Session Information
17 SES 04, School Architecture
Paper Session
Contribution
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the means by which an Australian Christian Brothers’ Boarding school is mining its history in order to establish an ‘authentic identity’, one which would bestow an integrity of purpose that recognises the profound evolution of the institution over the course of its 122 year history. The school is a ‘child’ of the Irish Diaspora and was the expression of the Irish Christian Brothers evangelical and educational mission to “open up the social and economic opportunities of the new land to the children of the Irish, while cultivating a Catholic, non-materialist spirit” (Boland, 1991, p. 3). In its current incarnation, it is an uneasy balance of the seemingly incompatible character traits associated with an elite educational institution and the vehicle for social mobility as conceived by the Brothers.
The Christian Brothers were predominantly Irish born, and were described as ‘flaming agitators for Ireland’s rights.’ Many of the students had at least one Irish parent, and were aware ‘by family tradition and community attitudes, of Ireland as a spiritual Home’ (Boland, 1991, p. 38). They also knew their history. An article in the 1899 Annual described the English as possessing a ‘grim determination which conquers everything that can be conquered’ (p. 56). It was not just in Ireland, however, that they saw injustice. At the time of Nudgee’s foundation in 1891, Roman Catholics comprised just 25 percent of Queensland’s population. Goodman (1968) noted that over several generations there had emerged an imbalance in the make-up of the different socio-economic groups with most Catholics in the lower working class.
The use of history as a means of creating a shared identity is certainly not new, but as an Australian educational institution with a multi-cultural clientele, the Irish cultural links remain remarkably strong. The shared narrative has been expressed in the creation of a school museum which houses a nationally significant collection of memorabilia. The school has looked to extend this historical re-evaluation from the power of objects to the power of words. The decision to write a history of the College, and the unusual choice, at least in an educational context, to use biography as the methodology, reflects a deeply rooted belief in both the power of story and the more primal, almost pagan belief in the College as an entity linked to the people who inhabit its grounds at any given time, yet irrevocably separate from them. In short, people may come and go, but the College lives. Yet the choice of biography brings with it all the strengths of life writing; the immediacy, the empathy, the understanding, but also the danger of it becoming a fictionalised version of the truth or mere hagiography.
This paper investigates the delivery of a remarkably Irish-centric education in an Australian context. It reflects the European origins of the founders of the college, and their capacity to assimilate their cultural and educational philosophy with a pragmatic awareness of the place of Irish Catholics in Queensland, Australia.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Boland, T., (1991). Nudgee 1891 – 1991. Brisbane: Boolarong. Goodman, R., (1968). Secondary Education in Queensland 1860 – 1940. Canberra: ANU Press. Holmes, R., (2002). ‘The Proper Study’. In P. France & W. St Clair, (Eds.). Mapping Lives: The Uses of Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kendall, P. (1985). The Art of Biography. London: WW Norton & Company. Strachey, L., (1918). Eminent Victorians. New York: GP Putnam’s & Sons. Vandiver, F.E., (1986). ‘Biography as an Agent of Humanism’. In Stephen Oates ed. Biography as High Adventure; Life Writers Speak on their Art. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.
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