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A sense of tradition: R.J.W. Selleck and the purpose of educational history
Abstract
This short account of R.J.W. (Dick) Selleck's career and research suggests how he reoriented study of the history of education in Australia. Using a historicist method, he examined educational theories and practices to elucidate the educational purposes they were intended to serve. Through major biographies of leading educationists and biographical studies of teachers he broadened the social and cultural dimension of educational history. More recently he has applied the same rigorous scholarship to higher education.
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The state schools established in each Australian colony in the nineteenth century were often justified on the grounds that they offered an education which would enrich and enlighten cultural life. A study of the curriculum and methods they used and the manner in which they were organized and their teachers trained and paid suggests that the state schools, far from offering an introduction to culture (in the sense of ‘high’ culture), actually provided an alternative to it. In the early twentieth century, efforts were made to reform the elementary school so that it would provide at least a limited access to culture. These efforts, bitterly criticized at the time on the ground that they distracted attention from basic subjects such as the three Rs, continued to be resisted throughout the twentieth century. At the same time as the elementary school was being changed, the state endeavoured to broaden educational opportunity and access to the high culture by establishing secondary schools. Political, economic, and administrative considerations led the state to establish a structure of schooling which, at the secondary level, provided an alternative to the cultural activities being developed in the elementary/primary school. This paper warns against a ‘back to basics’ movement which would take the culturally impoverished nineteenth-century elementary school as a model, and suggests that, despite structural limitations, the establishment of state secondary schools has led to some widening of cultural opportunities.
In his first essay, "Languages and Their Implications," J. G. A. Pocock announces the emergence of the history of political thought as a discipline apart from political philosophy. Traditionally, "history" of political thought has meant a chronological ordering of intellectual systems without attention to political languages; but it is through the study of those languages and of their changes, Pocock claims, that political thought will at last be studied historically. Pocock argues that the solution has already been approached by, first, the linguistic philosophers, with their emphasis on the importance of language study to understanding human thought, and, second, by Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, with its notion of controlling intellectual paradigms. Those paradigms within and through which the scientist organizes his intellectual enterprise may well be seen as analogous to the worlds of political discourse in which political problems are posed and political solutions are proffered. Using this notion of successive paradigms, Pocock demonstrates its effectiveness by analyzing a wide range of subjects, from ancient Chinese philosophy to Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Burke.
The Australian government school
- A G Austin
- R J W Selleck
Austin, A.G. and Selleck, R.J.W., 1975. The Australian government school 1830– 1914.
George Higinbotham: church and state. Melbourne: Pitman. Hobsbawm, E.J., 1971. From social history to the history of society
- G M Dow
Dow, G.M., 1964. George Higinbotham: church and state. Melbourne: Pitman. Hobsbawm, E.J., 1971. From social history to the history of society. Daedalus, 100, 20–45.
Crudden: the reluctant rebel
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 1970. Crudden: the reluctant rebel. Melbourne: Heinemann Educational Australia.
The Australian scene – then and now The Catholic school in a pluralist society: one hundred years of Catholic education. Melbourne: Catholic Education Office
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 1971. The Australian scene – then and now. In: J.T.C. Brassil and B.M. Daffey, eds. The Catholic school in a pluralist society: one hundred years of Catholic education. Melbourne: Catholic Education Office, 19–34.
The Catholic primary school Half a million children: studies of non-government education in Australia
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 1978. The Catholic primary school. In: J. Cleverley, ed. Half a million children: studies of non-government education in Australia. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 77–105.
Is he to be a little Lord God Almighty? A reflection on the study of the history of education
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 1983. Is he to be a little Lord God Almighty? A reflection on the study of the history of education. History of education review, 12 (1), 1–14.
State education and culture Australian cultural history
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 1988. State education and culture. In: S.L. Goldberg and F.B. Smith, eds. Australian cultural history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 78 –94.
The shop: the University of Melbourne 1850–
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 2003. The shop: the University of Melbourne 1850–1939.
Finding home: the Masson family
- R J W Selleck
Selleck, R.J.W., 2013. Finding home: the Masson family. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Not so eminent Victorians
- R J W Selleck
- M Sullivan
Selleck, R.J.W. and Sullivan, M., eds., 1984. Not so eminent Victorians. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.