P R E S B Y T E R I A N : Teachers, 3 ; pupils, 88. Teachers, 16; pupils, 210. I N D E P E N D E N T : Teachers, 2 ; pupils, 83. Teachers, 5; pupils, 151. W E S L E Y A N : Teachers, 2 ; pupils, 34. There were likewise three establishments at which 161 Protestant and R o m a n Catholic children indiscriminately, were instructed—giving a total of 727 attendants from three to twelve years old. EPISCOPALIAN: ROMAN
CATHOLIC:
THE FIRST INFANT SCHOOL
Was opened in 1844, in a house in Bourke Street, eastward of the present Bull and Mouth Hotel; but the room soon becoming inadequate, a small building was erected in the rear of M r . Rules' timber yard, further up the street, off the north-east junction of Bourke and Swanston Streets. It was 60 ft. by 22 ft., with a play-ground attached, and hither the "infants" were transferred. It was continued for some time, and its maintenance supplied by subscriptions, and the profits of tea-meetings.
THE PORT PHILLIP ACADEMICAL INSTITUTION
Was ushered into existence in 1844, sponsored by an imposing list of Patrons, Managers, and Masters. Its programme promised a "Classical, Scientific, Literary, and Mercantile Education;" and the head mastership was conferred on Mr. (afterwards the Rev.) William Brickwood. T h e school was conducted in the Napier R o o m s (hereafter indicated); and its inauguration was effected on the 4th August at a public gathering held in the Mechanics' Institute. Brickwood was an accomplished, painstaking teacher. T h e Academy progressed, and the "Court of Proprietors" held occasional conventions to raise money for the erection of a suitable building; but the ways and means were never realized. The Academy was next removed to a spacious villa, belonging to Dr. Wilmot, thefirstcoroner, in the portion of Little Flinders Street, recently occupied by the warehouses of M'Arthur and Co. Brickwood subsequently retired and withdrew to Brighton. In 1846, the Academy entered upon its third year, and was captained by a M r . Hay, w h o issued a wide promissory note in the form of a printed announcement, in .which he wished it to be understood by parents and guardians, " that boarders in addition to their studies in the public school, will have private lessons and religious instructions at home, and that they will be conveyed to and from the public class-room in town, in a vehicle for that purpose." His terms were forty guineas per annum (inclusive of the Academical fee of ten guineas paid in advance). It did not turn out the prolific plot of meadow land anticipated by Hay, and the scheme was dissolved on the 1st August.
PRIVATE SCHOLASTIC ESTABLISHMENTS.
Self-supporting schools date their introduction from the latter portion of 1838, and the first notification of the kind I have seen is an advertisement in the Port Phillip Gazette, intimating " That the vacation would terminate at Mrs. Cooke's school on 1st January, 1839. Cards of terms at her residence, Roxburgh Cottage, Flinders Street." At that chronological. crisis, when the years 1838 and 1839 are supposed to have come in contact, just to touch hands and part for ever, a private school was kept in Little Flinders Street by a worthy known as William Penny. H e occupied a one-roomed wattle-and-daub hut, close to the Shamrock Inn, situated directly rearward of the present Union Bank. H e was a Londoner by birth, and when in the Mother-country, being given to rudimentary chemical experiments he so far improved himself, as to succeed in the manufacturing of divers halfpence, pennies, and sixpennies which, for a short time, turned out a profitable speculation, but his little game was soon spoiled, and he got himself speedily bundled out of England to V a n Diemen's Land. Through some mishap over the water, he lost an optic, and he appeared in Melbourne a monocular, bustling little fellow, fairly educated, not a bad teacher for the times, but rather given to the worship of Bacchus, and libations of throat-scorching rum. In school hours he was careful of the few urchins committed to his tutoring • but
