12/8/76
Can you kindly ascertain for me, dear Mr. Ware, how many schools exist under the education Department, as I like to decide, how many copies of the School Flora ought to be printed.1
Regardfully
Ferd. von Mueller
The third part of the educational collection can be sent in a few days; shall I forward the parcels to the office?2
The proposed work was aborted by the Chief Secretary; see Lucas et. al. (2009), pp. 37-9, and notes to M to J. MacPherson, 21 March 1876.
A MS annotation in an unknown hand ran together the question about the proposed book and the collections of exsiccatae, 'Educational collections of Australian plants': 'The schools are several hundreds in number. The Schools at great centres are unlikely to find any use for botl specimens?.'
On 23 August the Under Secretary, W. Odgers, asked the Education Department 'to say how many copies of the School Flora' would be required, to which the Secretary of the Department, H. Venables, replied on 29 August: 'A circular on the subject has been issued to all the State Schools in Victoria & when replies shall have been received I shall be able to say how many schools will be prepared to assist in the object in view'.
For the distribution of the exsiccatae to public libraries, a circular was sent to 49 public libraries, mechanics' institutes or the equivalent that had received Parts I and II of the collection, asking them to indicate if they wished to have Part III (see No. 2172, unit 42, pp. 1213-4, VPRS 1187/P outward registered correspondence, VA 475 Chief Secretary's Department, Public Record Office, Victoria). A file note records in alphabetical order the names of the 34 institutions to which a copy of the new Part was sent on 8 November 1876 (Unit 43, p. 1129, VPRS 1187/P outward registered correspondence, VA 475 Chief Secretary's, Public Record Office, Victoria). These are regrouped here by category:
Mechanics institutes: Ararat, Avoca, Ballarat, Belfast (now Port Fairy), Camperdown, Castlemaine, Cheltenham, Creswick, Geelong, Heathcote, Kilmore, Portland, Prahran, Sale, Sandhurst (now Bendigo), Stawell, Taradale, Warrnambool, Williamstown.
Libraries, variously described as 'public': Ballarat, Buninyong, Dunolly, Eaglehawk, Queenscliff, Richmond; 'free': Benalla, Clunes, Collingwood, Echuca, Maryborough; or 'free public': Beechworth.
Athenaeums: Maldon, Stanley, Wangaratta.
A copy, perhaps of all three parts, was requested in W. Guilfoyle to W. H. Archer, 10 November 1876, and reported as supplied on 21 November (K70/13582, unit 430, VPRS 44/P inward registered and unregistered correspondence, VA 538 Department of Crown Lands and Survey, Public Record Office, Victoria). On 22 November 1876, a further note recorded that a copy had also been sent to Kew Library and Institute.
Please cite as “FVM-76-08-12a,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on