I count myself well educated, for the admirable woman at the head of the school which I attended from the age of four and a half till I was thirteen and a half, was a born teacher in advance of her own times.

As we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in an expanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland, but eager to develop a perfect society in the land of our adoption.

I think I was well brought up, for my father and mother were of one mind regarding the care of the family.

I look back to a happy childhood.

Our South Australian farmers left their holdings in the hands of their wives and children too young to take with them, but almost all of them returned to grow grain and produce to send to Victoria.

I had learned what wealth was, and a great deal about production and exchange for myself in the early history of South Australia - of the value of machinery, of roads and bridges, and of ports for transport and export.

Even before the discovery of copper South Australia had turned the corner.