Sir James Darling’s Acknowledgement of the ‘Paramount’ Need to Solve the Human Condition
In the following essay the most eminent Sir James Darling, a very great Australian, former headmaster of Geelong Grammar School and a former ABC Chairman, acknowledges the all-but-denied existence of the FHA’s area of inquiry into the human condition, and emphasises its critical importance to the human race.
Sir James Darling was headmaster of Geelong Grammar School (GGS) for 30 years until 1961, the school that a number of FHA members attended, including FHA founding directors, Jeremy Griffith, his brother Simon Griffith, Tim Macartney-Snape AM and Christopher Stephen. During the years 1961 to 1967, Sir James Darling was chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (as today’s Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC, was then known). Before that, from 1955, he was a member of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board.
Sir James was knighted in 1968 for ‘his services to education and broadcasting’ and in Australia’s bicentennial year, 1988, he was officially designated one of 200 ‘Great Australians’. Of the 200—22 then living—Sir James was the only headmaster, public recognition thereby being given to his exceptional, indeed unique, influence in Australia as an educator. In fact by the end of Darling’s tenure, GGS had become one of the most highly regarded schools in the world. The current heir to the English throne, Prince Charles, was sent there from England for part of his education.
In its full-page obituary to Sir James Darling on 3 November 1995 The Australian newspaper described Sir James as ‘a prophet in the true biblical sense’.
In the following two essays based on Sir James’ writings and speeches we show that his life was specifically dedicated to cultivating the initiative of addressing the all-important task—Sir James referred to it as the ‘paramount purpose’—of solving the human condition.
The first essay titled Sir James Darling's Acknowledgement of The 'Paramount' Need to Solve The Human Condition presents a speech by Sir James Darling that clearly affirms the FHA’s assertions that the human condition is the critical issue before us as a species, that the answer has to come from a ‘teleological’ approach, and that such an approach will require soundness, which is innocence. Further, Darling clearly identifies mechanistic science and fundamentalist religion as the two specific threats to such an inquiry. He even correctly anticipates what the answer to the human condition will be.
The second essay, titled Sir James Darling's Vision For Education, shows that Darling deliberately set about educating students for the specific task of solving the human condition.
These two essays can be read sequentially or separately.