THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
VIGILANS ET AUDAX.
PERTH, THURSDAY, SEPT. 10, 1891.
The task of drawing attention to the colony's needs and deficiencies is rather a tiresome one. Take a community of some fifty thousand people all told, none of them very rich, and only a proportion more than moderately well-to do, [sic] scatter them over an enormous territory, a million square miles in extent, separated by some thousand miles of sea or untraversed waste from any more populous neighbour, and it can only be expected that they will lack many of those conveniences and accessories which go to the making of that complicated structure of society which a complacent world calls modern civilisation. If that can be taken for granted, the West Australian of to-day may give himself some credit, not only for what he has already achieved in the supply of the material comforts of life, but also for the scope of his ambitions and the comparative rapidity with which those ambitions are now being fulfilled.
There is, however, one danger which needs to be forseen. While within the next few years Western Australia may be made quite as desirable a country to live in as any of the Eastern colonies, so far as mere comfort and convenience are concerned, the younger generation growing up in the colony may find themselves at a disadvantage educationally, as compared with the youth of the Eastern colonies and the United Kingdom.
Western Australia is pre-eminently a colony where a young man anxious to push his way in the world may hope to succeed, and it may be expected that for some time to come greater proportionate progress will be made in ten years here than in half a century of the life of many older countries. But for educational purposes no one would choose Western Australia as being in any way conspicuous. Putting aside those studies necessary for a professional career, and supposing merely that a lad wishes to prepare himself for the occupations of mining or farming, for which there are unlimited openings in Australia, he can in most, if not all, of the Eastern colonies obtain instruction suited for his purpose. He will find schools of mines, agricultural colleges, geological and botanical museums, and experimental gardens at hand. He has, in fine, excellent opportunities of obtaining that scientific knowledge and training which is of inestimable value to the miner and the agriculturist. But the West Australian lad, unless his parents can afford to send him out of the colony for his education, is at present quite denied advantages like these. The lack is undoubtedly serious, and the duty of supplying it as far as practicable is one which no wise Government will fail to keep in view.
That we possess vast natural resources is indisputable, and if constant reiteration of that gratifying fact is of any service, we are not likely to forget it. But if these resources are to be turned to good account there must be some knowledge of nature, some acquaintance with the contents of her vast laboratory, some discrimination in selecting what to utilise and what to leave alone.
The meeting of the West Australian Natural History Society, at the Geological Museum, yesterday, serves to remind us that, in one direction at least, and in a very important direction, modest but very useful effort is being made to supply the colony with an educational adjunct, which should prove of special value in relation to its mineral resources. It is a happy coincidence that what may he described as the formal opening of the Geological Museum should have fallen to the lot of a Governor, who, during a previous term of office, was responsible for its inauguration.
In the intervening years the Museum has undergone a course of self- development rather than exercised any educational influence in the way of spreading knowledge of the colony's geological formations and mineral wealth. Until a comparatively recent period, it was housed in a room. adjacent to the private residence of the late curator—the Rev C. G. NICOLAY, —to whose fostering care in the struggling days of its infancy it owes so much, and it may safely be said that its existence, unless in some vague, indeterminate way, was known only to a few. Its removal to a more central position in Perth was a decided attempt to burst forth from its chrysalis state, and the appointment of a salaried curator, in the person of Mr. B. H. WOODWARD, has also helped to direct attention to an institution which, if rightly used, should have a very definite and practical value to the colony.
But even now the museum is not so well- known as it should be. The gloomy pile which has been assigned to the Geological Department for its head quarters and which was built for quite different uses, is not the place where one would expect to find a museum except for the relics of criminality, and it can only be regarded as a temporary habitation. But the gathering of yesterday and the publicity which it will receive through the medium of the press will no doubt materially help to awaken the public to a knowledge of the museum's existence, and it may be recognised that the old gaol, like the toad, ugly, if not venemous, “wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
But a museum for the housing and display of geological specimens does not include all that is needed by the colony in this direction, as was pointed out by both the Governor and the Premier yesterday. We have to look forward in the future to the establishment of botanical, ethnological, zoological and technological museums, as well as a fine art gallery.
As yet we have not one of these in the colony, but the time has certainly come when the Government should take in hand the collection of objects for all of these, no matter how small the scale on which operations have first to be begun. And it will be noted with peculiar satisfaction that the PREMIER has promised that the Government will make an early attempt to supply all those deficiencies, and undertake seriously the creation of these institutions.
The initial step, however, is to provide a suitable building in which collections as they accumulate can he properly housed. If the Government can see their way to make the necessary provision for this purpose, they may rest assured that there are few objects for which the colony will more willingly sanction a moderate expenditure. Even with an immediate beginning it must be many a year before any of our local museums can hope to compare with the fine collections in the Eastern colonies. But these had their day of small things, and it is astonishing what steady progress can be achieved by the help of a moderate annual grant, provided its expenditure is placed in competent hands.
The present excellent museum at Adelaide, which comprises all the branches we have named, has grown in this modest fashion, and excluding the cost of the admirable building which it occupies on North Terrace, the expenditure incurred in bringing it to its present condition has been very much less than might be supposed. The temptation which we must resist here, at least for some years to come, is that of spending too much on bricks and mortar.
The ambition to provide a fitting home for our national collections is a worthy one, but it must be withstood until such a time as the colony is in a position to build a habitation of which it can feel proud. But when that time does come our whole strength should be put into the work. There is a deep truth in the teaching of RUSKIN that architecture is the revealing medium or lamp through which flames a people's passions, and which is the embodiment of their polity, life, faith or no-faith. And even in the first simple building, the mere shell of brick or jarrah, with no other object but to provide safe housing and shelter against the elements, one of the first principles of architecture, the law of truth, or the spirit of reality and sincerity characteristic of all noble schools of the art, can be observed. An effort could he made, if only for economy's sake, apart from beauty's, to dispense with all that sham and bastard ornamentation which is the curse of so many modern attempts at architecture. Better to have a plain structure revealing itself as such than some pretentious pile aping the palace, and with sham written on every gew-gaw and bit of trumpery that vainly strive to hide its real nature. All the money that can he raised should as far as possible be spent in collecting, for some years to come.
THE members of the West Australian Natural History Society paid a visit to the Geological Museum yesterday, and opportunity was taken of the presence of His Excellency the Governor to formally open the museum to the public. The museum, which occupies what formerly was the chapel of the old gaol, has now attained some magnitude, as a collection and scientific classification of the minerals, especially the marketable ores, of West Australia, together with other valuable specimens lent by the Curator, Mr. Bernard H. Woodward, representing the geology of most parts of the world.
A numerous company of members and visitors, including a goodly number of ladies, assembled in the afternoon to be present at the opening ceremony. Speeches appropriate to the occasion, were delivered by Sir John Forrest, who opened the proceedings, his Excellency the Governor, the Rev. C. G. Nicolay, who had first commenced the collection at Fremantle, and Mr. Woodward the Curator. An extended report of the proceedings is unavoidably held over till to-morrow, for want of space....
