NRS-16742 | Visitors' Books [Dalwood Public School]

Full description

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 Dalwood Public School survives only from June, 1952; the whereabouts of the earlier volumes is not presently known. In the two volumes currently held, the overwhelming majority of entries down to the end of 1960 are made by clergymen visiting the school for the purpose of providing religious instruction. No further clergy entries appear during the remaining ten years of the school’s operation, and it is conjectured that a separate Visiting Clergy Book may have been maintained during this period. As one of the two surviving books also contains only four entries, two dated to 1961, one to 1962 and one to 1968, while the other book, which contains the record for the years 1952-1960, also contains ten further entries for the period 1965-1968, it is further conjectured that it may have been intended to commence a new Visitors’ Book in 1961, but that some degree of confusion ensued which resulted in the record reverting mostly to the old book after 1962.