Advanced School for Girls

[1] The first appointments were for a headmistress and assistant head: Jane Stanes and Edith Cook (both transferred from the Grote Street Model School),[2] followed by Rene-Armand Martin (French).

The Minister of Education (Thomas King) did not approve, but his successor (J. Langdon Parsons) pushed it through.

The school, in the two-storey former residence of Dr. Lambert Butler, Franklin Street, was opened on 7 October 1879 with sixteen students passing the entrance examination.

[7] In 1883, both recipients of the Sir Thomas Elder prize for physiology were students of the Advanced School.

[8] Many criticisms were leveled against the school: that it robbed educated widows of a source of income as tutors; that by conducting an entrance examination and by not conducting junior classes it had an unfair advantage over other schools; and that by offering French and German rather than the more difficult (and essential for University degrees) Latin and Greek, it was gaining an inflated reputation and at the same time robbing talented women of opportunities.