There are no schools in wild Australia, yet it must not be thought that the children receive no education. On the contrary their education begins at a very early age and is continued well into manhood and womanhood. Up to the age of seven or eight boys and girls play together and remain under their mother's care, but a separation then takes place and schooldays, if we may call them by that name, begin. The boys leave the society of the girls and sleep in the bachelor's camp. They begin to accompany their fathers on long tramps abroad. They are taught the names and qualities of the different plants and animals which they see, and the laws and legends of their tribe. Lessons of reverence and obedience to their elders are instilled into their young minds, and they have impressed upon them that they must never attempt to set up their own will against the superior will of the tribe. They are taught to use their eyes, and to take note of the footprints of the different animals and birds, and eventually to track them to their haunts. In this art of tracking many of them become wonderfully skilled. They will often say how long it is since a certain track was made, and in the case of a human foot-mark will often tell whose it is. They will say whether the traveller was a man or a woman, and in some cases have been known to say, quite correctly, that the man was knock-kneed or slightly lame. Trackers employed by the police have often traced a man's footsteps over stony and rocky ground, being able to tell, from the displacing of a stone here and there, that the man whom they were seeking had passed that way. On one occasion a clergyman was travelling in the bush when he was met by an aboriginal boy who told him that a man had gone along that way earlier in the day, had been thrown from his horse about five miles further on but had not been hurt very much because he had got up after a few minutes and had gone after his horse; the man, however, was slightly lame, and the horse had cast a shoe. The same evening the clergyman met the man in question and found that the native's account of what happened was correct in every detail. He had gained his information entirely from careful observation of the tracks.

So wonderfully is this power of seeing trained that every object is most carefully noted as it is passed. The foot-marks of an emu or kangaroo on their way to water, the head of a wild turkey standing above the grass some two hundreds yards away, will be pointed out to the purblind white man who has never learned to see. If one of the lessons of life is to use the eyes the aboriginal teacher teaches his lessons well.

The children of wild Australia are taught to use their ears. They will start up at the first faint stirring of the leaves which tells that a storm of wind will soon be down upon them or that an opossum or parrot is awakening in the tree. Their ears, too, will notice the slight rustling of the grass and the stealthy footsteps on the ground which tell that some enemy is near. It takes long and careful training to bring the power of hearing to such perfection as this.

They are taught to use their hands and to make and use the weapons, etc., of which you will read in the next chapter. What wonderful natural history lessons, too, theirs must be. The habits of all the various animals are learned out in the wild, and numerous stories about them are told. The traditions of all the places they come to are carefully narrated by the older men, and in this way a faithful adherence to the rules and customs of the tribe is ensured. Wonderful are the tales of their old ancestors which will be narrated around the camp fires at night, whilst in the day time excursions to some of the sacred spots, whose legends were told over night, may be made. So in one way or another a remarkable reverence for antiquity—for the dim and shadowy (though, to the aboriginal, very real) heroes of the "alcheringa," or distant dream age in which these old heroes lived, and for the aged will be instilled and the children grow up in ways of reverence and obedience which are often sadly lacking in more favoured lands.

Sometimes the growing lad at about the age of twelve or thirteen will be sent away to school, that is he will go to stay with some neighbouring friendly tribe whose old men will carefully complete the education which his father and the men of his own tribe began.

But lessons are taught not only by word of mouth but by means of sacred rites which the young lad at about the age of fourteen is allowed to witness for the first time. In these sacred performances the deeds of some doughty ancestor are portrayed, and the boy as he gazes upon them, and listens to the answers given to the questions he is allowed to ask, learns more and more of the rules and traditions of his tribe. No women and children are ever allowed to be present at these solemnities. The tribal secrets which they depict may be known only to the men. A woman or girl who dared to venture near or pry into them would have her eyes put out or be killed at once by the men.

Before the young lad can be allowed to attend he needs to be solemnly initiated into his tribe. He is taken away into the bush and there undergoes a kind of savage Confirmation. A front tooth is knocked out, and the body is gashed with sharp stones. In some tribes a new gash is given as each new secret is imparted. Into the wounds thus made ashes or the down of the eagle hawk are rubbed to make the wound heal. The actual result is a raised scar which lasts on through life.

Sometimes what is called a Fire Ceremony is also performed to test the power of endurance of those who are henceforth to be regarded as men. A large fire is lighted and then the hot embers are strewn on the ground. Over these a few green boughs are placed and the boys are made to lie down upon them until permission is given them by their elders to rise. The boughs, of course, keep them from being actually burned, but the heat of the fire is very great and they are often nearly suffocated with the smoke. Should the faintest cry escape one of them or should they fail to lie perfectly still they would be regarded as weak and effeminate and unworthy to be "made men," and their admission into the full privileges of the tribe would be delayed. These fire ceremonies are a very severe test of their power of endurance. The native lad will suffer a great deal rather than be thought soft and womanish, and there are few who fail to stand the severe test which is here demanded of them.