Telling Tales Out of School

This was the indignant defence of extravagant Prussian aristocrat-turned-bush-school-teacher at Wandook School near Deniliquin in 1880, Bernard Baron Von Sandon, against criticism from his exasperated inspector, Charles Hookins.

Telling Tales Out of School is a delightful concoction of entertaining and universally appealing documented historical anecdotes depicting life in New South Wales government schools within the context of Australian society (c.1850s-1950s). Many aspects of school life are shown, including problems with school buildings, teachers’ and inspectors’ travel difficulties and living conditions, inspection and examination traumas, and the unusual responses of some teachers to their lot. Unchanged and ever-unchanging are the foibles and strengths of human nature and the irrepressibility of individual personality, even in a highly bureaucratic system. These stories show ways with which we can all empathise that were found for coping with the frustrations and joys of everyday school life, with its inducement of every state of mind except boredom.

Mary McPherson is the History Information Officer Librarian with the New South Wales Department of School Education where she has been a researcher for the past twenty years. Having found that people enjoyed stories from her historical research, she has now presented them as a book.