[Page 119]
59
The Rev. Aspinall aimed to model the education of Scots College boys according to the principles established at Rugby College in England by Dr Arnold, its most famous headmaster, who summarised the aim by stating that it was, to turn out Christian gentlemen of good education. Aspinall was a fervent admirer of Arnold. After graduating in Arts at Sydney University, he became the Presbyterian Minister at Forbes for some years. He married a Miss Strahorn, a daughter of a well known Dubbo pastoral family; later she worked very hard supervising the domestic management of the College; she had a very kind and sympathetic nature and we all loved her.
"Scots" was then the newest and smallest of the Great Public Schools, and Aspinall was its first Principal. It was owned by the Presbyterian Church of Australia, and was governed by a representative school council. In my time, it had, on average forty boarders and fifty day boys. It was beautifully situated on the north end of the long ridge, Bellvue Hill, with magnificent panoramic views of the Harbour, Manly wharf, Vaucluse and the Bondi hinterland. From the tower of the old main building, it was possible to watch a liner leave Circular Quay and keep her in sight all the way up the Harbour to the Heads, and then see her passing down the coast beyond Bondi. We could look across Rose Bay at Vaucluse and Dover Heights, where the only buildings visible on the scrub-covered slopes, were the grey stone walls of the Sacred Heart Convent and the white walls of Strickland House, down at the water's edge. Away in the distance, the top of Macquarie lighthouse could just be seen; its beams used to flash, intermittently, into some of our dormitory windows at night.
The eastern flank of Bellvue Hill was still all vacant scrub-land, with sandy patches and a few rocky sandstone cliffs, through which we had to pass to reach the school football field, of very waterlogged springy Buffalo turf, between the Chinese market gardens and the west side of the Royal Sydney Golf Course.
The old State Government House at Farm Cove had been taken over by the new Commonwealth Government, to be the Sydney Residence of the Governor General. About twenty years later the