JUBILEE HISTORY TEXT, 1911. Chapter IV - 'The Founder of the School'.The following text is an excerpt from the
Jubilee History Text published in 1911.
The Founder Of The School'A tall square figure, spare, but stocky and powerful, clad in afrock suit and bearing in his hand a silk hat, a chalkbox, and a short cane. This was "Mov," or as he was known to later generations, "the Doctor," on his way up the classroom.
There was authority in the heavy creak of his great roomy shoes. There was sternness and discipline in every line of hisfigure. His broad, massivehead, widebrowed, wideeyed, with its square under jaw, concealed beneath thick whiskers, denoted strength and inflexibility of purpose.
But with it all there was a gentleness and suavity of manner of which his stern exterior gave no hint. His "Say! say!"—the inevitable preamble of all he said—had every gradation of tone, from the hard note of command, trumpeted forth as the preface to some condign sentence, while hisfingers plucked fiercely at his beard, to the softest accents of winning sweetness, as he coaxed or consoled some unlucky lad, patting him gently on the back in fond paternal fashion.
Such a man was the Mr. George Morrison, M.A., who was appointed as first headmaster of the newlyformed Geelong College away back in 1861, the same George Morrison who very soon owned it, and built it up into a powerful school, renowned for sport and scholarship, so that his name and that of the Geelong College soon becamefamous in educational circles throughout Australia.
Of course, he was Scotch. He was typically and undeniably Scotch. Every tone and line of him proclaimed the fact. Indeed, it was to his Scottish strength of mind and business ability that the College owes most of its success today.
It is still essentially Scottish in all its leading characteristics. The schoolboy conservatism, the cautious reticence, and the patient doggedness, which are so strongly imbued into all who go through the College, are inherited from the wise old Doctor, who set its tone in those early years when the foundations of itsfuture were being laid.
That he brought to the work a certain amount of Scottish sternness was of course inevitable, but his sternness was always tempered with wise moderation. There are some perhaps who look back on their school days with horror, but for Dr. Morrison it can be said that all over Australia aremen, sobered and scarred by the battle of life, who look back with pleasant regret to the days they spent with him at the College. To those men the Doctor typified the school, and they tell how the shrewd worldly wisdom he taught, in addition to classics and mathematics and the rest, has been of inestimablevalue to them many a time since.
These men used always to return to visit the school and the Doctor. They are the men who created the old Collegian sentiment which existed long before it was crystallised into the Old Collegians' Association. The Doctor always remembered them, and always took the keenest interest in their doings. Frequently these old pupils of his, though become greyheaded men themselves, came back to the Doctor for advice and encouragement.
But to all of them he was always the headmaster, the Doctor. None ever forgot to call him "Sir," or to feel towards him a little of the same deferential awe which he had inspired in them in their old college days.
There was nothing surprising in Dr. George Morrison being a good schoolmaster. He could not help it. It was born in him. He belonged to afamily of six brothers, born in Morayshire, Scotland. Every one of them obtained high university honours. All but one became famous schoolmasters. The exception was the eldest brother, the Rev. James Morrison, M.A., who became the minister of his native church. Dr. Donald Morrison was the next brother, and lie became headmaster of the Elgin Academy, in the north of Scotland. It was to this school that George Morrison went as soon as he was old enough. There he proved himself to be a fine student. He had all the Scottish gift of application, together with high mental endowments.
His preparation for a university career gave abundant promise of the academic successes which were before him. He won a scholarship which entitled him to four years at Aberdeen University, and before he had been there a year he was recognised as the most brilliant student of his time. In every year he carried off the highest honours. The Simpson scholarship, for distinction in mathematics and physics—one of the most coveted prizes of the University—fell to him in hisfirst year. Instead of devoting himself to one school of learning, George Morrison took up three—classics, mathematics, and natural philosophy—and obtained honours in all of them.
He was President of the Debating Society at the University, and there cultivated the gift of simple oratory which later on made his little homilies to erring collegians such terrifying ordeals. Most of the Doctor's pupils preferred his gentle canings to his impressive lecturings. He had the supreme knack of making a boy realise in a superlative degree the enormity of the most trivial offence. At the University, his debating powers were highly thought of, and among the many men who came under his rule as President of the Society was Archibald Forbes, whom all the world learned to know in later years as the famous war correspondent.
As soon as was possible, George Morrison obtained the degree of Master of Arts, and then commenced his teaching career. He began at the naval and military academy in Gosport, near Portsmouth, England. It was then the leading school for the preparation of candidatesfor the army and navy, and George Morrison was appointed itsmathematical master. It was in the stirring times of the CrimeanWar. Portsmouth was a centre of activity. Troopships were continually leaving with soldiersfor thefront, while others were continually arriving with wounded soldiers and sailorsfor Haslam Hospital.
After some years at Gosport, the brighter prospects of Australia attracted him. These had already been tested by one member of the family. One of his brothers, Dr. Alexander Morrison, had emigrated to Australia and had been appointed headmaster of the Scotch College, in Melbourne. George Morrison, on the advice of his brother, decided to come to Australia too. He arrived in Melbourne at the end of 1858. He was then 28 years of age, having been born on 11th December, 1830. He was at once appointed mathematical master to the Scotch College, but he had not come to Australia to be an assistant master, and after about six months at the Scotch he left the school to take charge of Flinders National School, Geelong.
For a year and half, George Morrison directed the training of the pupils at Flinders National School. In that time he obtained in Geelong a wonderful reputation as an able teacher and a splendid schoolmaster. It was not surprising, therefore, that the Presbyterian body, when deciding to have a college of their own, should without hesitation select this young Scotch Master of Arts as headmaster. He became the first principal of the Geelong College, and from 1861 until his death in 1898 he directed the fortunes of the College and took an active part in its work.
Before he became principal of the College, George Morrison had married. His wife was Miss Greenwood, of Hull, and she played a great part in the work which began in 1861. She always took a vivid interest in the boys at the College, and her marvellous memory for names and faceslent a great deal of charm to the visits of old boys, who came back expecting tofind themselvesforgotten, only to learn that Mrs. Morrison remembered them and many little incidents of their school careers. When the old boys came homing back every year, Mrs. Morrison used to hold an informal levee, which was always one of the most pleasurable of the reunion functions.
Knowle House was small and cramped perhaps, but these early years of the College were very happy ones for the young Scottish schoolmaster and his wife. The College was increasing every quarter, while an array of sturdy infants soon began to gather. It is in these sons of his that George Morrison has a wonderful memorial to his character as a father, as well as to his ability as a schoolmaster. These boys—five in number—were all pupils of his. He taught them and trained them, and they all grew up famous athletes, and all earned distinction in some serious department of life.
George Ernest Morrison, the eldest son, has achieveda worldwide reputation. As the correspondent of the London Times in Pekin, he earned a name as a brilliant journalist and an able and farseeing diplomatist, which has given him an important place in the counsels of the Empire. He is probably one of the most distinguished pupils the College has produced. In his youth, in Australia, he performed some astonishing feats. He walked from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne, a distance of 2,000 miles, in 120 days. He shipped as a sailor on a labour schooner and explored New Guinea, only returning when dangerously wounded by a spear hurled at him by a native. He carried afragment of the spear, 3 inches long, in his body, until it was cut out long after by Chiene, the famous Edinburgh surgeon. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, and obtained his M.D. degree there. He was also made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He lived in Spain on the Rio Tinto Copper Mine., He was, in 1891, appointed Resident Surgeon of the Ballarat Hospital, but left the hospital after two years to revisit Asia. He went through China in pigtail and Chinese dress, and wrote a book, which has become classic, on the Chinese—"An Australian in China." It was after the publication of the book that he became Times correspondent at Pekin. At the time of the Boxer Rebellion he was believed to have been killed in the attack upon the Legation at Pekin, and had the unique experience of discovering what hisfellows would say about him after he was dead. Obituary notices, couched in the most eulogistic terms, appeared in the Times and all other British newspapers. Hisfamily mourned him as dead, but with a hope always that he had again escaped in some miraculousfashion. And so it proved. He had been seriously wounded, but recovered, and came out to Australia, and renewed many old friendships before the roving spirit seized him again. In London he achieved great success as a polished writer on foreign affairs. He possesses the supreme literary gift of simplicity, and it is the simple directness of his work that constitutesits strength.
Reginald H. Morrison, the next brother, also studied medicine in Edinburgh, and obtained the degrees of M.B. and Ch. M. He was a famous athlete in his school days and afterwards. He captained the football and cricket teams of the College in 1880 and 1881. He also played in the Geelong Football Club in the days of its greatest glory, when JamesWilson, jun., W. Wilson, GeorgeWatson, jun., J. Smith, and others kept the club champions in Victoria for years. In 1882 he went to Edinburgh University, and introduced himself to the Scottish public by winning a 200 yards race at the University sports, and throwing a cricket ball 111 yards. He was in the University XI, and proved a fine bowler. In the winter of 1883 he played Rugby as a halfback in the third XV. In 1884 he was promoted to the first XV. In the meantime he had devoted himself in the summer to running and swimming, and had won most of the races in which he had competed. He soon became one of the foremost Rugby players in Scotland, was selected for the International team, and distinguished himself greatly in the match. In 1886 he was made captain of the. Edinburgh University XV. In the meantime he had won race after race at running and swimming, and come to be acknowledged as the champion amateur athlete of Scotland. After a career of this kind he returned to Australia, and took up medical practice in Toorak, Melbourne
Charles Norman Morrison, Arthur R. Morrison, and D. Clive Morrison were the other four sons. Norman succeeded hisfather as principal of the College, but, to the sorrow of his friends and the supporters of the College, was killed in a shooting accident in 1909. Arthur was a distinguished athlete. He played with the Geelong Football Club, and in two consecutive years stroked the Melbourne University Eight. He also acted as a master at the College for a time in 1893. He had obtained the degree of M.C.E. at the University, and instructed intending engineers at the College in the mysteries of levelling and the use of the theodolite. He took a post as engineer in South Africa, where another old collegian and contemporary of his, Mr. A. C. Sutherland, had already attained distinction as an engineer.
Clive Morrison, the youngest son, left school in 1890, and went to the Melbourne University to study law. He obtained the degrees of B.A. and LL.B. and settled down to a legal practice in the country. He also was a fine athlete. For three successive years he was in the first XX at the College, and was also one of the leading players inthe Geelong Football Club. At the University he gained distinction in the boats, and rowed six in the University crewfor several years. He also stroked the Ormond eight in the intercollegiate race.
As well as these five distinguished sons, Dr. Morrison had three daughters. One, who was also the eldest of the family, is now Mrs. H. B. Higgins, the wife of the President of the Federal Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. The two others were the youngest of the family.
When the College was moved from Knowle House to its present site, George Morrison found ample room for the development of his ideals and ambitions regarding secondary education. His school was practicallyin the country. It was removed from all the temptations and distractions of city life. He was absolute monarch of a little kingdom of his own. He ruled it wisely and successfully, developing it along proper lines—lines which brought it always nearer that day when it should become a public school. It was privately owned it is truefor nearly 50 years, but in all that time its tone and spirit were those of a public school.
George Morrison breathed into his school the true educational spirit. Scholarship and learning were prized. They were always the chief aims of the school, but the sporting side was never neglected, and nobody was keener on the maintenance of the College superiorityin the playing field than its Principal. One of the delightful remembrances of oldtime football matches is the recollection of the chariot driven by Hugh Mackay, with the Doctor sitting in it, grimly expectant. Hisinterest in the game, and his excitement as the tide of battle flowed first the one way and then the other, were only equalled byhis exultation when the game ended, with the College victorious. He had a grand love of sport embedded in him, and he contrived to inculcate the same spirit into his school.
In March, 1891, the University of Aberdeen recognised the splendid work in the cause of education which was being done by its graduate, George Morrison. It conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.—an honour which had already been accorded three of his brothersfor their work in the samefield.
Without any break, Dr. Morrison, from 1861 till 1893, presided over the College year after year. In 1891, after the last Morrison boy had gone from the College to the University, Mr. C. Norman Morrison joined the teaching staff of the College asviceprincipal. As time went on he shouldered an increasing share of the burden of responsibility, but the Doctor was still principal, still conducted the school in his own way, and still, though he lightened his work in that respect considerably, took his classes every day.
It was decided in the end of 1893, however, that the Doctor had earned a good holiday, and in March, 1894, accompanied by Mrs. Morrison and the Misses Violet and Hilda Morrison, he sailed for England. The party spent nearly 10 months away from Australia, returning in January of the following year. During that time, Mr. C. N. Morrison acted as principal of the College, and gave promise of what was to come later on. When the Doctor returned, Mr. C. N. Morrison almost at once left on a similar tour to Great Britain and Europe, and the Doctor, during 1895, once again had the entire responsibility of the school. Mr. C. N. Morrison returned in March, 1896, and resumed his place asviceprincipal.
During the next two years the Doctor further lessened the amount of teaching he did in the College. He still had regular classes every day however, and though he was over 65 years of age he showed no signs of feebleness. He was a little greyer perhaps, but otherwise old collegians who saw him at the end of 1897 found no change in him.
School work for the new year had been in progress exactly a week. It was Tuesday, 15th February, 1898. The Doctor seemed as well as ever. He took his usual class that morning, but was not able tofinish the lesson. He handed the work over to another master, walked round to his study, and quietly passed away. The end was dramatically sudden and unexpected, but it was what he would have hoped for. His last act was to give a lesson in the school he had made, the final touch to the work he had been patiently performing for 38 years.
Sic itur ad astra.'
Sources: Sources: Geelong College. History, Register, .. And Records by G, McLeod Redmond. Melb; Sands & McDougall, 1911. pp 28-39.