Select Committee appointed in the earlier part of the session, under the chairmanship of Robert Lowe, Esq., now member of Parliament for Kidderminster. That Committee had reported strongly in favour of the National system: and I endeavoured on the occasion, as a member of the Committee as well as of the Council, to atone as much as possible for the opposition I had given to the establishment of Sir Richard Bourke's system in the year 1835."
Despite all his good intentions Dr. Lang was unable to undo the evil of his former rash and bigoted opposition, and the result was that no national system of education worthy of the name was carried into law in New South Wales, until Sir Henry Parkes passed the Public Schools Act of 1867.
I would not like this unqualified censure of Dr. Lang to stand without adding that despite the grave error of judgment displayed in his early career to the wreckage of a carefully matured and statesmanlike system of public education, there is no public man in my opinion, with the solitary exception of Wentworth, who has played so important a part in the "making of Australia"; and I venture on this assertion while fully conscious
