Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 117
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[Page 117]
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"tubby" figure, and all-black clothes, gave him, I thought, a rather monkish appearance.
My recollection is, that my Father made a very good impression of being a well-spoken prosperous personality, and that the reverend gentleman kept admiring my good physique, which had been well developed by hard-working, but well-fed country life. After about half an hour of conversation, during which the Principal enunciated the principles he strove to inculcate in his pupils, we were shown around the premises: the dining room, dormitories, classrooms, chapel, assembly hall, hospital, the poultry yard, the vegetable garden, and the new playing field not yet ready for use. It was mid-Winter holidays, so no boys or members of the staff were in occupation, and the placed seemed very deserted.
Finally, Dad left to return to Parkes, and I remained to live and dine with the Principal's family until the new term began a week later. There were fours sons and a daughter (the second youngest) in the Aspinall family, and they all became medical practitioners: Archie the eldest was Superintendent of Sydney Hospital, and the youngest Robert was still in class, when I arrived.
Aspinall not only made doctors of all his own children, but invariably decided that any boy capable of matriculating should adopt the medical profession. In the medical course at the University, Zoology was the most difficult of the four first-year subjects, and the one that failed most students. So I was one of a group of the brighter pupils at "Scots" selected to go to the Technical College in Ultimo, every Saturday morning, to be taught the elements of Zoology by the same man (a Mr. George) who lectured the first-year class at the University; and I found it quite interesting. We examined samples of pond water under microscopes to see the "fierce" Amoeba and other minute animals of the orders Protozoa and Radiolaria; dissected frogs, liver flukes, tapeworms, etc.; and examined and sketched a great variety of marine, and other primitive life. In the final written examination I was given a pass in the subject, but never had cause to use it.