Continuing education in history: Queensland Schools Of Arts, 1849‐1919

This article offers a revision of some standard views on the place of Schools of Arts and related institutions in the history of continuing education in Australia. It focuses on changes in the ethos of these institutions in Queensland over the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, by showing that, far from ‘declining’, the Schools of Arts become important centres for the promotion of technical and scientific education, and that this education, in turn, can be seen to have played an important role in the democralisation of these institutions.