NRS-17124 | Visitors' Books [Nabiac Public School]

The Public Instruction Act, 1866 authorised special religious instruction by visiting clergymen and their delegates (Public Schools Act, 1866, s. 19), and regulations under the Act authorised members of the public to visit schools during ‘the hours of secular instruction’ to observe teaching methods, teaching material and equipment (Regulations adopted by the Council of Education on 27 February 1867, s. 84-85). The regulations required every teacher to keep a visitors’ book ‘in which visitors may enter their names and if they think proper any remarks. Such remarks the Teachers are by no means to erase or alter.’ (Regulations … s. 86).The purpose of the visitors’ book was to create a record of the persons other than pupils or teachers who attended the school during business hours. Visitors’ books were divided into three columns – date, name and remarks. The remarks usually recorded the purpose of the visit which included religious instruction (by far the most usual purpose for visiting a school), school inspection, medical inspection, departmental officers visiting on business e.g. to inspect the buildings or equipment, and guest speakers. Occasionally visitors (particularly Inspectors) remarked briefly on the conduct or the ambience of the school.The overwhelming majority of signatures in this volume are those of clergy and their delegates who visited the school in order to provide religious instruction to the pupils. Between 1948 and 1955 it becomes increasingly common for visiting clergy to indicate the number of lessons taken on each occasion.Other than clergy, the most regular visitors to the school were the Inspectors of Schools, who normally sign the book on the occasion of their regular visits of inspection.In March, 1941, the school hosted a Teachers’ Convention on “Problems in the Practice of Teaching,” the attendees at which have signed the Visitors’ Book. In May, 1940, the volume records the visitors to a Demonstration Day held at the school, and in April, 1948, nearly four pages are devoted to the signatures of visitors to the school’s celebrations of the centenary of public education in New South Wales. A further party of visitors, which included the Teacher-in-Charge at Wang Wauk School, have left their signatures on an unidentified occasion in July, 1948.The school received a number of distinguished personages during the period covered by this volume. It was visited in November, 1938, by the N.S.W. Minister for Education, Mr D.H. Drummond; in September, 1941, by a later Minister for Education, Clive Evatt, and by R.L. Fitzgerald, M.L.A., the Member for Gloucester; in May, 1948, by Mr Fitzpatrick again, and by G.D. Darby, the Member for Manly; in July, 1952, by Mr D. Drake, the Area Director of Education; and in July, 1955 by Mr E.H. Lucock, the Federal Member for Lyne.