Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2005

^ REFLECTIONS

pe spect'v. . nthepast Dean of Students, Mrs Marise MCConaghy, reviews the legacy of Sir Charles Lille

Some women see things the way

they are and ask 'why'. we see

things the way they could be and

ask 'why not'.

ET George be Friarcl Sitar. --!

The Both anniversary of Brisbane Girls Grammar School is an opportunity to celebrate all that unites us with those who have traversed the halls and hurried from class to class here for well over a hundred years. We also acknowledge how much everything has changed since the year the School was founded. As now, the world in 1875 was characterised by developments both positive and fateful. Eduard Adolf Strasburger and Walther F1emming used dyes to study the mechanism of cellular division and the associated motions of the chromosomes. Today we have the human genome project and the thrilling opportunities presented by DNA research. A1fred Nobel developed blasting gelatin, a combination of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose. Today we have Weapons of Mass Destruction George R Carey proposed a form of 'television system' in which a transmitter consisting of lightsensitive selenium cells could switch an array of electric lights on or off as an object moves in front of the cells, thus reproducing a moving image over distance. Today we watch events

taking place on the other side of the globe in real time. And in the same year, 1875, Alexander Ginham Bell transmitted the first sounds over electric cables. Today we have mobile phone bills and text messaging In Brisbane, another man - sir charles Lilley - had a vision he acted on in 1875: to establish a School that would provide girls with an education equal to that given to boys. No doubt this inspired decision went unreported in the great broadsheets of the world but in its own way it was as revolutionary as TNT. in those days girls were widely thought to require little more than a rudimentary education. As future wives and mothers they needed to be industrious, attractive, maternal and prefersbly charming. in a colony as rough-hewn, masculine and primitive as erstwhile Queensland, Sir charles's initiative represented a praiseworthy leap of both faith and imagination. Our School originated as a branch of the all boys Brisbane Grammar

School. Of necessity, some of what those early generations of aspiration al Queensland women built was derived in the same way from existing all male institutions. in modern times, however, the Adam's Rib approach to innovation is over. Educated and inspired by Brisbane Girls Grammar School, generations of big-thinking women have built their own institutions, made their own discoveries and pioneered their own changes in the worlds they inhabit From the outset, then, equality of opportunity has been a hallowed principle at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. it informs our reading of the culture within which we live and teach, as also the human diversity within our own ranks One of the bedrock requirements of a truly pastoral reciprocity between staff and students is the recognition that all of the girls matter to us equally. it would be 00 exaggeration to say there are two elements to this School's culture - both of which derive ultimately from the

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