Page:The influence of commerce on civilization (IA influenceofcomme00ellerich).pdf/38

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that when I was a student at Glasgow University, some forty years ago, I saw and knew men who were my fellow-students who studied during the winter months at. Glasgow. To acquire the means to prosecute their studies these men during the summer months in Scotland, or may he in Ireland or England, drove the plough, herded sheep, and worked in coal mines. I have kept some in view, and to their lasting credit and to the glory of the traditional grit of their country some now occupy the highest positions of trust and confidence, not only in their own land hut also in other countries. This condition of independence in these matters I would like to see adopted in Australia. There is, to my mind, too much "spoon-fed" education in Australia, where the youth of both sexes are educated—save the word—at the free schools at the expense of the taxpayer. I am sorry to say, hut I am afraid it is true—at least it seems to me so from my humble observation—that hundreds of youths are annually let loose on the great towns, such as Sydney, and it may he in other cities, with a certain amount of rudimentary conglomerated knowledge absolutely useless to themselves or to any employer of their services. Such is the condition of their surroundings that they are absolutely without reverence for anything, and are quite unamenable to any kind of discipline. The result is, having no home restraint nor paternal guidance, they are quite unfitted for any employment whatever when they have to abide by prescribed rules and regulations. To meet this state of things in Sydney—and I speak of Sydney as the city I know most about in Australia—the Chamber of Commerce has instituted a course of instruction for youths and invited them to attend lectures and other media of acquiring commercial information. Also, going further than this, the Institute of Bankers of New South Wales, which has silently, steadily, and successfully progressed during the last eighteen years in everything pertaining to the better intelligence of the youth in the banking community, for some years past has organized a system of examinations for youths who wish to enter banks as clerks. I know of one