Sport and Colonialism in 19th Century Australasia - LA84 Foundation

severe. In the Victorian public schools of 1930 there was,
simply, nothing to take its place.
Sporting traditions in Australian schools, both public
and government, have received little attention up to now. The
energetic and possibly excessive interest taken in games and
competitive sport by the public schools system has yet to be
adequately described against the background of broad educational
developments and within the context of curriculum progress.
Some deeper analysis of the place of games and sport in schools
education might then be attempted. Until that time statements
on athleticism in the public schools, whether as a vice or a
virtue, should be treated with caution. One author who has researched
athleticism within the English public school system
offers a warning to those ready to adopt positions based on
modern conventional judgement and validity expressed by contemporary
generalisations. He concludes: "If athleticism often
degenerated into the self-absorption of Caliban, it frequently
aimed to effect the selflessness of Ariel". 69
Adamson was prepared
to recognise the existence of Caliban but he believed
that every boy at Wesley College could become Ariel.
NOTES:
1.
2. Ibid,
Age, 31 October 1932.
3. Quoted in F. Meyer,
pp.193-194.
Adamson of Wesley (Melbourne 1932),
4. B. Nairn and G. Serle (eds.), Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Vol. 7, 1891-1939 (Melbourne 1979), p.13.
5. Sir James Darling, 'Educational Recollections of the
Thirties', in R.J.W. Selleck (ed.), Melbourne Studies in
Education 1968-69 (Melbourne 1969), p.l.
6. The six public schools were organised into the Victorian
Public Schools' Association. Its select membership is
usually recorded in the order of establishment and admission
to the Association, viz., Scotch College, Geelong
Grammar School, Melbourne Grammar School, Wesley College,
61