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Australasia appears in a number of textbook from this era, highlighting its pedagogical
significance in teaching school students about emotional ties to Great Britain, through a
political ideology that upholds colonisation and empire. It is included in A Story of the
Australian People (Cramp, 1927) in a section on Australian writers, and also in the first
edition of Queensland readers: Book V (Department of Public Instruction, 1913b). Including
this poem in two textbooks across a twelve year time period, that covers both pre and post
WWI, demonstrates the consistency of ideology present in school textbooks across a time
period that witnessed otherwise periods of rapid social and political change, especially in
light of the involvement of Australia in World War I.
This discourse of military allegiance in the Queensland readers: Book V (Department of
Public Instruction, 1913b, p. 45) is also shown as Australia ready and willing to assist Great
Britain, stating:
...our country will be guarded by an army powerful enough and patriotic enough to
repel all attempts at invasion; and we shall possess a navy cruising around our coasts,
forming our first line of defence, and ready, if need be, to aid in defending the
honour and interests of that Old Land under whose imperial sceptre Australia’s sons
are proud to serve. (Department of Public Instruction, 1913b, p. 44, emphasis
added)
This emphasises that in a future time of war or military conflict, Australians will serve to
protect Great Britain, under its military control. This is apparent by the lines: “to aid in
defending the honour and interests of that Old Land under whose imperial sceptre Australia’s
sons are proud to serve” (Department of Public Instruction, 1913b, p. 44). Upholding Great
Britain as the country to which Australians should demonstrate loyalty, whilst not articulated
overtly, is mitigated through the language of ‘serving under’ Great Britain, according to its
interests, not Australia’s. This gives an indication of the socio-political attitude of the time
that would become explicitly evident when Australia declared participation in war in 1914, as
a mark of their allegiance to Great Britain first doing so against Germany. This Reader was
first used in schools in 1915, so this poem could have provided an interesting text for the
teacher to use as an example of the sentiment which caused Australia to join Great Britain in
declaring war.
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