NRS-16737 | Visitors' Books [Copeland 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 series from Copeland Public School appears to consists of two volumes, the first of which commences about seventeen months after the school opened, and continues until three years before it closed; the remainder of the school’s period of operation is covered by the second volume. A half-page of entries covering the period February to August, 1963, originally concluding the record in the first volume, has been cut out and pasted into the beginning of the second. The overwhelming majority of entries are made by clergymen visiting to provide religious instruction; visits by the Inspector of Schools are also regularly recorded. Very few comments appear in this volume, but two former pupils of the earlier Copeland North Public School (Agency no. 3107) have identified themselves, in September, 1925, and May, 1929, and each refers to then-existing records of the earlier school, particularly the Punishment Book, which they were able to view on those occasions.