rently, and made different quotations, so that I scarcely
think any one could detect the same hand in them; but generally they
were different books and different subjects, which I treated. I tried
The Australasian with a short story, "Afloat and Ashore," and with a
social article on "Wealth, Waste, and Want." I contributed to The
Melbourne Review, and later to The Victorian Review, which began by
paying well, but filtered out gradually. I found journalism a better
paying business for me than novel writing, and I delighted in the
breadth of the canvas on which I could draw my sketches of books and of
life. I believe that my work on newspapers and reviews is more
characteristic of me, and intrinsically better work than what I have
done in fiction; but when I began to wield the pen, the novel was the
line of least resistance. When I was introduced in 1894 to Mrs. Croly,
the oldest woman journalist in the United States, as an Australian
journalist, I found that her work, though good enough, was essentially
woman's work, dress, fashions, functions, with educational and social
outlooks from the feminine point of view. My work might show the bias
of sex, but it dealt with the larger questions which were common to
humanity; and when I recall the causes which I furthered, and which in
some instances I started, I feel inclined to magnify the office of the
anonymous contributor to the daily press. And I acknowledge not only
the kindness of friends who put some of the best new books in my way,
but the large-minded tolerance of the Editors of The Register, who gave
me such a free hand in the treatment of books, of men, and of public
questions.

CHAPTER XIII.

MY WORK FOR EDUCATION.

I was the first woman appointed on a Board of Advice under the
Education Department, and found the work interesting. The powers of the
board were limited to an expenditure of 5 pounds for repairs without
applying to the department and to interviewing the parents of children
who had failed to attend the prescribed number of days, as well as
those who pleaded poverty as an excuse for the non-payment of fees. I
always felt that the school fees were a heavy burden on the poor, and
rejoiced accordingly when free education was introduced into South
Australia. This was the second State to adopt this great reform,
Victoria preceding it by a few years. I objected to the payment of fees
on another ground. I felt they bore heavily on the innocent childre