Colonial College

DIRECTOR OF THE COLONIAL COLLEGE

(Education, pages 12 -20, January 1891)

The increasing competition of the age renders necessary an increasing amount of preparation for the actual work of life. This is the secret of all the discussions that are coming about us nowadays as to whether we should teach, or not teach, Latin or Greek on the one hand, and the practical arts of life on the other. Whatever theory may decide, we may be quite certain that experience will carry the question. This is especially applicable to the Institution which we are about to describe. There are, we know, plenty of parents who would not hesitate to cast their children upon the tender mercies of an uncivilised country, or the somewhat wild society of the backwoods, without any due preparation for life under these circumstances. And it does not follow that such parents are without natural affection; it is simply their inability to grasp the very real facts of Colonial life and the vast, the indescribable, change of all the conditions of existence. It is, therefore, that we point with unusual emphasis to the institution known in England, and throughout our Empire, as the Colonial College.

The Colonial College, which is situated on Hollesley Bay, in Suffolk, owes its existence to the efforts of Mr. Robert Johnson. He is really the Father of the College. Early in the Eighties he began to put into shape what for many years had been a cherished scheme. He laid before a number of gentlemen who were closely connected with the Colonies the outline of his plan, and the tone of their replies fully decided him to fill in the details.

"Nothing," said one official, "is so disheartening as to see the numbers of young men who go out to the Colonies utterly unprepared for the life."

"There is absolute need," said another, "for a crusade in favour of properly preparing our youths for the emigration to the Colonies which is inevitable for so many of them. The training shadowed forth in the College prospectus cannot fail to be of the greatest service to such young men."

This being the general tone of the testimony of experience, Mr. Johnson lost no time in gathering around him a number of friends pledged to support the new Institution. In January 1887, the Colonial College assumed material shape. An estate of nearly 2,000 acres of mixed land was acquired in what is really an unrivalled situation, with a great variety of soil, magnificent climate, only two and a half hours journey from London, with lovely views over the open sea of Hollesley Bay. It is, on one side, bordered by the fine estuary known as the River Alde, which here discharges itself into the sea; and separated as it is by a large and picturesque tract of heath from the nearest town, there is an isolation in the life which in itself partakes of the Colonial character. This, too, is an educational advantage; for the students are not tempted away by any of the attractions of town life, and are insensibly led to rely on themselves for their own amusements. Thus, the geographical position of the College develops that power of creating ones own resources, which tends, in no small degree, to Colonial success.

I must now ask my readers to accompany me to the bracing atmosphere of Hollesley Bay, and to inspect the Colonial College. First, there are the domestic buildings. These, with the exception of the Directors house, are new, and, of course, specially adapted to the work in view. Wide corridors, large and airy classrooms, rows of roomy cubicles, a number of bathrooms; the large dining-hall hung round with the various flags of the Colonies and the United States, and grouped around each flag the emblazoned names of those who have already gone out to live under it; a wealth of scientific diagrams, geological charts, surveyors plans, Colonial maps; the nucleus of a good museum, an admirable series of original pictures by Miss Ormerod of agricultural insect pests, and numerous other useful and practical elements in the course of preparation for the future life of the students - these are some of the features which struck me most as I was conducted through the building.

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