AustLit

The second part of this editorial in The Empire deals with Henry Parkes's assertion, upon opening a public school in Goulburn, New South Wales, that a child who 'opens his eyes to the wildest scenery in the world' and who is perhaps neglected by his parents in such an environment, will turn out to be 'a defier of the law'. The editorial refutes Parkes's theory using quotes from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and from William Shakespeare's As You Like It.

(The authors and sources of the quotes are not identified but are alluded to: Shakespeare's quote is said to be from a 'great public teacher'; Byron's from 'another great English poet'.)