To treat of “Culture” and “Society” in Australia, in the sense that one does of the greater European capitals, would be like treating of the snakes in Iceland.

Disinterested study is unknown in a country where every one is still in haste to gamble, grab land, or create a business.

The State provides for the mass of the people only the most primary of education, and any advance is in the shape of what will be of service to the direct creators of wealth.

The grammar-schools and denominational colleges take boys no further than the lower fifth of the best English public schools.

The universities are quite as much examining bodies as a national educator.

History is identified with religion, and as such excluded from the “curriculum”; so that the sense of the poetry of the past and the solidarity of the race is rapidly being lost to the young Australian.

To the next generation of the even fairly educated England will be a geographical expression, and the Empire a myth in imminent danger of becoming a bogey.

A few years ago Matthew Arnold, writing to me on the subject of the future of education in Australia, prophesied that the rich class would send their children to England.

Nothing of the sort is happening.

The first generation, from which he probably argued, has set no abiding fashion.

Fewer and fewer rich Australians will be found at Eton and Rugby, and Oxford and Cambridge.