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But three of my boyhood friends in Bill Webster, Gus Scoullar and Ernest Kent were in the Education Office and I eventually, by transfer in January, 1892, became the fourth Stawellite there. (I started on £60 a year at the Library; I was now earning £100 a year.) We had been at State School No. 502 together and to this day we remain good friends, but there was something special about the bond between Webster and myself. Match this for a record of the lives of two unrelated people: Born in a provincial town within a few hundred yards of each other and with only four months separating the births; attended the same school; appointed to the Public Service in the same year; boarded in Melbourne in the same suburb; served in the same Department for many years and concluded that service in the same room, one as Chief Clerk, the other as Senior Clerk; never lived farther apart from one another than they do now—and one is in Kew and the other in Camberwell. Parallel lives—yet each has always had his own distinctively individual tastes and has followed a separate course in most of the important matters that make up life.

The change from the Library's almost monastic seclusion (save on wet holidays—and then, well, the deluge!) to be part of the huge machinery of one of the biggest Departments of the State was a marked one. Many a time I longed to go back, but my new colleagues proved good fellows in most cases and it was easy to be reconciled. A group of the men, though, has left a bad taste in the mouth of memory. It was a hard-bitten half-dozen of the elders, hard drinkers all, usually short of cash and very willing to induce the more foolish of the youngsters to 'see life' ('Life with a capital Hell,' as Kipling has it); in other words, the seniors were quite prepared to spend the juniors' money. The result was disastrous to several bright lads. One went to the pack with drink, a couple of others were dogged by money-lenders all their remaining official days.

Officialdom is an interesting study. I had an escape door, fortunately, in outside interests which kept me individual, but there were many of my colleagues who seemed to be no more than cogs in a machine. Here let me break a lance in defence of a much-maligned service. First always to bear the brunt of hard times—the implication seeming to be that the Service had caused them; referred to by sections of the Press as though to be a public servant was necessarily to be a loafer; I want to record, from knowledge and not hearsay, that the Victorian State Service, as a whole, is composed of a magnificent body of workers. Men live their jobs; night after night there are officers working overtime in those public buildings without any special fee or gratuity, with no other reward, indeed, than the satisfaction of knowing that they are keeping their work up to date.

The last of the Old Timers has long gone, relics as they were of a period when the qualification for a post was influence. The examination system has replaced them by men who, in many cases, would have made names for themselves in any other sphere of life, but who are swallowed up in a system which permits of hardly any individual recognition. But if there is anything of value in the pronouncement of a Minister of the Crown, at any time, anywhere, you may depend upon it a public servant's brains very largely informed it; if there is anything futile you can be sure it went in against a public servant's advice.

I would not suggest that I was in that first flight, but because it was known that my writings were acceptable to newspapers I have been given the interesting task, not once but many times, of preparing speeches for Ministers, and on several occasions the rounded periods and more or less telling phrases, the facts and suggestions, the amusing anecdotes and the moving peroration, of a Premier's speech all came from my pen. Indeed, there is a full page article in one of England's most authoritative financial journals, under the signature of the Premier of the day, every word of which I wrote.

That was a very special job and a rush one. Owing to the mass of matter to be digested, I spent a whole week-end upon it, also a couple of nights and my lunch times. These spoilt and over-paid public servants!—I did not receive so much as 'thank you' from the gentleman whom I had obliged. My reward was a copy of the magazine when the article appeared—that and no more. In fairness I should mention that I was not asked to pay for the copy! It cost sixpence.

Some other unusual jobs came my way. One day I was summoned to Cabinet. I went with trepidation—what had I done? Was I to be charged with an offence or offered promotion? Neither; the Honourable the Treasurer said the Cabinet was taking sides in a certain struggle—could I write some verses for publication to assist the cause? Well, of course I could, and I did, and they were duly given prominence in the press—not under my name, of course. I hae ma doots about their having had any effect on the issue at stake, but the Treasurer must have liked the effort, for later he called upon me again, this time for what he was pleased to name 'a poem' to commemorate a certain national anniversary. That was not quite so easy, but it was done—the curious may see the result in my little book of verses By-Products, under the title of 'The Singing Wind.' The fee in each case was the same, but, anyway, I was thanked on this occasion.

With that great-hearted and witty Under-Treasurer, M. A. Minogue, I wrote a Budget for that careful State Treasurer, Sir William McPherson. Later I spent over a year in Parliament House as Secretary to a Royal Commission on Fisheries, and several months in the State Electricity Commission's office, again as Secretary of a Royal Commission—this time on what was known as the Police Strike; when the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward) visited Australia the Premier (Mr. H. S. W. Lawson) sent me along to assist the organizer for Victoria, who had fallen ill; I have been on a Visual Education Committee, a Physical Culture Committee, a Broadcasting Committee—these samples of official duties will serve to show that the routine admits of variation.

The Education Department, despite its ten thousand employees, its thousands of schools, its three millions, or thereabouts, of expenditure, and its outstanding importance to the State, has earned the title of Cinderella of the Departments. Anyone, not otherwise provided for, has generally been good enough, when Cabinets were being formed, for the post of Minister of Education. A few Ministers were excellent, but the list of the inept is an appalling one. When I said this to a well-known politician (himself a Minister) his remark was: 'Yes; in creating a Cabinet there are always certain outstanding men whose professions or known inclinations suggest that they should be given the Treasury, Law, Lands, Public Works, Mines or Forests. Things move smoothly till somebody says "Oh, don't let us forget old So-and-So; we'll have to give him something." There's a pause, then "Give him Education," and all are satisfied. That's how you get your Ministers!'

Now that Minister, often with no more qualifications for the post than that he was a good Party man, is endowed with power, by virtue of his office, to sit in judgment upon and to cancel or modify the plans of, a permanent head who may have given a lifetime to the special study of the subject. Such a permanent head was Mr. Frank Tate, the first Director of Education, a man outstanding in Australia and with an international reputation as an educationist. The farmer, or storekeeper, or tradesman, or whatnot, who found himself, as Minister of Education, directing the Director of Education, would doubtless have smiled scornfully had that Director put himself up as adviser, really dictator, in the business of farming, storekeeping or whatever pursuit the Minister followed in private life.

At a public dinner a year or two ago I suggested that we are over-blessed with statutes and that it would be a good idea to proclaim a close season for politicians for a period of five years, during which time the public service should administer the existing laws, but have no power to add to them. I am more than half serious in advocating that to-day. Think of the peace of it!

Minogue, already mentioned, was one of the finest men with whom I made friends in the public offices. An Irish Catholic, he collected all the tales against Scotsmen to retail to me, the son of an Aberdeen father and an Edinburgh mother. In return I never missed a chance to recount a good one against the Irish. We formed a sort of Joke Exchange. I remember his joy when I told him of the Irishman who said it was the fine job he had got—oh, the fine job! He was pullin' down a Protestant church and gettin' paid for it! Poor Minogue, a fine friend, and a man capable of the most generous acts. Roman Catholic as he was, I knew him to join O. R. Snowball, prominent Orangeman, in an appeal for a down-and-out Methodist. I wrote the address the Service presented to Minogue on his retirement. In it I said, with truth: 'May you never be short of a good story, for assuredly you will never be short of a friend to tell it to.' He did not live long to enjoy retirement. A stroke took him off one day in the public offices: he died in my arms.

He it was who introduced me to the Hon. George Michael Prendergast, an old Stawellite whom I had not met till then. In an aside, let me boast a little of my native town. It has produced many notable men, but I shall name only four—Mr. Prendergast, who rose to be Premier of Victoria; Mr. Alex. Cooch, who became head of what is probably the greatest of our State institutions, the Savings Bank; Mr. Dave Bell, Chairman of that other great institution, the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works; and Mr. T. W. Bearup, Manager of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

The Hon. George Michael was looking for a Secretary for the Fisheries Commission, of which he had just been appointed Chairman. Half-a-dozen other Members of Parliament completed the board. I was reluctant to take the job, but yielded, and I must say I enjoyed the experience. Incidentally, I formed a sound liking for my Chairman. The inquiry extended over a year, during which my headquarters were the Assembly rooms at the Exhibition Building. For a proper estimate of the worth of Parliament and the party-system, I commend a few months in the House 'without the option.'

Some of the relationships there were astonishing. Publicly the late O. R. Snowball was in the opposite camp to G. M. Prendergast, but personally they were the closest of friends. Both were on the Commission. Each took me aside to assure me of the other's worth—'a capital fellow,' said the Orangeman of the Roman Catholic; 'one of the best,' was the verdict of the Catholic on the Orangeman. They were excellent companions to travel with, and their jokes with one another were endless. Each scored a point on one of our trips. As Secretary, I had forgotten the Bible on which to swear the witnesses. The only one I could get hold of in the little fishing village was a Douai version—the Catholic Bible. 'Not a word to Snowball,' I warned the Chairman, and the session was duly carried through. But Prendergast had to tell the tale, and loud was his crowing over 'Snowy.' At the very next village, however, the only Bible I could borrow was one bound and prepared for Masonic services. 'Not a word to the Chairman,' was now my warning to Snowball, who, as soon as the meeting was over, proceeded, with mock gravity, to 'get his own back' over the first incident. All this with the utmost good-nature on both sides.

By the way, the final witness there seemed a trifle confused. He told me confidentially: 'Jus'-had-a-pint-o'bran'y.' He made it one word. Whatever he had had, he couldn't stand steady, but swayed gently back and forth as if a wind blew. He was in a mood to agree to anything. 'Take the Book in your right hand,' commanded the Chairman. 'Now repeat after me: I swear by Almighty God that the evidence that I shall give before this Commission shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' The drunk beamed on him with admiration. 'Yeah!' he answered impressively. Then, with emphasis: 'Thash right!'

When all is going smoothly and all his plans are working out as arranged, the Secretary of a Commission has nothing to do but listen to the evidence and jot down comments to guide him later as to the credibility of the witnesses. Here is a note made at such a time, which I handed to the Chairman:

The gentleman is on his oath,

But, speaking without bias,

I'd sooner take the simple word

Of good old Ananias!

One more anecdote about George Michael Prendergast. Few men of my acquaintance could tell a better tale than he. This is the story of his Waterloo. We were in Klug's Hotel at Queenscliff, waiting for dinner. There were half a dozen M's.P. present. A solitary stranger sat by the fire sucking a pipe and surveying us with interested eyes. The Hon. George told a good yarn, directed largely to the outsider, and told it so well that we laughed and laughed again. All, that is, but the stranger, who took his pipe out of his mouth, regarded the speaker gravely, almost with a puzzled air, then fell to smoking again. Such behaviour was a challenge to our Chairman. He was not accustomed to having one of his jokes, and a good one at that, ignored. Almost pointedly addressing the stranger this time, he told another. It was even better than the first, and again we were convulsed. The man at the fire had watched the talker with rapt attention, pipe in hand. At the point he looked at us all curiously—and resumed his smoking without a sign. We were now watching the duel with interest, but just as the tale-spinner had uttered the preliminaries for another attack the gong went and we trooped out to dinner.

Imagine the joy of the party when later on we discovered that the man on whom so much eloquence had been expended was stone deaf!

Toolangi, 1938. Clockwise: "Pete," R. H. Croll, A. H. Chisholm, C. J. Dennis. (Photo. by Grace D. Croll)

That Fisheries Commission provided many a humorous episode. One was directly to my address. We were in the early morning train for Swan Hill. Kyneton was the breakfast station. The train was full of racing men bound for a meeting up the line. I warned my parliamentarians that the crush would be great for breakfast and I led the way directly we pulled in at the platform. I was the first at the counter. I collected my order, picked up a knife and fork and put them on the plate with my sausages, took the lot in one hand and my cup of coffee in the other and began to back out through the now dense crowd. At the last moment I thought of bread, put my coffee down, grabbed a couple of slices and then, fully loaded, managed to get clear and reach one of the small tables. There I arranged my dishes...but what was this in my hand? It was the florin with which I had meant to pay the waitress! But, as if that were not bad enough, when I came to attack my meal I found the 'two slices of bread' were another man's ham sandwich! Apparently my Aberdonian ancestry had triumphed over my natural diffidence!...It was hard to persuade my Commissioners, when I told the story, that I eventually paid the girl. I did...but the ham sandwich was quite another matter!

Another Royal Commission of which I became secretary was interesting largely because it introduced me to one of the most outstanding men I have ever met—Sir John Monash. Again I did not want the job, but a public servant must obey his Premier and I found myself installed, with a dry humorist named Rollo Hesketh as assistant, in an office in the State Electricity Commission's building. Monash impressed me profoundly. His wide reading, his diversity of interests, his astonishing knowledge would in themselves have constituted him a leader, but greater than these were the quickness and thoroughness of his grasp of affairs, new affairs, as they were presented to him, and the promptitude and certainty of his judgment. It did not take me long to realize why it was that this civilian rose to such a distinguished position in the army. By the way, he told me one day how he came to write his book, The Australian Victories in 1918. He had been invited to publish something on the Great War and, in preparation for the job, he had all his papers assembled and arranged while demobilization was proceeding in 1919. A start at the actual work was made at seven o'clock one evening and he finished it by writing from 7 p.m. to midnight each night for thirty consecutive nights. 'I hardly re-wrote a line,' he added. He was paid £2,000 for the completed volume.

I have a copy of the second edition before me at the moment. It is inscribed to my son: 'To Robin Croll, confidently believing that the lads of his generation will be ever ready to emulate the deeds of patriotism recorded in this book. From the author, John Monash, Lieutenant-General, 30/1/25.'

This Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the causes of that amazing happening known as 'the police strike,' a happening which shook Victoria, and particularly Melbourne, to its very foundations. Thanks to it, most people realized for the first time how securely they normally live—in other words, they appreciated the meaning of the words law and order.' A number of police, at a customary parade, refused to obey commands and were instantly dismissed—within twenty-four hours the lawless element which is part of every city began to loot the unprotected shops, traffic control was lost, and only the loyalty of a small section of the constabulary, acting in conjunction with a quickly-formed corps of civilians, who were sworn in as 'specials,' prevented worse doings.

Who were to blame for the 'strike'? There are two sides to most questions, and this particular conundrum had many answers—of a kind. It is idle to debate the matter now; after listening to all the evidence of interested parties and hearing much of the undertones, I concluded that the men had genuine grievances which called loudly for redress (some have since been redressed), and that they were in a state of exasperation which made it easy for certain of their number, rebelliously inclined, to use them for the mischief-makers' own ends. Many fine men, ornaments to the force, found themselves involved in a sudden movement with which they had little sympathy, but from which they could not withdraw. They were caught 'on the hop.'

A short-lived Labor administration was in office when the Commission was appointed; a National ministry was in power when our Report was prepared—so that Report still remains in the pigeon-holes! It cost more than a trifle to produce, for three highly-paid State officers in Sir John Monash, Mr. C. S. McPherson (Public Service Commissioner), and Police Superintendent J. H. Martin, to say nothing of a barrister at ten guineas a day and a Secretary, an Assistant Secretary, officials of the Police Department, the Government shorthand writers and others, were all deflected from their ordinary duties. Truly a case of the mountain and the mouse. The inquiry occupied the last five months of 1924.

The barrister who sat behind the Commissioners was Mr. A. W. (now Judge) Foster, a man of individuality and charm. His quick wit was delightful; to him and to the Crown Solicitor, Mr. F. G. Menzies, I usually gave my versified comments on the proceedings. Those proceedings were remarkable in at least one regard. Practically all the witnesses were police or ex-police, all were thoroughly trained in the art of giving evidence in court—never were two opposing sets of evidence so perfect in their utterance or so completely and wholly contradictory!

As Secretary, it was my job to write the Report. With many hundreds of pages of these conflicting statements to weigh and, if possible, reconcile, it was to be no easy task. My relief was great when Sir John said that he would like to draft and submit an outline of what he considered should be said. I undertook, and produced, one section; the rest came from Sir John's pen, and came from it, too, in a single night. It was a feat that could be appreciated by those only who had seen that mass of evidence. Moreover, it passed, almost as it stood, the keen survey of that very able administrator, C. S. McPherson, and his colleague, J. H. Martin, and eventually was adopted. Its fate you know.

The visit of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward) to Victoria in June, 1920, caused another break in my routine. The organizer of the arrangements (Mr. Sam Whitehead), working double tides, fell ill owing to the strain, and the Premier of the day, the Hon. H. S. W. Lawson (now Sir Harry), sent me along to ease the pressure. Here was a new world. At a first impression it was peopled mainly by snobs and persons trying to gain favours—an early experience was an offer of £10 for an invitation to one of the functions. Whitehead soon had my complete sympathy. Half Victoria appeared to be clamouring for something, and all addressing their requests and complaints to him. Nothing was apparently too trivial to bring under the notice of the Prince—one woman wrote that she would show him a white magpie if he would call at her house!—and no device was too mean to practise in the scramble for cards to meet our illustrious visitor.

It was not the general public who gave all the trouble; much of it was caused by people in high places, who demanded that constituents or relatives should have preferential treatment—and when they found us unmoved they carried the tale to the Premier and worried him. Dignity we found to be a frail flower which needs careful handling: a well-known Federal politician 'raised Cain' when he learnt that his seat one evening was in the second row, behind that of one of the State members! I don't know what awful consequences might have followed if the matter had not been found capable of adjustment.

I have never met a more likeable man than the Prince, or a more thoughtful. By the way, of the many stories about him at the time, one is well worth retelling. It may be apocryphal, but it rings true. The scene was supposed to be Brisbane, the place a dance room to which he had been invited by a group of girls from a big warehouse. He chose a partner. They danced. She was tongue-tied by shyness. At last she spoke: 'When you are at home, your Royal Highness, what do you do in the evenings?' 'Oh,' said the Prince, 'in the evenings? Well, you see, after dinner father gets the paper and mother takes her knitting, and when I see father begin to nod I nip out!'

My first big job during the visit was to attend the magnificent display given by the school children at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I was to see that the Prince kept to the schedule laid down. He duly arrived and was shown up to the box reserved in the members' pavilion. At a signal he was to come down and pass on to the arena where the thousands of children stood in their lines to give him a welcome. I loitered downstairs waiting for the appointed hour and prepared to have the police make a lane for him through the crowd.

But he jumped up ahead of time, and the first thing I knew he was at the foot of the stairs and making for the arena gate. No policeman was handy at the moment, so I fell in alongside and together we pushed our way through the crowd, which opened out as it recognized him. We reached the gate—'Open up!' I called to the sergeant standing within. He saluted, threw the gate wide—and disclosed a thick rope breast-high across the entrance. Then it was that I made my first speech to Royalty. Without preliminary, I turned to our future King and said 'Duck!' He duly ducked under the rope, and all was well.

Later that day I had private audience with him. His references to the display showed how much he had appreciated it.

Frank Tate, the first Director of Education, was head of the Department at the time. Successive governments, ruled by the selfish precedent that no State Public Servant had ever been permitted to accept a title, failed to recognize adequately the wonderful work of this able educationist. He was not only outstanding in Australia but he took a foremost place at Imperial gatherings. The I.S.O. and the C.M.G. awarded to him were small rewards for his outstanding services to the State. He should certainly have been knighted, if for nothing but the magnificent War Relief Fund (half a million in cash and half a million parcels of food and clothing) produced, under his guidance, by the State Schools during the Great War. Theatrical people and others were handed the honour for much less.

Tate had a wonderful memory. I introduced him to C. J. Dennis and to the Sentimental Bloke, and he became greatly interested in that clean and clever larrikin-classic. Later he told me that had every copy of the Sentimental Bloke and its sequel, Ginger Mick, been destroyed, he could have restored them word for word. His memory of the Shakespeare plays was phenomenal; often a lecture would be as much quotation as connecting matter. Most astonishing of all, he could repeat whole pages of prose, particularly the fine English of Lowell.

He had an elvish, a Puckish, humour which was more than a trifle disconcerting at times. The late Dr. John Leach, known the world over for his popular book on the birds of Australia, was an Inspector in the Education Department and a long-standing friend of Tate. Leach was humourless and it amused Tate to play on this and Leach's acknowledged partiality for science and its exactitudes. A purely imaginary conversation between Leach and an old schoolfellow is a good example of Tate's whimsicality. 'Married?' inquires Leach, as the two friends shake hands after years of separation. 'Yes,' replies the other, 'I've been married quite a long time.' 'Any larvae?' queries the scientist.

A true tale is that of the Nightjar. As everyone knows, the Nightjar is a curious nocturnal bird. The devil entered into me one day and I said: 'Leach, a friend of mine has found a bird which is not listed in your Bird Book.' That was enough to rouse the author. He looked at me scoffingly, but a trifle uneasily, too. 'And what's that?' he asked. 'It's the White-handled Night Jar,' I answered, and prepared to leave. 'That shows all he knows about birds,' was Leach's retort. 'It's the White Throated Nightjar.' At this I shouted with laughter and Leach, good fellow as he was at heart, hated me for almost a day.

We had another humourless person on the staff at that time. It seems to me that the possession of humour keeps a man from making himself ridiculous. We were discussing surnames and our friend remarked, with much seriousness: 'My name is derived from an old English word meaning "Polecat!"' I suppose a man can't be blamed for the habits of his ancestors, but I don't think I would have advertised their weaknesses if I had been in his place.

In quite another category was our Art Inspector, Carew-Smyth. Tate was noted for his skill in introducing appropriate stories when making a speech; Carew-Smyth knew all those stories 'and then some.' Tall, lean, dignified, serious-faced, he suggested an ascetic churchman. But that sober countenance would be transformed as the point of one of his numberless tales was reached—it became irresistibly jovial. The man who could remain unmoved when Carew-Smyth set himself to entertain would be a wonder. I scored off him once. He came from London and had been trained as an artist. His knowledge of gardening was thought to be negligible. So when it was reported that he had joined the Horticultural Society and had started cultivating some garden plots, I wrote these verses which, by the way, the Director read to the assembled horticulturists at their next meeting:

ART AND NATURE

Oh, the Art Inspector smiled a smile,

And his smile was good to see,

As he turned up the earth in artistic style

To fashion a bed that would seem worth while

To the bean and the good green pea.

He niggled it here, and he cross-hatched there,

And he rubbed out a line too much,

Till the whole thing glowed like a picture, fair

As a painter's dream, that he felt should wear

A frame as a final touch.

Then he added a wash of pure Yan Yean

And he picked out the choicest seeds;

Each nude nude bean was a pure French bean,

Each pea a poem, as round and clean

As my Lord High Abbot's beads.

In the cunningest curves, on High Art lines,

He buried the food to be;

'There's nothing like starting with sound designs,

Art's everything, Nature she quite outshines,—

I'll be picking them soon,' said he.

But alas for the Art that would govern Life,

Old Nature had planted, too,

And Hurryup Weed and his hungry wife

With 'umpteen kids each keen as a knife

Came thronging and thrusting through.

They stippled the ground with their leaflets bright

In patterns all twirl and twist,

They broke each canon he knew was right,

They wedded the lean Preraphaelite

To the Cubist and Futurist.

And the Art Inspector bent his back,

(With a word that I may not tell)

And oh, but his brow with wrath was black

As he grabbed each weed by the scruff and the slack

And consigned it straight to...well!

'When at last the tucker took heart and grew,

Its planter's cup was full;

The Spider red made his hopes look blue,

His beautiful curves were all askew,

The slug and the snail got busy, too,

And he hadn't a pod to pull!

ENVOI—To P. M. C.-S. There are one or two morals quite plain to read, O Artist so lank and lean:— 'No peas for the wicked' is truth indeed, And if with the other you did succeed You'd be classed as an old has-bean!

It was Carew-Smyth who dressed as Cardinal Richelieu for an artists' fête in aid of Red Cross funds. He looked the part to the life. The only anachronism was the motorcar in which he sat as the procession wound its way through the city. There was a halt for a few minutes in Collins Street. It brought the Cardinal's car to a standstill just in front of a group of his fellow officers of the Education Department. He regarded us impassively, not deigning to know at that high moment such base canaille. I determined to break his poker mask. Squeezing through the crowd, I stood before the window and held up two fingers in blessing—'Benedictine, father!' I called. The response was comical. For a few moments the Cardinal had the upper hand, then the natural man prevailed, and the procession moved onwards with its great church dignitary doubled up in a most wholehearted fit of laughter.

Carew-Smyth was one of the kindest of men. He hated, as examiner, to fail anybody. The tale goes that he was visited in his office one Saturday by a woman teacher, a particularly garrulous sample, whose drawing had not been passed as satisfactory. She had a portfolio of her works with her, and Carew, sighing, but with his customary courtesy, went through the lot one by one. To each he said, 'Ye-es, ye-es!' and finally managed to bow her out. Then he communed aloud—'No, they're no good, I can't pass her...no, I can't pass work like that...' a reflective pause, then, springing up: 'Oh, my goodness, I'll have to pass her: she might come back!'

I hate to spoil a good story, but the finish of that one smacks rather of office invention.

The Department yielded many a light episode. No one could invent anything as funny as some of the genuine documents handed to me at times by the Attendance Officers. An anxious mother excused Willie's absence from school—'he has been under the Children's Hospital for three weeks.' Another had kept the eldest girl home and was sorry—'I have had twins. It will not occur again.' A teacher, trying to squeeze into one line the cause of a child's absence and the duration of it, summarized thus: 'Kicked by a horse from the 8th to the 14th.' But it remained for my friend Webster, working at top speed during a bad influenza epidemic, to achieve a telegram of such import that it has become a Departmental legend. A wire had come in to the effect that the whole staff of one big school was absent with the exception of the head teacher (a man) and the sewing mistress. 'Carry on with the sewing mistress!' ordered Webster.

My Public Service career lasted from 18th September, 1886, to the 5th January, 1934. I retired as Senior Clerk of the Education Department and Registrar of the Council of Public Education. The latter post I had held for over thirteen years, having succeeded my friend, Martin Bottoms, on 9th November, 1920. That Council, a statutory body, was one of Frank Tate's thoughtful creations. Unfortunately, it was given no executive power. It is a body representing many interests—the Education Department, the University, the registered schools, agricultural education, the Trades Hall, and music. While it may originate any inquiries relating to education, its main function is to consider matters referred to it by the Minister of Public Instruction and furnish reports and recommendations about them. In my experience much valuable time was spent by some of the wisest of our citizens in endeavours as members of this Council to assist the administration—services utterly wasted, for the Minister almost invariably either took no notice of them, or refused any request they embraced.

Still, the Council persevered and it is, I suppose, continuing to act as a fifth wheel to the coach. I have never ceased to admire the devotion of most of the members. They gave useful service to the State, and that not only without reward but customarily without recognition. Some of the Council's debates were a liberal education in how to be warm without being heated, and how to oppose without being personal. I conceived a strong feeling of friendship for several of these able men and women, and I do not need the books they gave me when I retired (Baldwin Spencer's The Arunta and J. M. Barrie's Complete Plays), much as I value and appreciate them, to keep the Council of Public Education in grateful remembrance.

To my colleagues of the Department I addressed a farewell word at the request of Gilbert Wallace, then editor, for publication in the Education Gazette:

SWAN SONG

Now ends my long official day;

The work is done, the book is signed.

May Fortune grant me on my way

Friends staunch as those I leave behind.

I wonder if it would smack too much of egotism to print one of the letters which came to me when my retirement was announced. I quote this partly because of its unexpectedness, for I had no association with Canberra, and it came from the Federal capital. But the writer, Senator Sir Harry Lawson, had known me during his occupancy of several Ministerial posts (including that of Premier) in Victoria. I esteem very highly his unsolicited testimonial:

Commonwealth of Australia,

The Senate,

10/12/1933.

Dear Mr. Croll,

May I as a citizen thank you for your service to the State and express my appreciation of your fine work at the Education Department? My best wishes for long life, good health and happiness in retirement.

Yours sincerely,

H. S. W. LAWSON.