AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
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Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix
The General Meeting of 1895 by its minute honoured itself and the superintendent:
‘The approaching retirement of our Superintendent, Ralph Dixon, after the long period of faithful and diligent service cannot be passed over without a record of appreciation by this General Meeting. Whilst it is not our custom to employ words of eulogy on such occasions, we desire to express indebtedness to him for those long years of labour bestowed on the Institution. For the Christian influence also which he has exercised during his tenure of office we desire to be thankful. Under his charge we believe the School has had the divine providence as at any period of its history. We desire also to record our thankfulness for the Christian influence which Elizabeth Dixon has been permitted to share with her husband in the guidance of the officers and children of this Institution.’
The resignation of Ralph Dixon closed one era. He and his father had been Quakers first and teachers afterwards. To them the development of a Christian character had counted more than learning, and that aim whether or not deliberately and consciously realised had guided and controlled them in their work for the School. Different times approached and different times needed different men.
Simple directness was the outstanding feature of Ralph Dixon's character. He faced teaching and children and the passing rubs of every day without subtlety and without finesse. The plain man tackled plain difficulties in a plain way. Pleasant or unpleasant as the matter might be he attacked it straightforwardly. He gave no hints; no doubt lay as to his meaning; plain language conveyed his wishes and decisions; he was direct, uncompromising.
The scholars, particularly the boys, who came under his care and control felt while they were at school, and understood later, that their headmaster stood for something unusual. Here was a man having authority who controlled the School without effort, whose voice was never lifted in anger. His life seemed restricted and unexciting; he was never unpunctual; his walk across the playground did not vary. Devoid of pretence, he made no effort to give interest to his lessons; it was the boys’ job to learn and his to point out what to learn; duty guided him even through the weary monotony of his reading of the lives of worthy Friends; the boredom of his hearers never occurred to him and would not have influenced him if it had. The quiet sameness of the days at school, the lack of incident, the remoteness of the world beyond the School bounds, because their headmaster accepted these and acted as he acted, the children accepted them too, and accepted his actions as normal and right.
His pupils came ultimately to understand that the unvarying performance of his duty alone moved his spirit. Ambition and desire for personal distinction were manifestly foreign to him. He lived plainly and uprightly and cheerfully; honesty, unselfishness, simple truth, revealed themselves in him daily, and the natural impact of a character like this slowly and steadily influenced his scholars. Even his limitations emphasised his qualities. His restrictions were the normal restrictions of the Quakers of the time whom music and painting passed by and to whom the theatre and imaginative fiction were but traps for the unwary and the godless.
Such artistic and aesthetic culture, however,
could only have polished his character. Their absence did not change
the fundamental strength and sanity and Christian certitude on which
rested all his work. He lived indeed rather as a priest than as a teacher;
morals interested him more than minds, character than accomplishment.
His resignation ended the age of the patriarchs.
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