breadth of vision about the scope of education. Beyond the standard goals of literacy and numeracy, education was said to be capable of assuring personal morality for each individual and a suitable citizenry for the soon- to-be new nation. As an instance, the NSW Public Instr- tion Act of 1880 (cf. NSW, 1912), under the rubric of ¿religious teaching¿, stressed the need for students to be inculcated into the values of their society, including understanding the role that religious values had played in forming that society¿s legal codes and social ethics. The notion, therefore, that public education is part of a deep and ancient heritage around values neutrality is mistaken and in need of se- ous revision. The evidence suggests that public education¿s initial conception was of being the complete educator, not only of young people¿s minds but of their inner character as well.