passed, (a) Affirming the necessity for an Act of the Legislature for the protection of Copyright and Patents ; (b) T h e Appointment of a Committee to prepare a Petition on the subject for presentation to the Legislative Council of N e w South Wales ; and (c) That a Society be formed for the purpose of giving a permanent character to the objects and proceedings in view. This project never got beyond its chrysalis state. A PORT PHILLIP COLLEGE.
Anno Domini 1840 might be well termed the year of projects in Melbourne, social, commercial, intellectual, or even spiritual, for there was a handful of colonists then in Melbourne, so self-sufficient, ambitious, and hopeful that they really believed they had only to wish for anything, even an impossibility, and by some miraculous agency it would be effected. To-day, a bubble of some kind or other would be blown, only to burst the day or week after, and this had hardly evaporated when something more preposterous, and m an y years in advance of the age, would be floated, only to share a similar fate. T h e most remarkable instance of this aerial architecture was the proposition to found a proprietary college in Melbourne, so as " T o place the means of education in the higher walks of literature within the reach of the youth of the Province," though its entire population did not number more than 8000 persons. A few wise heads accordingly came together, and out of them was elaborated a Provisional Committee, which set to work, prepared a most comprehensive scheme, and submitted it to a public meeting "of those interested in the subject," which was held on the 12th August, 1840, in what was known as the Auction Company's R o o m s , at the south-west corner of Collins and William Streets. From the programme presented it would be necessary to make provision in the proposed institution for communicating instruction in the following branches of secular education :— 1. English Grammar, Elocution, and the Elements of English Composition. 2. Writing, Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Geography, and History. 3. Mathematics, and the Elementary branches of Natural Philosophy and Natural History. 4. T h e Ancient Classics and such modern languages as m a y be thought necessary. O n the subject of Religious Instruction the plan adopted at a Seminary called the Martiniere, in Calcutta, was suggested as a model. There a scheme had been sanctioned by the Protestant and R o m a n Catholic Bishops, and the senior minister of the Church of Scotland, and was in effect that instruction in the fundamental truths of Christianity be communicated daily and publicly by the head-master to all the pupils, it being left to the pastors of different denominations to teach the youth of their respectiveflocksall matters which relate to discipline, church government, the sacraments, and other subjects on which differences, more or less important, existed. T h e following were the fundamental truths which it was recommended public religious instruction should embrace :— 1. T h e Being of a God: His Unity and Perfections. 2. T h e Holy Scriptures of the Old and N e w Testament : A revelation inspired by the Holy Ghost. 3. T h e Mystery of the Adorable Trinity. 4. T h e Deity, Incarnation, Atonement, and Intercession of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 5. T h e Fall and .Corruption of M a n : His Accountableness and Guilt. 6. Salvation through Grace by the Meritorious Sacrifice and Redemption of Christ. 7. T h e Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit; and His operations and Grace in the Sanctification of M a n . 8. T h e indispensable obligation of Repentance towards Cod, Faith in Christ, and continued prayer for the Grace of the Holy Spirit. 9. T h e moral duties which every Christian is bound to perform towards God, His neighbour, and himself, as they are s u m m e d up in the T e n Commandments, and enlarged upon in other parts of the Holy Scriptures, all based on the doctrines above specified and enforced as their proper fruits.
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