Phil Cormack University of South Australia

1. Mobile practices in the teaching of reading: The case of school papers in late nineteenth century Australia Phil Cormack University of South Australia

2. ‘The Children’s Hour’Longfellow The Children’s Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day’s occupations That is known as the children’s hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall-stair, Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. … I have put you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down in my dungeon In the round tower of my heart: And there I will keep you for ever, Yes, for ever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble in ruin And moulder in dust away! Longfellow (1889, The Children’s Hour, p.1)

3. Established 1889

4. Structure • Introducing The Children’s Hour • The research program • Lines of analysis • New problems of population – South Australian education in the late 19th century • The Children’s Hour as a case of innovation and a site of mobile practices at the edge of empire • Conclusions – the humble reading lesson as a site of citizen formation

5. A research program • “Schooling Australia? A Curriculum History of English Teaching, Teacher Education and Public Schooling (1901-1938)” • Australian Research Council (2001-2003) with Bill Green and Jo-Anne Reid • “Adolescence, Schooling and English/Literacy: Formations of a Problem in Early Twentieth Century South Australia” • PhD (2004) • “Teaching Reading in Australia: An Historical Investigation of Early Reading Pedagogy, the Figure of the Teacher, and Literacy Education” • Australian Research Council (2009-2010) with Bill Green &Annette Patterson

6. Lines of analysis • a genealogical approach to the historical investigation of curriculum (see Foucault 1977; Rose 1996) • using forms of critical discourse analysis on historical texts, supplemented by historical analysis of evidence (see Fairclough & Wodak 1997) • particular attention to dialogic features of text as evidenced by intertextuality and the way texts operate within heteroglossia (see Bakhtin 1981) For a discussion of these approaches see: • Cormack, P. (1998). Literacy research and the uses of history: Studying literacy, schooling and young people in new times. Australian Educational Researcher, 25(3), 23-36. • Cormack, P. (2005). Researching curriculum history. Curriculum Perspectives, 25(1), 55-59.

7. Problems of population related to education in late 19th century South Australia • a widely dispersed settler population growing rapidly – problems of spatial governance, especially in rural districts • a changing moral and social economy through enfranchisement of the population (‘British’ male 1856, women 1894) and with the rise of working class populations in cities – problems of moral and civic governance • a changing literate economy with cheap production of printed material – problems of the management of literacy

8. a widely dispersed settler population South Australia population: 1875 – 210,400 1900 – 358,300 (70%) 2010 – 1,467,300 http://populstat.info/Oceania/australp.htm

9. Figure 2: Regulation 127 on Bible Reading Problems of moral & civic governance:A ‘secular’ education

10. Head Masters’ Conference, September 1881 That the members of this conference greatly regret the necessity of excluding religious teaching from the schools; that they believe that the large majority of children receive little or no moral training at home; that a very large number of children are unable to even repeat the Ten Commandments … (1882 Ed. Acts Comm. PR2, No. 5284)

11. The Education Acts Royal Commission 1881 Commissioner Cooke: I have here the sequel to the third reading book. Look at the 12th page, second line of the page—“Do you know what the Bible is my child?” “It is the word of the great God.” Do you think this is secular education? Take the 11th paragraph in the next page, “And when I went away mother kissed me and said to me, remember the ninth commandment and remember that whatever you say in court God hears every word of it.” Looking at the whole of that paragraph, do you consider that purely secular education? Inspector-Gen. Hartley: Yes, I do, dealing with this particular story and I will explain why. This story is to teach children what is the meaning of the oath in a court of justice, and I think it is a part of secular education to teach children the nature of an oath in a court of justice. (1881 Ed. Acts Comm. PR1, Nos.197-198)

12. The Education Acts Royal Commission 1881 Comm. Tomkinson: If religious teaching is altogether excluded from the schools, how are the children to be brought up good men and women? Inspector Whitham: They are taught in the schools a sense of obedience to the teachers, a sense of honor in dealing with each other and in work, politeness and all the little items which show good breeding, but these are not imparted by reading “Thou shalt or thou shalt not” from the Bible or any other book alone. (1881 Ed. Acts Comm. PR1, No.900)

13. A changing literate economy: The wide availability of popular texts The last decade of the 19th century saw a boom in comic publishing, beginning with Comic Cuts (1890-1953), another of the creations of the press baron, Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe). Part of its success was due to its unprecedentedly low price of one halfpenny, half the cost of its predecessors. Rival publishers soon brought out competitors to Comic Cuts which were similar in style and name, such as Funny Cuts (1890-1920), and Harmsworth responded with further titles of his own, such as Illustrated Chips (1890-1952). British Library Board (2008) British Comics Collection http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/news/britcomics/ (Accessed 28 Oct 2008) Comic Cuts 17 May 1890

14. A changing literate economy: Religious publishing The Child’s Companion Published by the Religious tract society, formerly Child's Companion and Juvenile Instructor 1845-1897; also The Child's Companion, or Sunday Scholar's Reward

15. A changing literate economy: ’Improving’ texts The Chatterbox ranks amongst the top Victorian & Edwardian children’s story papers,  published in Britain continuously from 1st December 1866 through to the mid-1950’s, and in the US from 1870 until 1933.  It was briefly published in Canada as well (1929‑33).The paper was founded in Derby by the Rev. John Erskine Clarke, M.A. (1827-1920) who was also the Editor until 1902, after which Harvey Darton took over.  Clarke subsequently became the Vicar of Battersea for 37 years, and a Canon of Southwark. (2006) http://www.ampneycrucis.f9.co.uk/Chatterbox/index.htm

16. The popular as a problem for ‘the good, the beautiful, the true’ As one unacknowledged ‘enthusiastic teacher’ put it in an article on a ‘reading room’ at their school in the 1920s, the children in the school’s district had no access to books of ‘permanent value’ and were likely to be exposed to ‘Schoolboy Stories, Dead-wood Dicks, Penny Dreadfuls, and the inevitable Comic Cuts’ and other such ‘trivialities’. According to this commentator, that Australians read such work: … explains the narrowness of outlook, the bitter class hatred, the poor superficial opinions on politics, the elements of mob rule, the go-with-the-crowd, and the going along the line of least resistance. We have stocked this room with books that are of permanent value, with books that appeal to young and old alike, and withal, contain the best we can offer in the way of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the lasting. (1927 EG, p.225) (1927 Education Gazette, p.225)

17. Not literacy, but what kind of literacy State schooling was not primarily about transmitting skills of literacy and numeracy. … State school reformers routinely argued that it would be far better to leave the masses completely ignorant than to teach them to read and write without forming their moral character. … they also confronted a population which was already largely literate. … State school reformers sought not simply to create a literate population, but rather to reorganize and regulate both the acquisition and the exercise of the skills of literacy. (Curtis, 1988, p.15, emphasis in the original) Curtis, B. (1988). Building the Educational State: Canada West, 1836-1871. London: Falmer Press.

18. Announcing the Children’s Hour Almost every teacher has found that the reading books are gone over so often that the lessons become monotonous and uninteresting. The question has been anxiously considered whether it is possible to overcome this difficulty. One plan is to keep two or three sets of readers in schools, but, apart from the expense, the objection may be made that even these would after a time become equally familiar, and therefore somewhat tiresome. Another proposal is to publish with the Gazette a supplement specially designed for the children, and a trial is being made with the present number. So many books are now published for the young that it is thought there will not be much difficulty in selecting suitable extracts, and it may even be hoped that some teachers will use their literary powers and contribute suitable original articles. One advantage of this plan will be that before one number becomes stale another will be published. The supplement sent herewith must be regarded only as an experiment, and suggestions for its improvement are cordially invited and will be gladly welcomed. It is intended to forward one copy to each school and also one to each private subscriber. The school copy is intended for the use of the children, and not to be thrust away in the portfolio or the table-drawer.( 1889 Education Gazette, p.16)

19. The Children’s Hour:A successful ‘experiment’ • established 1889 for Class IV (the older child working at graduate or upper primary standard) • 1894 Class III (mid-primary) edition added • 1902 Class II (lower-primary) edition added • 3,741 subscriptions by 1890 (approx 45,000 children enrolled in total) • 6,672 by 1891 • in 1890 included as a text for the official examination alongside the Royal Readers until 1900 when it became the only text for examination for Class III and IV • published until 1963 • a much emulated text ->

20. The School Paper Crittenden, V. (1990). The Tasmanian School Paper, 1907. The Lu Rees Archives Notes, Books and Authors(12), 39-40. Firth, G. S. (1970). Social values in the New South Wales Primary School 1880-1914: An analysis of school texts. Melbourne Studies in Education, 123-159. Godfrey, J. I. F. (2007). Sowing the seeds for development: Cyril Jackson's attempts to establish relevant schooling in a rural setting in Western Australia, 1896-1903. History of Education Review, 36(2), 33-45. Musgrave, P. W. (1997). Distributor and publisher: Victorian Education Departments and the supply of textbooks, 1851-1945. Paradigm, 24(1), 1-11. Nimon, M. (1987). Children's Reading in South Australia, 1851-1900. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide. Townsend, N. (1982). Philosophy of history in the School Magazine of New South Wales, 1916-1922. Journal of Australian Studies, 11(November), 36-53. Townsend, N. (1989). Moulding minds: The School Paper in Queensland, 1905 to 1920. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 75(2), 142-157.

21. The Children’s Hour:An innovative text • use of photographs and illustrations • an increasingly ‘Australian’ text – inclusion of ‘local’ South Australian and Australian topics and feature • a collection of texts – a curriculum hybrid

22. ‘Pictures’ as an educational resource

23. ‘Local’ pictures as a talking point

24. An increasingly ‘Australian’ text • Director Williams commented that the Children’s Hour, ‘should remove from us the reproach that we do not teach our Australian children anything of their own land’ (EG, 1907 August, 187), • Inspector Smyth (EG, 1900 March, 47) called for ‘a set of Australian’ Readers to be compiled by the Department because the treatment of subject matter ‘from the Australian standpoint’ would be more interesting to pupils and provide contact with the ‘best Australian authors’.

25. The Children’s Hour as a collection of texts both traditional… and innovative

26. The Children’s Hour as a site of curricular and pedagogical innovation • intertextual borrowing of texts allowing the import of protestant versions of morality and self-improvement without being ‘religious’ • a site for establishing identities, or new possibilities for identification • adaptation of genres into educational settings – e.g. ‘current affairs of the colonies’, sports reports (hybrid genres) • new views of reading and the curriculum connected with the ‘new education’ • new views of the teacher – a newly ‘sympathetic’ figure • new views of the student – constructing the ‘child’ – one who plays, who wonders, who looks to the kindly adult for reassurance …

27. (Inter)textual borrowings Published by The Beacon Press, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, traces its beginnings to 1854 when the American Unitarian Association raised $50,000 for a Book Fund Project. The AUA "issued an urgent call for liberal works that would meet the spiritual needs of the age.” http://amblesideonline.org/PR/PR03p841Books.shtml

28. New possibilities for identification

29. Adaptation of genres: ‘News’ style reporting

30. Adaptation of genres:The sports report

31. Correlation of subjects May 1909 Empire Day focus • poem ‘My country’ • story of British adventurer/explorer Shackleton • poem on the Union Jack • Song of Australia • Pictures of the Governor and his wife • story of a brave Victorian woman – first to receive a medal

33. The newly sympathetic teacher

35. New views of the student as ‘child’ The anxious child

36. Child of Australia

37. The humble reading lesson • a complex site where different techniques of the subject could be brought together with particular effect • the reading text as a space of innovation: • a training in how to say ‘I’ (or ‘we’ or ‘they’) • the creation of a ‘child’ subject • where the local student subject could be addressed and positioned within a global setting • the figure of the teacher – less of an authority and more of a moral guide - the pastoral figure (Hunter 1987) of the ‘new’ education Hunter, I. (1987). Culture, education and English: Building "the principal scene of the real life of children". Economy and Society, 16(4), 568-588.

38. Historical insights into mobility and reading • the ‘new times’ thesis in literacy education needs to be questioned and treated with care: • reading education in the 19th century was engaged with the global and the local • hybrid, multi-modal texts were being used in the 19th century reading curriculum • peripheries can be significant sites of innovation in social programs such as education: • new problems of population require ingenuity to solve • technologies available for one purpose can be turned to new uses • these innovations may the be re-imported into centres in relation to new populations • school reading programs can be powerful (but never monolithic) instruments of identity formation: • ‘State’ sponsored programs can promote new identities • such programs are dialogic and participants in heteroglossia

39. Some companion papers • Green, B., & Cormack, P. (2008). Curriculum History, 'English' and the New Education; or, Installing the Empire of English? Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 16(3), 253-267 • Cormack, P. (2008). Tracking local curriculum histories: The plural forms of subject English. Changing English: Studies in Reading & Culture, 15(3), 275-291. • Cormack, P., & Green, B. (2009). Re-reading the historical record: Curriculum history and the linguistic turn. In B. Baker (Ed.), New Curriculum Histories (pp. 223-240). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. • Green, B., & Cormack, P. (in press). Literacy, nation, schooling: Reading (in) Australia. In D. Trohler, T. S. Popkewitz & D. F. Larabee (Eds.), The Child, the Citizen and the Promised Land: Comparative Visions in the Development of Schooling in the Long 19th Century. London & New York: Routledge.