Mechanics’ Institutes: Glorious Failures Or Modest Successes?

Abstract

Mechanics Institutes or, as they are more commonly known in the State of New South Wales, Schools of Arts are often portrayed as having been glorious failures in that they did not achieve their founding purpose. They did not educate the artisan in science and technology. This paper partially disputes that point of view. It argues that, in Australia, the so-called second wave of Schools were really quite successful in achieving their much more modest goals. They adapted the overstated idealism of the early Schools to meet the real needs of their local communities. These later Schools provided a local home for reading, learning, culture, civil society, and recreation in the then developing suburbs and towns of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Schools of Arts, as multipurpose centres of adult learning and activity, eventually declined as their communities grew and diversified. Their earlier comprehensive functions were taken over by a range of more specialised providers and facilities.