ANNUAL REPORT FOR 195J±. lo STAFF ARRANGEMENTS...NSoWo 1948 8% 5·9% 18% 1953 18% 62~ 28% VICo 1948 4% 35% 39% 19% 4% 1953 3% 40% 38% 20% 5% QSLDo 1948 20% 17% 20% 1953 10%

CANBERRA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

ANNUAL REPORT FOR 195J±.

lo STAFF ARRANGEMENTS:

In 1954 Mro Bo Do Beddie was still on study leave at the Londo'1. School of Economics and Mro K., Thompson con-tinued to act for him in the teaching of Pass and Honours Inter-national Relationso Dro Ro Mendelsohn conducted the course in Public Administration as a part-time member of staff, Mro To Io Moore gave ten lectures and five tutorials on Japanese politics to second year Political Science studentso Guest lecturers included Messrs. Ao Do McKnight and P Jo L2wler ~Political Science A) and Professor F , Bland and Messrs. Ao :')o McKnigh[.,, Jo :i..i.rophy 9 Po Ju Lawler Eo J. Foxcroft and S, N. Angel (Public Administration)o

At the end of the year Mr. Beddie was promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer and a new position of Senior Lecturer (Public Administration) was created and advertisedo Mr. Thompson ceased duty at the clo~ - c~ ~~e yea~ ~~ anticipation of Mr., Beddie's return: his keenness and effective teaching were much appreciatedo At the same time Mrs. So Po Bennett resigned from her secretarial position with the Derartment after three years1 excellent service, and has been replaced by Miss Valerie Tovmshend (since become Mrso Jo B. E'l.wards) whose ur..dergl"aduate studies in Political Science and five

• years' secretarial experience with the South African High Commissioner have equipped her well for her new position •

. ~ o TEACHING PROG:f(pJ,fa1E :

During :954 the Department offered Political Science A and B (Professor Crisp), ILternational Relations . Pass and Honours (Mr. Thompson), Publj_c Administration (Pass and Honours), IV:, Ao Preliminary a"1d '.:.1~J.o s5.s courses o On account of short staffing, Political Science C was not offered and demand for it was either deferred or diverted to other subjectoe

In Political Science A and B and International Relations , non-examination students, under the new "Extension" arrangement, were enrol:•.ed for the fj rst tirr..e. As far as this Department was concerned 1 the expe:'::.ment was a definite success. Those enrolled for Poli·~ical Science A an1 In~ernational Relations pulled their weight quite vre-:_:::. ar ... ~1 i n ·::;:;J.,::; e a.s o of the latter subject, were of special assistance in bringing what would otherwise h~ve been too small a class to a more suitable sized groupo

Relations with the Melbourne University Political Science Department at all levels were, as usual, excellent and we have continuing ::-> ~'l."' '""'' to be ~rn~y grateful for their sympathetic and understand ing aid. Liaison on ccurses and exam-:;.nations was satisfactory throughout the yG

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Thu~n Political Science A and B there were wastages between entry and~amination of almost 50 percent of those originally intending to sit and in International Relations of precisely 50%. As indicated in past years, the two principal contributory factors were (1) departmental transfers or promotions away from Canberra or involving absences from Canberra and (2) acknowledgments of lack of capacity, at least under part-time conditions, to cope with the work.

The standard of work of those achieving a more or less bare pass remains unhappily l ow (though again Canberra pass students as a whole are reported to have fared somewhat better than this group in Melbourne). The average examination performance of this year's Political Science A class was , if anything, higher than in most past years, though by earlier standards some of those straight from school were distressingly immature. I get an impression of horribly low matriculation standards, particularly in New South Wales.

This year I was so disturbed by the absence or insufficiency of historical knowledge (even of a sketchy frame-work) in first and second year students that I circulated to colleagues in other Universities and to one or two State Departmental educationists a (hastily ~repared) memo on history in the schools (copy attached) to see (aJ whether they were meeting with the same degree of difficulty and (b) whether they felt there is any possi-bility of remedial action. Its reception was sympathetic, all sharing in some degree the difficulty experienced (rather more sharply, I fancy) here, but all seem rather defeatist about the possibility of remedy.

4o RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS :

(a) Bo Do Beddie: Work at LoSoEo towards his Ph.D.: thesis concerned with 19th Century controversies amongst the Social Science Methodologists.

(b) K. Thom;son : Work on a study of Victorian politics between 1840-18 0 towards his M.A. degree from the University of Melbourne. (Also articles for periodicals of the Australian Institute of International Affairs )

(c) R. Mendelsohn: "Social Security in the British Commonwealth", pp. xiv ~ 391, Athlone Press, London, 1954.

(d) L.F. Cris and S.P. Bennett : "Federal Labour Personnel 1901 -195 , pp.55 Roneoed: private circulation to principal Australian Libraries and research workers) , October, 1954.

(e) L. F. Crisp: "The Parliamentary Government of the Commonwealth of Australia", pp.x ~ 344, 2nd (revised) edition seen through the press for publication February 1955 (Longmans 9 London and Melbourne).

(f) L. F. Crisp: "The Australian Federal Labour Party, 1901-51 11 pp.x t 341, seen through the press for publication March 7, 1955 (Longmans, London and Melbourne) .

( g) L. F. Crisp : "Life of J. B. Chifley" : a considerable advance has been made with this werk, but there is still a long way to go.

L. F. CRISP PROFESSOR OF POLITIC.AL SCIENCE

February 20 , 1955

POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT ANNUAL REPORT 1954: ATTACHMENT • HISTORY IN THE SCHOOLS For those with responsibility for either historical or

social studies in the Universities the study of history in the schools is of crucial importance. What they desire is, not excessive specialisation at the secondary level, but some acquaintance with the historical approach and some knowledge of the outline of British and Australian historical development.

The basic equipment of University freshmen in this field determines in some measure the content, standard and pace of at least the first two University courses, not only in History but also in such subjects as Political Science. In the experience of many University teachers ) the arnount of historical knowledge which can be assumed in many first year University (pass) classes is very nearly nil, and this works against the interests not only of the students deficient in this respect but even more so of the better pass and honours students who are held back on account of the deficiencies of otherso In some Politic~l Science courses the latter group has had to suffer an inordina te and time-consuming amount of "straight" historical exposition at the expense of more relevant political analysis.

My own experience with Political Science (pass) students over ' the last five years at the Canberra Un:'...veJ:•si ty College may not be typical in that the College has. a high proportion of public servants attending as unrl erg:.~ ac:uates part-time. On the other hand, our undergraduates come from all over Australia, which means that we have regular experience of matriculants from all States. Pass students taking courses in Political Science and International Relations between 1950 and 1952 who had not:rresented a matriculation paper in history represented 42% of the wholeo For the years 1953-4 the comparable figure was 45 per cento (These percentages are based on the records of some 170 students for whom full informa-tion was immediately available; there is reason to believe that if my records of matriculation had been com~lete the figures on this point would have been slightly worse still.)

It is perhaps unavoidable that many pass (and particularly part-time)students come to the undergraduate study of history and the social sciences unexpecte~ly and hence in a double sense unprepared. All too frequently one i'inds that pass students in these fields have matriculated in , say, English, Maths I, Maths II, Physics and Chemistry (a very popular combination) with some quite different University or technological training and career in minn.. Only when other doors have failed to open and they have turned to i ri.u:nediate or prospective employment in teaching 9 the Public Service~ etc., have they elected to study history and the social scienceso

Public examination authorities in the six States have been kind enough to supply the figures from which the following tables have been derived. They s et out the percentages of those taking .s 8condary school public examin ations in two rPcent years who included historical or social o cu.J.ies amongst the wor·k which they submitted;

YEAR I94rr Noso

% 1953 Nos.

%

TABLU INTERMEDIATE (OR E ~l]_IVALENT l EXAM . ENTRI_ES - ALL STATES

TOTAL~ ENTRY

38218 100%

51823 100%

HISTORY

20803 54%

29024 56%

SOCIAL STUDIES

4508 12%

5382 10%

2.

TABLE II.

LEAVING (OR E9UIVALENTL EXAMo ENTRIES - ALL STATESo

YEAR TOTAL MODERN ANCIENT & ECONOMICS SOCIAL ENTRY HISTORY MEDo HISTo STUDIES

1948 Nos. 15894 8793 1048 2711 192

% 100% 55% 7% 17% 1%

1953 Nos. 18285 10737 1888 3961 315

% 100% 58% 10% 22% 2%

TABLE IIL

INTERMEDIATE (OR EQUIVALENTL EXAMINATION ENTRIES 1948 & 19530 % of Total Entry taking Papers in History and Social Sciences.

STATE HISTORY AUSTo & BRITo EMPIRE BRITISH SOCIAL STUDIES

No So Wo 1948 1953

VICo 1948 1953

QSLDo 1948 1953

So Ao 1948 1953

WoAo 1948 1953

TASo 1948 1953

56% 57%

37% 38%

27% 32%

55% 67%

PACIFIC

37% 53%

TABLE IVo

28% 19%

LEAVING (OR E~UIVALENTL EXAMINATION ENTRIES 1948 ~ of Total Entr~ -aking PaEers in Histor~ and Social

8~ 4%

& 1~2~· Scienceso

17% 14%

6% 4%

.3% 8%

98% 94%

STATE ANCIENT EARLY GENo MODERN BRITISH ECONo ECONOMICS SOCIAL HISTORY HISTORY HIS'rORY HISTORY HIST! STUDIE§

NSoWo 1948 8% 5·9% 18% 1953 18% 62~ 28%

VICo 1948 4% 35% 39% 19% 4% 1953 3% 40% 38% 20% 5%

QSLDo 1948 20% 17% 20% 1953 10% 30% 21 %

So Ao 1948 3% 6% 13% 15% 8% 1953 3% 8% 19% 15% 8%

WoAo 22%~x 1948 35%

1953 31% 28%

TASo 1948 2% 37% ? 1953 15% 33% 2%

:it Includes Industrial Histery

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It is obvious that, in absolute terms, many more secondary school pupils take historical and social subjects than ever study them at the Universities, but those who actually do undertake them at both (school and University) levels are by no means identical

In any case - and from any point of view - the figures for some States are lamentableo Even in cases where there has been recent improvement, available comment suggests that the increase has in scme measure been due to the opinion that History (or some ether subject covered in the tables) is a "soft iiption". Perhaps one should not worry about motivation so long as History and relat- d subjects are read and well taught. But, again, it is suggested in s eme quarters that on the whole these subjects are not as well taught as mathematics, physics and chemistry - and certainly that many of their teachers do not display the missionary zeal and conviction about their wares which has characterised many secondary school teachers of mathematics and science in recent years. If this last suggestion is true in a general way, that state • f affairs is bound to be reflected in the attitudes of the children.

The theme of this note has been the bad effect of the low history coverage in the schools upon historical and social studies in the Universities o It may be added 9 however, that studies of literature in University departments of English and Modern Languages (which are fre~uently given on historical lines) also sUffer from the freshmen s lack of any such framework of reference. Clearly, then, much University study is seriously handicapped by the situation revealed in the above tables.

Even this may not be enough in itself t • justify any ruthless re-ordering of school curricula. But there is also a much wider and more compelling consideration. .Any reading of the Press - not least its correspondence columns - or attention to Parliamentary and other political debates would suggest that some elementary command of at least the outlines of British and Australian History is a 'sine qua non' of citizenship of which all too many are innocent. If that is so, and in view of the school wastage belcw Intermediate and Leaving levels, it seems imperative that a greatly increased percentage at least of those who do persevere to those levels should read History. (It is true that in some States the schools , from similar admirable motives, are now developing 11 Social Studies", but in some cases the contents of such courses have yet to be stabilised, while the value of this approach at school level is still debated.)