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discourses present, and although there may be some connection with discourses from other
categories, it is argued that due to being mediated through the context of WWI, they present
as separate to other discourses for the purposes of this analysis. Through this category, the
static nature of the syllabus is apparent. Australia’s involvement in WWI was included in the
British history section of the History textbook, as there was no space made for the inclusion
of this content in the Australian history section. This is possibly done as a decision by the
Department of Public Instruction and textbook authors to react against the static nature of the
syllabus of the time. For, although the syllabus did not have any space for this conflict,
perhaps realizing its importance, space was created to discuss Australia’s involvement in
WWI.
New syllabus history for seventh grade (Dunlop & Palfrey, 1932a), portrays the involvement
of Australia in WWI more as a footnote to the battles of WWI. Whilst it is important not to
overstate Australia’s contribution to this conflict, which in comparison to other nations was
small, given the Australian school audience it is not unreasonable an expectation that there
would be more Australia-centric content. Not doing this is a sentiment supported by
Australia’s official war historian for WWI, C.E.W. Bean in the extract below.
From the point of view of the reader in other countries, a history of the part played
by Australia in the Great War must inevitably be but a partial history. The role of the
Australian people and of its armed forces fitted into the larger role of the whole
British people much as the part of Britain fitted into the great drama enacted by the
full “cast” of the Allies. As the historian of the British share in the Battle of the
Marne may be in danger of making that share appear to have been the pivot of the
whole campaign, so, and to an even greater degree, the Australian historian may run
the risk of so constructing the entire conflict that it seems to centre upon that part of
it with which he deals. (Bean, 1921, p. xxv)
To place this important aspect of Australia’s history within the section on British History,
demonstrates the lasting connection Australia had with Great Britain; particularly given the
syllabus that informed this textbook was instigated in Queensland schools from 1930, 11
years after the end of WWI.
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