A Melbourne Marvel.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 1, Issue 28, 2 May 1890, Page 3

A Melbourne Marvel.

One of the modern marvels of Melbourne is a huge building, known as the Working Men’s College, where a brigade of Melbourne lads and young men, numbering two thousand souls, are now receiving a high-class training in almost every branch of handicraft, as well as in arts, sciences, and languages. This colonial institution is the outcome of private beneficence, supplemented by •a hearty co-operation bn the part of the Victorian Government and the Melbourne municipality. Probably in America, or even in England, a corresponding venture would he termed a Mechanics’ Institute rather than the higher sounding name of College, but the latter suits Melbournites better, and they are quite right to adopt and to sail under the name that will prove most attractive to the community ,at large. Jt is now two years since this college was opened, and during the first twelve months it enrolled a thousand students, doubling that number in its second annual terra. The ages of the students vary froin fourteen to twenty-one years, and about fifty per cent, of them arc artisans, pure and simple, the remainder consisting of school teachers, shopmen, and clerks.. The fees vary from four to fifteen shillings a terra, and are prac- | tically within the reach of one and all.