In September 1889, Acting Head Teacher Rowe was provided with a handful of licensed teachers and pupil teachers to cope with the anticipated 300 enrolments at Princes Hill. In February 1890, Acting Head Teacher Moore’s request for another pupil teacher was refused: the school would not get extra staff, he was informed, until the student body numbered 300.¹ The Department ignored the fact that enrolments at Princes Hill already exceeded that level. Russell, Robinson, Skewes, Sebire, Mylrea, Bryant, Hart and the Head Teachers who followed were all bedevilled by the responsibility of maintaining adequate staff levels: too few teachers were allocated by the Department, there was daily absenteeism, replacements were often inadequate or inexperienced. Too often, there were mass departures of both qualified teachers and trainees.² The problem of staff turnover was exacerbated by the Education Department’s insistence that female teachers resign when they married. As a result, many experienced and able teachers were lost to the service just as they were coming into their prime.

All the Head Teachers realised the harm that inadequate staff numbers and the high turnover of teachers were causing the school. Overcrowded classrooms, overstretched staff and regular absenteeism were imposing double work67 loads on the remaining teachers. Students’ work was disrupted by the high turnover of staff. The system of promotion required teachers gaining advancement to change schools, institutionalising a high turnover of the best teachers.³

Compelled to employ teachers quickly, in the 1870s the Department hired a hotchpotch of talent, with disparate levels of education, qualifications and expertise.⁴ In an effort to improve standards and introduce some degree of order, in 1873 the Department directed that only teachers with a ‘Certificate of Competency’ could teach in State schools. Those holding a ‘Licence to Teach’ could assist, or could take appointments to one-teacher country schools. Teachers without the necessary qualifications were required to present for examination. The Public Servants Act of 1883 confirmed teachers’ status as public servants and regulated their conditions of classification, appointment, salary and promotion. Three university subjects plus a qualification in education were prerequisite for promotion to the top levels. Pupil teachers were apprenticed to Head Teachers as trainee teachers.⁵

Recruitments, however, were never adequate. In 1872, 2416 teachers were employed in 1049 schools to teach 136,055 enrolled students (with an average attendance of 68,456). On average, this was two teachers per school, and fifty-six students per teacher. By 1890, the numbers of schools, teachers and students had doubled, but the ratio remained constant: 4710 teachers, 2170 schools and 250,097 enrolments (with average attendance 133,768). By 1909-10, there were 2036 schools, 4957 teachers, and 235,042 enrolments (average attendance 145,968). In 1940, just after the outbreak of the Second World War, 7271 teachers were employed at 2569 schools to teach 217,941 pupils (average attendance 151,674). By 1951, the number of schools had dropped to 1949 and teacher numbers had remained steady at 7271, while the primary school enrolments had increased to 233,026 (average attendance 173,316).⁶   The averages are distorted by the variations in the size of schools, particularly the large number of one teacher rural schools. At large inner-suburban schools, the actual ratios of students per teacher were well above the averages. While rapidly increasing enrolments maintained acute strain on teacher numbers, the Department could not recruit enough teachers to match the demand.⁷

Two of the measures that the Department took to cope with the pressure were illustrated in 1908, when Skewes’ request for extra staff to accommodate his 978 students was refused. First, when estimating staff requirements and allocations at each school, the Department ignored net attendance figures in favour of the lower average attendances figures. Accordingly, the school’s total enrolment figure of 978 scholars was determined as being between 830 and 870 average attendance. The allocation of twenty teachers, therefore, was considered adequate. Secondly, the Department began relying on junior teachers to alleviate the problem of teacher shortage, and used them to bear a larger brunt of teaching loads. In 1908, Princes Hill’s staff of twenty comprised eight fully qualified teachers; the remainder were junior teachers. All but two of these had been allocated full responsibility for a class.⁸

This last measure dated from the nineteenth century. In 1884, 1076 of the 2563 State school teachers were student teachers.⁹ Between 1889 and 1898, pressed by the economic depression, the Department pensioned off older teachers in favour of cheaper pupil teachers. The number of unqualified pupil teachers conducting classes rose from 26 per cent to 38 per cent.¹⁰ The government also closed down the Teachers College. In 1904, only 1039 of the 2702 teachers employed by the Department were fully trained; the remaining 1663 were pupil teachers.¹¹ In the twentieth century, the two World Wars and the 1930s depression caused further strains. Of the 1500 male teachers employed by the Department in 1914, 750 volunteered for military service. Of these, 146 did not return. As an Argus correspondent noted, the young teachers were recent graduates trained according to the latest methods. They were hard to replace.¹²

The outbreak of the Second World War on 3 September 1939 again denuded Australia of its young men and women. Although teachers were exempted from military service, 1726 of them enlisted (approximately one-third of the Department’s personnel). This caused severe depletion in the Department, aggravating the shortages left by the depression. Those who went from Princes Hill in 1941 69 included J. Robertson, who enlisted in the RAAF, and Charles Nora, who joined the Home Defence Force.¹³ In 1942, R. Miller and C. McDonald also applied for leave to enlist.¹⁴

The Department adopted a variety of tactics to ease the effects of the acute teacher shortage. During the First World War, Tate used third-year diploma students from the Teachers College to fill the gaps.¹⁵ During the Second World War, retired teachers and women who had been compelled to leave teaching because of marriage were recalled into service. The proportion of female students enrolled at the College changed markedly from having 121 males to 193 females in 1930, by 1943 the College had 45 males to 396 females.¹⁶ College students and sewing mistresses were sent to rural schools as temporary head teachers. If a school could not be staffed, children were provided with a travelling allowance to attend another school nearby.¹⁷ In 1943, McDonald was told he had to remain at Princes Hill until his call-up. Next year, C. Harding’s request to be released from the Department to join the RAAF was refused.¹⁸

Generally, Princes Hill coped without devastating difficulties. Severe pressure came after the school’s elevation to Central School status, when the need for secondary teachers could not be met. Refusing Hart’s application for more staff in February 1944, the Department instructed that the school’s workload be distributed among the current staff: thirty-two periods per week, Hart was informed, was the average load of secondary teachers.¹⁹

The long-term solution was recruiting more young men and women and giving them a proper training as teachers. The system of pupil-teacher apprenticeship used between 1872 and 1906 was a gruelling and iniquitous form of sweated labour.²⁰ Although vacant pupil teacher positions at each school were advertised in the newspapers, more often the successful applicants were the better graduates of that school. Louise Kelly, appointed pupil teacher at Princes Hill in February 1890, was an early graduate of Princes Hill. Having completed grade 6, she applied for the position of pupil teacher there and was placed into the fourth grade.²¹

Candidates were generally between 13 and 15 when they sat for the pupil-teacher examinations, which were organised by the Head Teacher and supervised by the District Inspector. In July 1892, sixteen applicants qualified for the positions of pupil teacher at Princes Hill after sitting for examinations conducted by Robinson. The subjects in which they were tested were grammar, parsing of sentences, etymology, the identification of historical events, calculation and mental arithmetic, creative writing, prose and poetry, geography, reading, writing, diction and spelling.²² Successful candidates were required to supply health certificates.

A typical pupil teacher was Jane Benson, born in 1876. In January 1892, Jane’s doctor certified that she was of ‘sound constitution, good health and physical capability to undertake the duties of a pupil teacher’.²³ As a successful candidate, Jane was apprenticed to the Head Teacher for the next five years. Under the supervision first of Russell and then of Robinson, she underwent an exhausting programme of teaching and study. She spent all day in a classroom under the surveillance of the class teacher. During recesses and after school, she was tutored by the Head Teacher. Extensive homework filled her evening hours. She was paid £20 for the year’s work. On passing the year, she received an increment of £10 per annum as reward. After five years’ apprenticeship, Jane would have been awarded a ‘Licence to Teach’ and appointed to a rural school to commence her career. Only a handful of graduate pupil teachers succeeded in gaining places in the Teachers’ College.²⁴

From the rural school, the climb to Head Teachership was a long and slow series of promotions based on further study, seniority, higher qualifications and classification. Henry Sebire and Lillian Horner are fine examples. After graduating from his pupilage as scholar and teacher at Lilydale in 1882 and spending one year at the Training Institution, Sebire spent the following decade as Head Teacher at five country schools. In 1894 he was promoted to Class III, and to a suburban school, SS 2711 Fairfield Park. His shift to Princes Hill in 1913 marked his advancement to Class 1.²⁵

Perhaps pupil-teachers, 1902

Born in 1873, Miss Horner was appointed Pupil Teacher. on Probation at SS 119 Castlemaine in March 1890. 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.²⁶

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 semi-professions, 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 1908.³¹ 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 1914, 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.⁴¹ 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.⁴² 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.⁴⁶

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.⁴⁷

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  

It was not until the Teachers Act of 1905 that ‘payment by results’ was replaced with a proper salary schedule. Teachers’ conditions of employment were also set down in the Act. Most were the legacy of practices introduced during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Hours of work were to be from 9 to 12 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. An appeal mechanism was established to deal with teachers’ complaints against mistreatment by superiors. Women and pupil teachers were not to be required to stand for longer than one and a half hours at a stretch. Conditions for sick pay were finalised: two days’ sick leave was permitted; longer periods required a medical certificate. Life insurance was compulsory. Superannuation was introduced, but was not made mandatory until the Superannuation Act of 1928.⁴⁹ While males were permitted to marry, women were not. When pressed, however, the Department sometimes made exceptions to this rule. In 1890, Russell refused to accept the Head Teacher’s position unless his wife was appointed to the school as First Female Assistant.⁵⁰ The insistence on single women was not altered until the passage of the Teaching Service.(Married Women) Act (1956), which permitted women to marry and remain as teachers. Nor were social mores easily ignored. Staff rooms were segregated, even if only with a curtain. In 1934, a young female teacher was transferred from Princes Hill to break her liaison with a married male teacher.⁵¹

Teachers were forbidden to communicate with the press about Departmental matters or to be involved in political meetings; even the use of school buildings as election polling stations and the use of staff as officials were prohibited. The determination that teachers present themselves as apolitical was sometimes carried to extremes: in 1933, Miss McClintock resigned from the school after anonymous letters were received claiming that she was a communist and was secretly married.⁵²

Conditions in the schools were ungenerous. Overcrowded, cold classrooms, depressing surroundings and poor facilities compounded teachers’ woes. During 1889-90, more than 300 students, comprising six grades, were housed in four rooms at Princes Hill. The front room downstairs was a gallery room. At the allotted ratio of ten square feet per student, it would accommodate forty-four scholars. The rear downstairs room was divided into gallery, desk and infants sections, each separated from the other by curtains. By 1899, rising enrolments had led to an official reduction in the space allowed per student and an increase in the number of students per teacher.⁵³ The north wing added in 1906 alleviated pressure on the crammed space, but a list of teachers and student numbers from June 1908 shows that some classes were still very large. The largest were the Infants with 194 and grade 1 with 98 pupils. The smallest was grade 5C with only 31 pupils.⁵⁴ The children were packed into rows of seats stretching from wall to wall. The situation improved, but slowly. A survey conducted throughout Australia in 1938 by the Australian Council of Educational Research found that the average class size in Victoria was forty-four pupils higher than any other State.⁵⁵

Crowded classrooms disadvantaged both children and teachers. Teaching and class control were often based on intimidation and fear. Some teachers were caring and considerate people and innovative practitioners; but even they were often hardened by an unsympathetic system. Head Teachers wanted results. Little room was left for experimentation. Students were expected to work silently, and only speak when spoken to. The strains of this regime regularly took its toll of teachers: outbursts of temper, free use of the strap or ruler and regular absenteeism became commonplace. The records of Princes Hill give extensive evidence of teacher absenteeism. Some absented repeatedly. There were the usual absences on family and business affairs, and study at the nearby University, but illness caused by the school’s adverse physical conditions was the most common reason for absenteeism. Russell, who suffered from a bronchial complaint and was particularly susceptible to the effects of inclement weather, never missed an opportunity to harangue the Department about the school’s physical conditions and the effect they were having on the health of staff and students. During the winter months of 1890, when influenza was at its worst, he wrote, almost the whole staff had been absent through illness, and enrolments dropped dramatically.⁵⁶ Skewes in 1908 commented that the additions and improvements to the building would provide better conditions for teachers and reduce illness and absenteeism.

Although it was Departmental policy that only the Head Teacher could administer corporal punishment with the strap, many teachers used the privacy of the classrooms to vent their anger and frustration on hapless children with the strap or ruler. Even today, some ex-students can only speak of Miss Hindley and Miss Mead with bitterness. Other teachers became the subject of Departmental investigations. Fortunately, they were atypical at Princes Hill, but they did occur. In 1900, Mrs Dunlop accused Miss Hindley of striking her son James.⁵⁷ In 1910, Mr Oxlade complained that Mr McShane had unfairly and severely punished his daughter by detaining her during lunch recess and after school for a month, by humiliating her before the class, and by assigning her an inordinate number of lines to write daily for that month.⁵⁸ In 1918, Mr Wellman, the Sloyd (woodwork) master, allegedly used unbecoming language towards the boys in his class.⁵⁹ In 1922, Mr Disher accused Mr von Putt of ‘bashing his son’s head on the blackboard’.⁶⁰ In 1946, Mr Kennedy supposedly took to young John Sturrock with a stick.⁶¹ Each accusation was investigated by an Inspector. Reports were demanded from the teacher in question and the Head Teacher, and witnesses were questioned. If the charges were sustained although few were the teacher was suitably censured.

Voices of discontent

On 6 May 1969, secondary teachers in Victoria went on strike.⁶² More strikes followed. After a century of dissatisfaction with the state education system, teachers had begun to voice their discontent publicly. The primary issue that precipitated the action of May 1969 was the low quality of training for secondary teachers. Unattractive salaries, slow promotion, increasing workloads, large class sizes, near primitive work conditions and assessment procedures, dissatisfaction with the Teachers’ Tribunal, poor image and status in the community were additional factors.⁶³

Similar concerns had been widely voiced in a survey conducted by the Australian Council for Education Research in 1938. Forty per cent of Victorian teachers responded to the questionnaire.⁶⁴ Along with demands to adjust to social developments by providing migrant English teachers and in-service training for new courses, the same complaints were being aired in the l970s.⁶⁵

At the same time, the teaching profession was under assault from the community at large. Academics questioned the quality of teachers and teacher training, while the community was imposing greater demands on teachers and the schooling system. The three Rs were no longer sufficient. An increasingly sophisticated society was placing immense pressure on the teaching system: higher levels of education were being required in almost every area of occupation; besides maintaining the economic and social. status quo,⁶⁶ education was also expected to serve as an avenue towards social mobility and an improved quality of life. The teacher’s role was no longer that of ‘monarch in the land of school’.⁶⁷

Debate raged as to how the teacher should fulfil the multifarious roles of instructor, scholar, pedagogue, ‘gate-keeper’, educator, parent surrogate, stimulator,⁶⁸ and moral educator.⁶⁹

Nor was the job easy within the school. Retention rates were rising. An ever-growing, increasingly institutionalised, impersonal and decentralising Education Department appeared to have little concern for the teacher or the individual school.⁷⁰ The student body and social milieu were changing, compounding the teachers’ difficulties. There were students from a variety of social backgrounds with differing educational traditions, less acceptance of authority, a lack of respect, discipline and desire to learn, together with the earlier physical maturity of children, and an awareness among the malcontent of ‘student rights’ protecting them from corporal punishment. The stress rate among teachers is telling. In 1985, 35 per cent of all payments by the Ministry of Education were Workcare claims due to stress; 51 per cent of all ill-health retirements were due to mental disorder; 45,000 teachers were absent from work-over 36,000 weeks because of stress-related illnesses; and $61 million in compensation was paid to teachers for stress.⁷²

Most teachers from Princes Hill joined the ranks of the strikers in 1969. The heady atmosphere of political and social reform was only part of the reason; the teachers at the schools had real, immediate grievances. District Inspectors’ reports confirm that Princes Hill had been experiencing all the worst problems that had afflicted it during its Central and early High School years.

The unalleviated, perennial problem of teacher shortages was again being compounded by rising enrolments caused by immigration, the post-war ‘baby boom’ and the trend towards higher retention rates. Once again, there were complaints from the Princes Hill principals during the 1960s and 1970s that staffing shortages were causing harm to the school. Large numbers of teachers were leaving the school and not being quickly or adequately replaced during the academic year. There was a constant shortage of social workers, and of specialist teachers and teachers’ aides in remedial English and migrant English, art, library, physical education, mathematics, typing, needlecraft. Similar problems were present at Princes Hill Primary School.⁷³

In 1969, the Education Department argued in its defence that teacher numbers had increased dramatically between 1960 and 1969. While student numbers had increased 70 per cent, the number of teachers had gone up 130 per cent. This compared to increases of about 91 per cent during the 1950s.⁷⁴

Returning soldiers re-entering the Education Department after the Second World War had provided some relief and allowed the Department to dismiss incompetent teachers. (One victim was from Princes Hill.)⁷⁵ Bendigo and Ballarat Teachers Colleges were reopened in 1945 and 1946, and many more followed. Teachers College entry requirements were dropped from Matriculation to Leaving Certificate to attract applicants.⁷⁶

The rush, however, was having unsatisfactory consequences. A growing number of unqualified and inexperienced teachers, especially specialists such as science and mathematics teachers, were being pushed into the education system. According to A. Barcan, 18 per cent of Victorian state school teachers were unqualified in 1948; by 1955 the number had grown to 33 per cent.⁷⁷

Perusal of the lists of teachers in Heritage and elsewhere shows that a considerable percentage of Princes Hill High School’s staff in the 1960s were inadequately qualified and inexperienced teachers, still completing their university degrees. In 1959, of twenty-four teachers, eight had ‘University subjects’ as their only qualifications. In Gibson’s words, ‘we did what we could with the no-hopers sent along theological students who apparently had the idea that standing in front of a class would be as easy as raving from a pulpit (they were soon disillusioned) to brilliant academics with the personalities of anaemic tadpoles’. When Olive Hamilton first arrived at Princes Hill, approximately twenty-eight of the fifty-five teachers were part-time appointments, comprising university students on bonds, who were being sent to teach after failing their courses. Because of its proximity to the university, Princes Hill was receiving more such trainees than most schools. While some of the temporary teachers handled the job well and evolved into able teachers, others struggled because of their inexperience.⁷⁸ The elevation of Princes Hill to High School status led to the Practising School at Princes Hill being discontinued in 1959, because Princes Hill would be staffed by inexperienced teachers. This compounded the problem by denying trainees the assistance and guidance of experienced teachers.⁷⁹

Physical and accommodation conditions at Princes Hill were appalling. The extant District Inspectors reports for the Central School and the High School (1959-63) annually called for improvements and upgrading, including repairs to the floor John Ireland put his foot through in a moment of irritation.⁸⁰ The threat of fire was an added concern and cause of militancy among the teachers. John Ireland impressed the school’s overcrowding on a District Inspector in the early 1960s in a unique manner. He had the Inspector climb through a window into one of the classrooms formerly the bedroom of the caretaker’s cottage. There was no way of getting in through the door, once the room had been filled with students.

The detrimental effects of temporary accommodation in leased buildings were wearing out the teachers’ morale. Time, sometimes up to ten minutes, was being lost by teachers moving from building to building. Timetabling and organising the school’s day-to-day affairs were added burdens. Teachers were worried by the lack of specialist facilities for example, Hal Law did not see a Bunsen burner while his form 3 was at Peretz. Without a constant corporate identity to unite them, students were creating disciplinary difficulties for teachers.⁸¹

Interestingly, instead of squashing the morale of teachers, the fire banded them together. Hardships were confronted with determination and fun. Peter Stapelton decorated his portable classroom with palm leaves borrowed from neighbouring gardens. By 1973, however, the morale and tolerance of teachers and students were exhausted. In April, three teachers left Princes Hill, forcing the school to reduce the teaching hours for forms 1 and 2. In July, two remedial English teachers resigned and more teachers were lost in October, causing the school to send students home.⁸²

The expanding duties of teachers involving teaching, administration and the pastoral/parental role - can be seen in a document issued by Gibson in 1966. Management roles were delegated hierarchically across the school. The Senior Master and Mistress planned, supervised and guided school policy, attended to discipline, assisted and advised less experienced teachers, counselled students, interviewed parents, organised the timetabling and generally liaised with teachers, listening to new ideas and disseminating information.

The larger house organisation also incorporated individual form divisions. House teachers oversaw the work of form and subject teachers, and organised everyday affairs: punctuality, schoolyard cleaning, locker allocation, detention classes, sport participation. As well, they were expected to improve the tone of the school and assist the full development of each student. New students were integrated into the diverse high school environment, middle-year students were guided through the difficult years of adjustment, and senior students were encouraged to maintain exemplary standards of behaviour.

Besides presiding over daily form meetings, keeping the roll, maintaining locker records and social service records, Gibson expected the form teacher to fulfil ‘the role of a good parent’: to become familiar with each student in the form, with parents, and with the home situation. Besides helping the students build a strong scholarly attitude, the form teacher was expected to help each child develop moral character and proper social behaviour. The subject coordinators prepared the subject syllabuses, communicated with subject teachers, set tests, watched that proper teaching was being carried out, helped inexperienced teachers, and kept up with current publications. Individual subject teachers concentrated on the classroom, teaching the particular subject, maintaining discipline in the class, keeping a check on absentees and latecomers, and helping pupils with any difficulties. The sport co-ordinator and teachers controlled all aspects of physical education and weekly sport.⁸³

In the meantime, teachers fulfilled their various duties, drank gallons of beer and claret at the pub and at parties, and plotted and complained and laughed about their day:

‘Has anyone heard the rumour about school-based curricula being introduced next year?’

‘I’ve had five periods straight today; I’m knackered.’

‘The bloody roneo machine is stuffed again.’

Or about John, whose father keeps beating him; or Mary, who can’t accompany the literature class to the theatre because she’s not allowed out at night; and Sally, who’s left school because of her pregnancy; and Joe who just isn’t coping; but Kate’s excelling - as always. ‘I spoke to Sier today, but there’s no damn money, and I need books to develop my course.’ ‘Don’t worry mate, Whitlam will get in next elections, and then we’ll see change.’ Fallings-in, fallings-out; factions, affairs, friendships blossomed and shrivelled. - ‘Ted’s standing for election as union rep, he wants our support.’ ‘Come on David, she’s only a teenager, you can’t fancy her.’ ‘Did you know that John bashed another student yesterday?’ Social idealism and educational reform accompanied the stirrings of militancy. The ‘hippie’ generation of love and flower power, marijuana, long hair and outlandish dress also brought earnest debate about the meaning of life and social equality, Vietnam moratoriums and the Little Rea’ Book. The changes upset traditionalists, but the mix and fervour invigorated the school. Despite the grotty staffroom, the frantic pace and the fragmentation at the school, in the 1970s Princes Hill High School and Princes Hill Primary School built reputations that drew teachers. Sier, the schools’ good teachers, the enthusiasm and zest of students, the excellent student teacher relations, the warm working and social relations between teachers who were bonded together by common educational goals, all contributed and continue to contribute - to the schools’ distinctions.⁸⁴

The advent of School Councils in both the primary and secondary sectors during the 1970s and 1980s has formalised the duties of principals and teachers, and shifted the focus of responsibility from the Education Department to ’ the school and its council. As part of the ‘line management’ infrastructure of the Education Department, the principal represents the Department in the community and is responsible for implementing Departmental policy in the school. Within the school, the principal’s duties have been relegated to various subcommittees of the Council. The principal is responsible for implementing the School Council’s policy: its approach to teaching, the expected outcome of the school’s programmes, everyday affairs, parental involvement and liaising with the various committees. The principal is also responsible for the staff, controlling efficiency and imposing discipline when necessary. And since the abolition of the Regional Senior Education Officer’s position in 1987, the principal has inherited the critical task of providing pastoral care for teachers, whether their problems are personal or professional.⁸⁵

The teacher’s duties, especially at the primary school, have also been clarified in school policy statements. Teachers are expected to teach children in line with school policies; co-operate with parents and participate in school community activities; maintain professionalism; and show concern for the school.⁸⁶

The liberalisation of education and of the Department of Education has improved teachers’ qualifications, salaries, conditions and status. As professionals, Sue McCall suggests, teachers must show themselves as people with training, ability, knowledge and skills which parents do not have. ‘Liberalisation’, however, has also brought further obligations and pressures. Murmurs continue among teachers about stress, low morale and weakening self esteem; the diversity of the job; the energy expended; the added hours usually after school spent on committees and at meetings; the lack of leadership from the Department, the Regional Office and even the school executive; parental criticism and interference in the primary school classrooms undermining the authority and position of teachers; and problems of discipline at the Secondary College. At the Secondary College, the social contact that teachers and students of the 1960s and 1970s enjoyed appears to have dissipated. In its place is a growing disquiet, and the re-emphasis of authoritarianism and harsher discipline in the school. Problem students, securely aware of their ‘rights’, do not help.

While the School Council’s job prescription for teachers seems clear, the devolution of authority has created two masters for staff; at times, this has caused ambiguities and friction. Olive Hamilton confronted this in 1983-5 when she felt obliged to honour requests from the Education Department to participate in Departmental projects. Disagreement between the Princes Hill Primary School Councils and the school’s principals in the mid to late 1970s and in 1983 also upset that school’s equilibrium. According to Ron Millet, who went there as Head Master in 1977, and a teacher employed there at the time, the school had a high casualty rate of teachers as a result of the tension and pressure from the ‘activist’ School Council and parents. Those wounds healed, as did those of 1983. John Heath, who in 1984 was sent by the Ministry as special relieving principal to conciliate and re-establish peace, praises the staff. According to Heath, balance was regained in the school because teachers wanted to ‘put the past behind them’. The ‘fight’ was fought and largely won in the 1970s. Though politicians decried militancy, it was necessary as a natural evolution of teaching. And it mirrored society’s radicalism. The 1980s, however, have brought a noticeable return to conservatism. Again, the trend is paralleling changes in society at large. The 1970s and 1980s devolution of education is now slowing down and drawing back, as educators, the community and the Ministry of Education call for more accountability. The collaboration and consensus that marked relations with the Department even two years ago have today been replaced with ‘consultation’ and ‘advice taking’.⁸⁷

The Memory of Teachers

Although archives do not retain complete lists of Princes Hill School teachers, a gallery of names confronts us. Some 88 only stayed a short while; others became the backbone of the school. To name everyone would be fitting, but impossible. Only a minute number, those most frequently referred to by students can be mentioned here. Gaps are inevitable.

The first extant list of teachers dates from 1890. Besides Head Teacher Russell, it includes (Major) George Moore, (Captain) Joseph ‘Paddy’ McShane, Mary Bruggman, Mary Hindley and Mrs Rosa Russell. Upon Russell’s recommendation, Miss Carr was invited to apply as Junior Teacher in the Infant School. Eliza Donaldson was the visiting singing teacher.⁸⁸

Ex-students’ memories of teachers are understandably mixed: some are fondly remembered, some are faintly recalled, others are long forgotten. Most immediately, recollections involve personal interactions with individual teachers. These encounters influenced how children enjoyed school. Marjorie, perhaps a somewhat precocious child, remembers her experiences with Miss Pooley:

The only teacher who was a bit nasty to me was Miss Pooley in grades 1 and 2. She never used my name; it was always ‘You can answer that, show-off’, or ‘Show-off, how about you?’ Maybe I was a show-off, but I suppose today one of us would be counselled; no doubt our personalities were of ‘a clashing variety.

In the eyes of the young, most teachers were ‘old’, ‘grey haired’ men and women. All were respected and feared. Most, even the favoured teachers, are remembered as strict disciplinarians who demanded and got good results from their charges. Esther remembers her penalty for error at the hands of Marion Walker: she was stood on the desk-seat and had her legs rapped with a ruler. Other teacher were more brutal, and less loved. Miss Mead was renowned for her generosity with a strap, both for boys and girls. Eighty years later, a former student is still unforgiving.⁸⁹ Miss Hindley, who taught grade 1, was unnecessarily cruel: ‘All she did all day was whack the kids with a ruler.’ Determined to correct young Eve’s left-handedness, Miss Hindley would sit on the offending left arm and force Eve to write with the right hand. Mistakes were punished with another stroke from the ruler.

Fortunately, the Infant School was staffed with warm and kind women such as Emily Hyem, Marion Walker and Emily Miller. Each has left lasting impressions with ex-students. During thirty-six years of service at twenty different schools (including seventeen years at Princes Hill), Emily Hyem built a reputation as an innovative and considerate teacher of infants and pupil teachers.⁹⁰ She would reward the best reader of the day with biscuits. Her retirement in September 1915, due to ill health, was a great loss to the school.

Marion Walker taught grade 3 and later was appointed Infant Mistress at Pigdon Street. She has left generations of grateful students, who later became proud friends. Many recall her enthusiasm and encouragement that students read widely and become self-educated.

Christina ‘Sally’ Shaw, who taught grade 8 in the 1920s and 1930s, seemed to have been there forever. Her eccentricities provided their own magic. A bespectacled small woman with a wrinkled face, she dressed in ankle-length, black dresses, with a stiff white lace collar held up by bones at each side. Black cashmere stockings and lace-up, shoes protected her legs. Her iron-grey hair was screwed up in a bun and pinned on the top of her head. In the words of one ex-student, ‘She looked a hundred years old; but she was a wonderful teacher.’ She was, however, prone to histrionics: if a student’s work was incorrect, she would tear the book into quarters and throw them out of the window. She would then give the student threepence to buy another. The death scene in Dickens’ Dombey and Son would reduce her to tears.⁹¹

Arthur ‘Alfie’ Bock was the boys’ grade 7 teacher during the 1920s and 1930s. A short man who wore a stiff butterfly collar, he supervised the boys’ sports teams and coached the footballers and runners to many successes.⁹² The austere, sarcastic, perfectionist Victor von Putt taught grade 5 and doubled as the music teacher. His nasty streak was the subject of a rhyme,

‘Putty on the window,

Putty on the floor,

Putty went to hit me,

and we pushed him out the door’.⁹³

Like ‘Sally’ Shaw, Miss Body, who had the bell-tower room, also was at the school for what seemed an ‘eternity’. Her grade 6 boys loved the ‘most popular boy’ prize she presented annually.⁹⁴

In the Central School, Mr Mutimer’s teaching skill with form 2 maths was demanding but inspiring.⁹⁵ Mr Pocock was another brilliant teacher and excellent organiser, although he never bothered to complete his degree.⁹⁶ Some teachers became the objects of young infatuations, such as Miss Cook who taught grade 4 in the l940s,⁹⁷ and Lois King who taught high school geography,⁹⁸ and Tony Knight, the charismatic physical education teacher.

In the primary school, Emily Miller succeeded her close friend Marion Walker as Infant Mistress. She is described as using the football umpire’s whistle more effectively than the strap had been used in earlier days.⁹⁹ John Chambers was another eccentric but inspiring teacher. In the late 1950s, he drove a racy sports car, played his yellow transistor during class and a wind instrument while children sat tests, taught grade 6 and coached the football team.¹⁰⁰

The high school had its contingent of characters too. Tony Knight not only broke hearts but invigorated the school’s sporting reputation, and the fibre of the school in general. His interests sparked off student activities in many fields, from the jazz club to the hiking enthusiasts.¹⁰¹ John Ireland’s sensitivity and accessibility to whatever problems students had, whether academic or personal, endeared him to many. The hiking expeditions he organised with Tony Knight are fondly remembered, as are the ‘sex education’ talks he delivered.¹⁰² Peter Stapelton seemed fragile, but his resolve and humour were strong. Emile Hamer’s Dutch stubbornness exasperated his fellow teachers, but his love of scholarship and breadth of learning has inspired many students. Nancy Weiner and Billy Murdoch, an ex-student of Princes Hill High School, rejuvenated the school’s theatrical spirit. Murdoch’s revues, ‘Princes Hill is Burning Down’ and ‘Have a ’Wunderbar’’, helped students laugh through the bad days. John Thurgood, with his deep caring for children, was killed in an automobile accident on his way back to Melbourne from his beloved Mirimbah.

The Infant Room, Arnold Street, 1903. Children sat in forms which were arranged on ascending platforms