Emmeline Pye

Emmeline Pye (13 December 1861 – 20 April 1949) was an Australian educationalist, teacher and lecturer. She was one of the first Australians trained in kindergarten ideas and she opened the first one, run by the state of Victoria, in 1907 in Brunswick.

Life Pye was born in Buninyong in 1861. Her English born parents were Joanna Saunders (born Edwards) and William Marsland Pye. Her brother became the wheat breeder Hugh Pye and her father, who had been married before, was the headteacher at Christ Church Grammar School in Geelong.

Eva Hooper was brought to Victoria in 1900 to train teachers in the new ideas of Kindergarten. She taught teachers about not teaching children by rote but appealing to their understanding. One of the teachers she trained was Pye who had been an infant teacher since 1882. Smyth chose Pye as one of his first recruits to lecture the college's students who were studying for an Infant Teachers' Certificate. In addition Pye showed them Kindergarten methods at the Central Brunswick Practising School. Pye led that school's infant department from 1904. The college organised summer schools at Portsea at which Pye, Smyth and the Director of Education Frank Tate all assisted.

John Smyth had noted that her original introductions included the synergy she created by linking up the work of not only the school and the parents but also that of the community. Pye died in 1949 in the Melbourne suburb of Toorak.