Bendigo; a year later, she returned to Castlemaine, still as Pupil Teacher. In 1897, she gained the Certificate of Competency. In 1901, she entered the newly established Melbourne Teachers College with one of the first infant teaching studentships awarded. Her assessments while at the College describe her as ‘a capable and active teacher showing great promise . . . has worked earnestly and industriously’. In 1907, she attained the Infant Teachers’ Certificate First Class. Between 1894 and her retirement in March 1938, Miss Horner moved through ten country schools and four Metropolitan schools as Head Teacher or First Female Assistant, as well as doing short stints at the Teachers College and at Suva Public School in Fiji (in 1902-3). Throughout her career, she was highly praised in assessments by District Inspectors.25
The education and training of pupil teachers, however, was little better than that received by their pupils in the classroom. Under the supervision of Head Teachers, instruction was laced with intimidation. The curricula were narrow; rather than providing a broad and general education, the learning programme concentrated on practical training for primary teaching.27 There was a lot of work to do, and most of it was drudgery. In relying so heavily on poorly trained, poorly paid pupil teachers who were barely beyond adolescence, the State primary education system suffered from its own product.
One of the first and loudest critics of Victoria’s education system was Frank Tate, who had been at the Teachers College when it was closed down. Tate became a District Inspector in the l890s, and began agitating for reform. Improved teaching, he argued, would only be achieved with better teacher training, conditions and salaries.28
Tate’s reformation of teacher training in Victoria took two paths: he reopened the Teachers College in 1901, and Changed the pupil-teacher system to a junior-teacher system in 1906.29 Despite the change of status from pupil teacher to junior teacher, Tate’s reformed system of teacher training only differed marginally from the system it had replaced. While the Leaving Certificate became a prerequisite and junior-teacher candidates spent a year in the Teachers College, the problems were similar to those that had riddled the pupil-teacher system. Junior teachers still spent between two and five years in the classroom before attending College - if indeed they gained admission. Stuck in the classroom, the trainees continued with a narrow and practical syllabus, based on training in primary-school subjects. Fortunate ones were supervised by experienced teachers and learned worthwhile skills; the unfortunate were burdened with ‘bad habits’ that had to be unlearned. Furthermore, junior teachers were made responsible for classes without adequate theoretical and practical experience. The one year of tertiary study was too brief and the College curriculum too narrow to provide a general education. This improved with the introduction of a two-year course, from which candidates graduated with a ‘Primary Teachers’ Certificate’; but in l9l3 the course was again reduced to one year.
The low status and pay continued to counteract efforts to attract the best candidates, especially males, for whom there were many better-paid professions. On the other hand, the long training time and very low pay of pupil teachers made it difficult for children from low-income families to become teachers; they were more likely to leave school at the minimum age and go straight into manual jobs. Surveys have shown that candidates’ parents were of the following occupational groups, in order of frequency: farming, commerce, skilled and semi-skilled trades, government and quasi-government, professions, and semiprofessions, skilled manual labour and unskilled manual labour.30
Princes Hill, however, had fewer problems than most schools. During 1908-9, several metropolitan schools were nominated to provide practical training with high academic standards for Diploma of Education students. Princes Hill was recommended by Dr John Smyth, the head of the Teachers College, in July l9O8.31 Because of the school’s proximity to the College, the majority of the trainee teachers placed at Princes Hill were first-year Diploma students.32 To maintain high academic standards, Smyth determined that only experienced teachers were to be appointed at training schools. Indeed, Sebire’s application for the Head Teachership at Princes Hill was undoubtedly bolstered by his excellent reputation, long experience and success with training junior teachers at Fairfield.33 Vacant positions were keenly contested by highly qualified teachers. Sifting through the many applicants for a Class V Male Assistant vacancy in l9l4, the Chief Inspector stipulated that the candidate have a Diploma of Education and could train University students. The successful applicant was Ernest Curtis, formerly of Lee Street, also a practising school. He had a Trained Teacher’s Certificate, a First Year Diploma and Second Honours and a Physical Training Certificate, and was completing his diploma course.34
“ The standards of class teachers at practising schools were regularly monitored by Inspectors. Those who visited Princes Hill were concerned that class teachers inspire and stimulate student teachers with teaching that was enthusiastic rather than formal and mechanical; and that they provide discipline, control and diligent supervision. Apart from the annual examinations, each student teacher was assessed by the Head Teacher and visiting Inspector: the aspiring teacher’s personality, attitude to work, class control, teaching aptitude, progress in studies, and general suitability to teaching were all scrutinised. Princes Hill continued to be used as a training school until 1958.35
In 1910, a rural or country school practising class was also established at Princes Hill. Recognising that teachers would need special training to manage rural schools - which by 1920 comprised 65 per cent of Victorian schools - and live in relative loneliness with meagre facilities, Smyth opened the first rural school practising classrooms in 1908.36 To familiarise the student-teachers with the conditions of country schools and to train them in school management, the practising classroom simulated a country school environment. The room was divided into grades, 1 to 6, and after 1914 to grade 8. The blackboard was also divided into the daily curriculum work of the grade levels. Prints and students’ work decorated the walls. There were between two and five children in each grade. In the 1920s, Miss Preston’s rural class numbered forty children. A list of Mr Chenhall’s 1940 class - totalling twenty-four children - shows three children in grade 1, two each in grades 2 and 3, three in grade 4, four in grade 5, five in grade 6, three in grade 7 and two in grade 8.37
The appointment of Anton Vroland as the first teacher of Princes Hill Rural School signals the importance Smyth placed on this innovation. The arrival of Vroland, who was the son and grandson of educationalists, would have caused considerable excitement in the school staff room. Vroland had commenced teacher training in 1893. Between 1894 and 1909 he taught at Bongomangie, Dale’s Creek, Strathbogie North and Allambee East. In 1910, he attracted the Inspectors’ attention with his article, ‘The Country School’, which criticised the city environment of rural school training as unnatural. The large inner-suburban schools, he argued, artificially protected student teachers from the problems they were likely to encounter in the country.
Vroland only stayed at Princes Hill for two years. A celebrated educational innovator, he had befriended Frank Tate, and with his encouragement had contributed to the Austral Grammar series of texts, which were enthusiastically received and widely used. His pedagogical views were liberal, anticipating many later developments towards ‘open education’. He encouraged the establishment of libraries in schools. He advocated the inclusion of horticulture in the syllabus, and argued that schoolwork should be conducted outdoors, close to nature. The school’s garden should be used for nature studies and allied subjects - whether they be writing, arithmetic, composition, spelling, drawing - should be adapted to the nature around the students. He introduced the study of newspapers for geography and history, and encouraged questioning, observation and note-taking from reading.38
With its proximity to the University of Melbourne and the Melbourne Teachers College, Princes Hill has always been attractive to teachers. The opportunities for further training have, in fact, been a constant cause of staff absenteeism. Teachers who desired promotion were regularly away from school attending courses and sitting for examinations to complete or supplement their degrees. Joseph McShane is a good example. A teacher since 1878, he had come to Princes Hill in January 1890 as First Male Assistant in charge of grade 6. Considered a ‘capable, industrious and intelligent teacher’ by the Inspectors, he had attained his Certificate of Teaching in 1880 (with Latin, English, Arithmetic, Euclid, Geography, History and Algebra), and his Second Honour in 1883 (with Junior Greek, Junior Latin, Lower Mathematics, Chemistry, Mineralogy and Botany, and Logic). In 1890, he presented for his First Honour.39 E. Hawkyard is another example. In April 1914, he notified the Department that he had passed Natural Philosophy II and Inductive Logic at the University Supplementary Examination. He followed up this note with another requesting a £10 increase to his current yearly salary of £140.40
Promotion, however, was not a matter of course, despite seniority or capability. The teachers’ discontent was expressed in March 1913, when the Victorian State Schools’ Teachers Union called for promotion by capacity rather than seniority, insisting that an Inspector’s mark of 90 out of 150 should ensure advancement.“ Fortunately for Princes Hill, Tate had been advocating similar views for some time, as recorded in the Argus: ‘the Heads of important schools should be men of approved teaching skills and of good general culture, and they should be full of energy, both physical and moral’. Such men, he continued, should be promoted while they were still with appetite and not at the end of their career.” Both of Princes Hill’s subsequent Head Teachers, Sebire and Mylrea, were such men.
Emily Miller, Infant Mistress at Pigdon Street, receiving the Lillian Horner Prize in 1958.
There was a more serious anomaly in the system. While women greatly outnumbered men in the service - in 1924, there were 4593 women teachers compared to 2348 men, and of the l757junior teachers only 392 were men” - men dominated promotion lists” and occupied the senior positions. Some women could push through, as Emily Miller, a woman of determined character, managed at various stages of her career; most could not, despite their ability and seniority. Christina Shaw is an example. She came to Princes Hill in 1915 as a Female Assistant Class V. In 1924, her application for promotion was rejected, despite thirty-seven years’ service, and despite her reputation as an innovative and dedicated teacher who often received twice the number of trainee teachers allotted to others.45 Low salaries frustrated the Department’s efforts to recruit talented teachers. The first schedule of salaries was established in July 1875. It was founded on the cumbersome, unfair system of ‘payment by results’, which had operated since 1862. While teachers’ base salaries were fixed amounts, up to half as much again could be paid as a bonus, depending on the results of twice-yearly examinations by the Inspectors. The examinations assessed the pupils’ academic performance, behaviour, neatness of work, cleanliness of appearance and attendance, and the school’s discipline, tone, physical condition, cleanliness and neatness. The Inspectors set the academic standards of each grade and pupil according to arbitrarily determined levels of competence. After each student had been examined by the inspector, the school was awarded a ‘school mark’, which was used to set payment: bonuses were paid in proportion to the mark awarded. Teachers had been protesting against payment by results since 1886, but without success. The system was rife with abuse by teachers and inspectors. Records could be fiddled; unfair tests were set. Worst of all, the system placed a premium on standardised, rote learning."" A number of amendments followed, but they did not protect teachers’ salaries from the vagaries of social, economic or political conditions. Parliamentary infighting in 1877-8 about the cost of education led to a reduction of salaries. The same occurred with ‘The Regrading of Schools Act’ (1895) which resulted in the reclassification of schools according to size. The depressions of the 1890s and 1930s and the drought of 1902 caused economic hardships for the state, and on each occasion teachers’ salaries were cut.“ Despite the numerous adjustments to salaries, women’s pay remained lower than male teachers’. In general, women’s base salaries were set at 80 per cent of the male rate. By the standards of the time, however, this was quite a narrow differential. In factories and offices, women workers generally earned less than half as much as men. In contemporary terms, women teachers were very well paid. Where a female factory worker would be lucky to earn £52 annually, even the lowest grade of female teaching assistants in 1888 had a base salary of £64 per annum, with the possibility of a bonus of anything up to 5332. At the top of the scale, female teachers could earn as much as £216 per annum plus bonuses. And, unlike most other women workers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, teachers were able to stay in steady employment, provided only that their health held up.48
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