Rockhampton Bulletin and Central Queensland Advertiser, 25 February 1865, p. 2.
Yesterday evening at eight o'clock, the new School of Arts
building was opened by an address from J. Douglas, Esq., M.L.A., followed by an
amateur concert. Notwithstanding the state of the weather, which was very
unpropitious, a large audience, many of whom were ladies, assembled at the
celebration. The proceedings commenced by the SECRETARY reading the following
report:—
“The Building Committees have the pleasure to inform
subscribers, that their duties are now nearly at an end, and that in a few days
the Hall in which we are now assembled will be completed and ready for the use
of the Institution.
“It was only in August last that it was attempted to
resuscitate the School of Arts, and subscriptions came in so rapidly that in
the beginning of October the committee considered themselves in a position to
call for tenders, and accepted that of Messrs. Dowland and Hartley, who have
executed their contract in a manner highly creditable, and which meets with the
approval of the architect.
“The cost of the building with fittings and extras, will be
£1100, of which sum £976 17s. may be considered as paid. The balance, £123 3s.
will be paid by bills, and will be the only debt on the building. The amount
subscribed (including £53 14s. 6d. collected in 1862) is £517 9s. 6d., of which
£488 8s. 6d. is paid. This, with the Government endowment for a like amount,
(£478, already received,) makes, as above stated, £976 17s.
“The committee have to acknowledge from Messrs. Laing and
Den Taffe the handsome donation of their commission, which appears as a
subscription, thus entitling us to an equivalent amount from Government.
“In conclusion, the Building Committees trust that they have
discharged their duties to the satisfaction of the subscribers, and hope that
the proceeds of this evening's entertainment and the ball next week will do
much to reduce the debt on the building.”
Mr. JOHN DOUGLAS, M.L.A., President of the institution, then rose and said:-
Ladies and gentlemen, founders and patrons of the School of Arts at Rockhampton,—It has been my pleasing duty on several occasions to meet you, and to confer with you on matters of public moment to your town and district. The topics of our conversation on these occasions have certainly been of a character most interesting to us both, for they have involved the consideration of our political circumstances and the principles by which I should be guided in attempting to represent you in the Legislature of this country.
On the present occasion, however, I am called upon to give
expression to your thoughts on a class of subjects, which, though intimately
connected with politics, will admit of a separate classification, and are
certainly of an earlier formation (to borrow an illustration from geology) than
the State of Queensland, or even than the still more primitive rock—that
indestructible British constitution, which, like granite itself, is composed of
three elemental principles, and has been not inappropriately symbolised as
those rampant and pugnacious animals, the lion and the unicorn, who are always
fighting with each other about the crown, but who only lay aside those
animosities which belong to their animal nature when they are called upon to
face a common foe.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the constitution under which we
are conceived to-day is older than Magna Charta,—older than Saxon Wittemagamot
or Roman Pandect, for it is contemporary with the first dawn of civilisation,
and it professes to deal with matters which are not only national but which are
social, and in which the whole family of man are alike concerned.
Under it—under this constitution, which is exceeding broad,
and which owes its existence to no earthly lawgiver, we exercise a franchise
not defined as either freehold or leasehold nor of any fixed annual value
whatever, but one which is universally recognised, and which is binding
wherever thoughts can reach, and over which is monarch the ever-present Spirit,
the bountiful Father of life and light.
I will not dwell on this—I only ask you to look for one
moment, thankfully and reverently, at the radiant source of all thought and all
knowledge, and then, turning from this sight which, in its perfection, is too
bright for mortal vision to rest on, let me ask you to consider the immediate
work which we have in hand to-day.
We meet, then, to-day, to inaugurate a School of Arts at
Rockhampton. It is scarcely ten years since the first School of Arts was
erected near the spot where we are now assembled. It was in 1855 that the late
Mr. Charles Archer, the patriarch of the Fitzroy, pitched his tent at
Gracemere. It was in that same year that Mr. John Palmer, your respected
townsman, built the first habitation within these municipal boundaries near to
those Rocks on the river, which suggested to Mr. Wiseman the name which you now
bear.
I am not, therefore, as some might suppose, the first
President of the first School of Arts in Rockhampton. Mr. Palmer, you see,
preceded me by several years, and your artificers, who have followed him and
worked on in the school of civilisation and colonisation, are now making me, to
illustrate each branch of human art, a co-operative system.
Education, once a watchword of strife and distrust, has
become the theme of dispassionate discussion and accurate analysis. Not only in
Lancashire and in Yorkshire do we recognise the intelligent love of order which
characterises the mass of those who in our country are engaged in industrial
pursuits, but throughout Europe; in Italy, the hope of Europe, we see the same
admirable spirit animating the ranks of labour.
What can be more encouraging than to observe that at Naples
even,—Naples but lately the seat of a corrupt and corrupting tyranny,—at
Naples, where the people were thought to be so demoralised and degraded, such
marked testimony has lately been given to the cause of a well-ordered monarchy
by the great body of its operatives. Men who but a few short years ago were
looked upon as the most dangerous exponents of subversive socialism.
Yet the signs of the times are not invariably favourable:
the great ebb and flow of the tide of human progress advance and recedes with
equal step. We hear a good deal about the measures to be taken to cleanse away
the corruptions of our great cities: we hear less, I suspect, of the frightful
extent of those corruptions—the result of our civilisation.
We are often felicitated on our national prosperity and the
grandeur of our commercial supremacy; yet our flatterers forget to tell us that
in the great emporiums of our industry one-half of the children who are born
fade out and die before they are five years old. It is somewhat startling in
these days of science and of sanitary reform, to be told that it takes but ten
years of Indian sun, and Indian filth, and Indian arrack, to rot off an average
regiment of English soldiers. Yet so it has been.
The enemy within our gates is not less terrible, and far
more subtle, than the enemy without; and it is against these destructive
energies—these hidden powers of darkness, that (let us hope not in vain) the
teachings of science and the methods of art are being reverently invoked.
All this we learn, all this we may continue to learn, from
the periodical literature to which you will have access in this room; but as
experience guides you, you will of course desire to extend your operations.
A free library, containing standard works for reference and
study, may perhaps be established. You may become really and truly a School of
Arts, with regularly appointed masters of art to give precise instruction.
There are many Schools of Arts now in England, which have passed out of the
eras of blackboards and discursive lectures—such as this—and are really
educating mechanics in their arts.
The vast improvement in all the branches of ceramic art,
are, I believe, attributed to careful instruction imparted in Schools of Design
and Art. But whether you attain to this or not, you ought at least to keep up
the standard of knowledge in this town; and it will be your object and your
duty to promote everything which is humanising and civilising.
As a community of colonists, your prospects for the future
are most encouraging; you have a highway to the ocean along your noble
river—you can add house to house in confidence that no enemy from without can
make you afraid.
The construction of railways will open out a country of vast
extent and great resources; you will buy and sell in the markets of the world;
your climate, though for three months in the year the heat is distressing, is
by no means injurious to those who will take care of themselves.
Moreover, I suppose that by-and-by, we shall have laid aside
those most rampant John Bullisms, which in these latitudes are an insult to
common sense. Black hats have, I am happy to see, succumbed to solar topies;
black coats are, though intrepidly retreating, gradually losing ground in
favour of China silks, or grass cloth fabrics. Thus we shall gradually
establish innovations, and by-and-bye, we shall become quite reformed when the
merchants of Singapore and Shanghai pay you visits in those monthly eastern
steamers which you may shortly expect.
With the thermometer over 100 degrees in the shade, as I am
told it was last week, they will certainly tell you that somehow or another you
must supply yourselves with ice, and I suspect they will delicately hint to you
that brandy and those other highly British distilled mixtures are the very
Devil, in spite of their contributions to the revenue.
They will tell you, if you do not know it already, that the
nearer you approach the equator the more intense is the malignity of those evil
spirits with which we are so familiar, and that the followers of the prophet of
Mecca are certainly actuated by humane, if only human insight, when they
discourage among the votaries of their faith the use of stimulants so
especially noxious under a tropical sun.
India, in connexion with this subject, I had some thoughts
of proposing, in my office of President, that one of our first efforts in art
should be directed to the discovery of a grateful beverage suited to our
circumstances. But at the outset of my inquiry I was met with the difficulty
that your water—necessarily the basis of all beverages, is far from being good,
and that in the first place, and before making any fresh discoveries in
mixture, we must obtain a good supply—pure and plentiful.
There is one other little matter about which I must say a
few words. You have elected me your President. For that I thank you much, but
in future I think your office-bearers ought to be more intimately interested
and concerned in the working of the institution than I can be; but my reign is
happily limited to six months from my election, and I shall then gladly resign
in favour of some one more intimately connected with you.
He will, doubtless, extend your borders, and when I revisit
this town, a year by year I hope to do, I shall, no doubt, find that you have
availed yourselves of all fitting opportunities for making this institution not
only useful and edifying, but also attractive and popular in the best sense of
the word.
If I may hint at some further improvements, I would say we
must have venetian shutters for our windows, we ought to have lots of good
water laid on, and of course a comfortable bath-room. As we grow rich (besides
all the lecture rooms for the learned) I must bespeak a coffee-room and a
smoking-room, if you please, for idle talkers and light literature.
But permit me to explain myself. My ideas of development and
progress are limited; I have not yet arrived at billiards—our school is not at
present prepared to admit of this illustration of the science of angles; I must
distinctly affirm that in this matter my principles are fixed and conservative.
Anything else in reason; anything that will please and instruct the community;
anything, in fact, harmless, which will conduce to the enjoyment of life—that
life which is not intended to be a mere struggle for existence in a crowd,
where the weakest must go to the wall, but a life practically embodying the
great truth, that there are higher objects of existence than either wealth or
power; that intellectual capacity alone is not the chief aim and end of man;
but that in all states of life, and under every sky on the face of dear Mother
Earth, infinite sources of happiness and comfort are accessible to the living
soul of man.
“What is chiefly needed at the present day is to show the
quantity of pleasure that may be obtained by a constant well-administered
competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who,
leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for
themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek not greater
wealth, but simpler pleasure—not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making
the first of possessions self-possession, and honouring themselves in harmless
pride and calm pursuits of peace.”
These last are “golden words,” the words of Ruskin, (“Ad
valorem”) one of the greatest living masters of art. This building may indeed
most appropriately be dedicated with harmless pride to the calm pursuits of
peace.
To those purposes I now declare that the present and new
School of Arts at Rockhampton flourish and abound.
Mr. Douglas, who had been frequently cheered during his
address, sat down amidst loud and long continued applause. When the cheering
had subsided, his Worship the MAYOR proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Douglas,
which was seconded by Captain HUNTER, and carried by acclamation.
After a short interval, the amateur concert was opened by an
adagio of Westerholz, well executed by the Volunteer Brass Band, under
the direction of Mr. Draeger. This was followed by the Integer vitæ, a
glee sung by five amateurs, led by Mr. Feez, which was loudly applauded and
encored. Mr. Feez's usually fine voice did not appear to be equal to the higher
notes of this adagio—he was obliged to attack in falsetto, and
the notes were rather indistinct—probably the newness of the hall had much to
do with this. The glee was encored, and a German glee “Springs to Life,” was
substituted.
A solo on the pianoforte by Mr. Burnet, was so well played
that it merited an encore, when one of Mendelssohn's compositions was given.
The duet by Messrs. Feez and Herat, “I would that my love,” one of Mendelssohn
Bartholdy's most exquisite airs, was most artistically rendered, Mr. Herat's
voice coming out with great effect. It was loudly applauded. “Phoebe Dearest,”
a solo by Mr. Pollock, was loudly encored, and he then gave “Good bye,
sweetheart, good bye,” though not with the same effect as the first, but the
piano accompaniment rather drowned his voice, which is not of the strongest.
“Robert toi que J'aime” was sung by Mr. Feez in a style
rarely surpassed by amateur; and when he sat down a unanimous encore being
demanded, he substituted the “Tempest of the Heart,” which was loudly
applauded. The gem of the glees of the evening, however, was “Hail, smiling
morn,” sung by Messrs. White, Bailey, Pollock, Johnson and Chisholm; this was
rapturously, and we may say, deservedly encored, but the encore was not carried
off with that entrain that distinguished the first; it wanted vivace
movement.
A waltz, played by the Volunteer Band, under the direction
of Mr. Draeger, was well executed and applauded; and this concluded the first
part of the programme.
The second part was opened by Polonaise, beautifully played
by the string band. Mendelssohn's glee “Beautiful Forest,” followed, and
merited an encore. Mr. Bailey's “Madoline” was also encored, and he sang part
of it again, to the evident delight of the audience. For the solo on the
harmonium by Mr. Burnet, a duet on the piano by Messrs. Reddick and Burnet was
substituted, and the manner in which it was played elicited an encore. “Home of
my Heart,” sung by Mr. Feez, was, in our opinion, his greatest achievement
during the night; he seemed to have recovered all his voice, and he gave the
song with a tenderness and pathos that displayed the consummate artiste, if not
the feeling man. The song was loudly applauded, but Mr. Feez was too fatigued
to come again on the platform.
The ceremony concluded by the Band playing the National
Anthem, after which the company separated, highly pleased with the evening's
entertainment.
