Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 125
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[Page 125]
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at 2 p.m. for another two periods, when schooling ended for the day, and it was compulsory for all fit boys to be on the playing field or tennis court, in appropriate sporting attire, until it was time to shower and dress for the evening meal. In the big dining room we sat at long tables with a master at the head and a prefect at the other end, whose job it was to cut the bread. A new boy was initiated at his first meal by having to eat a "nuggo" a large cuboidal piece of dry bread without butter or jam, and in his dormitory he was ceremoniously "crowned" with a bedroom-chamber, a dry one if he submitted quietly the first time.
The senior masters were two Englishmen of high qualifications in Mathematics and Languages, respectively (Larad and Smail). Two Australian masters took the more junior classes, and the sports master, a young Englishman, taught the Preparatory Classes, and was also the School Organist. The Principal, himself, took the classes for beginners in French and Latin.
A handwriting expert, Bruce, who had a practice in the city, came once a week and taught us, individually, how to write a good hand; he was an excellent teacher too. Twice a week a middle-aged Frenchman with a Prince Imperial beard, Monsieur Pepino, spent an hour teaching us good French pronounciation. He made us repeat common words and phrases, over and over, until he was satisfied we had them right.
Other visiting specialists were an English singing teacher (Moon) who took us for an hour in the Chapel on Tuesdays, after the evening meal; and a neatly bearded little Italian painter (Datillo Rubbo) who explained and demonstrated the art of drawing and sketching to us, in very broken English, for most of Thursday evenings. For supplementary fees, some of the boys were taught to play the piano and violin, and there was an old Scot who came one night a week, sometimes a bit inebriated, to tutor the members of the School Pipers Band, which I joined during my second year.
A Mr. Roberts and his wife, who had a dancing academy in Phillip St, City, came on Saturday nights to teach ballroom dancing in the cleared Assembly Hall. He had the "grand" manner, and was accustomed to arrive in a claw-hammer tail coat and a silk top-hat.