Catherine Helen Spence

I had only two offers of marriage in my life, and I refused both.

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.

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.

The Town Clerkship, however, was the means of giving me a lesson in electoral methods.

I look back to a happy childhood.

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.

South Australia was the first community to give the secret ballot for political elections.

The first issue of The Register was printed in London, and gave a glowing account of the province that was to be — its climate, its resources, the sound principles on which it was founded.

Probably my mother's life was prolonged beyond that of a long-lived family by her coming to Australia in middle life; and if I ever had any tendency to consumption, the climate must have helped me.