Sport and Colonialism in 19th Century Australasia - LA84 Foundation

of amateur sport and his revulsion at the trends emerging in
professional team games. 51
Indeed, there was a puritanical
streak in Adamson on the issue of professional sport. He made
it known in 1911 that Wesley boys who wanted to attend "senior
games of football" on Saturday afternoons could only do so in
the company of "relatives and friends of mature judgement", a
Ludicrous regulation difficult to police or enforce. 52
The leaders that Adamson wished to see emerging from
Wesley and serve the causes of the new nation and an Empire
under European threat were not to be confused by a morality
based upon double standards. He had also concluded, at the
start of his reign as headmaster, that leadership and sentiment
would be enhanced by a greater devotion to military training at
the school. Adamson was proud of his own family's military
background and the school magazine gave prominent notice to the
promotion of the headmaster's only brother to the rank of
Colonel in 1903. 53
Shortly after his own appointment Adamson
engaged one of the best military drill instructors in the state,
Sergeant-Major Hart, and set him the challenge of reviving a
cadet force that had shrunk to twenty volunteers in the whole
school. Whatever the qualities of Hart, it is doubtful whether
the cadet force could have expected a new lease of life without
strong pressures from within the school. The cadet movement
throughout Victoria was at a low ebb in its recruitment appeal
after the Boer War, yet Adamson's influence resulted in an
immediate rise in the fortunes of cadet training at the school.
Service with the cadets was given enthusiastic support in the
school magazine in April 1902 and it was plainly obvious from
the notice that a recruitment drive was on among the boys. 54
By 1908 the Wesley College Corps could boast an impressive
force of 216 cadets and their military activities were being
given prominent publicity in the College Chronicle. 55
Rifle shooting
was accorded "sport status" at Wesley and competition to
get into teams was keen because of the incentive provided by
various trophies - the Sargood Shield, the Cumming and Syme
cups. When the compulsory system of university cadet training
was started in all Australian schools in July 1911 by the
Commonwealth Defence Department, Adamson was one of the scheme's
most ardent supporters. As a show of strength of the new
56