'Telling Tales Out of School' is a delightful concoction of entertaining and universally appealing documented historical anecdotes depicting life in New South Wales government schools within the context of Australian society (c.1850s-1950s). Many aspects of school life are shown, including problems with school buildings, teachers' and inspectors' travel difficulties and living conditions, inspection and examination traumas, and the unusual responses to some teachers to their lot. Unchanged and ever-unchanging are the foibles and strengths of human nature and the irrespressibility of individual personality, even in a highly bureaucratic system. These stories show ways with which we can all empathise that were found for coping with the frustrations and jobs of everyday school life, with its inducement of every state of mind except boredom.
