FRANCES MARY BUSS
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[Illustration:
Photo. by Russell and Sons.
Yours always [** Illegible]
Frances M. Buss
]
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FRANCES MARY BUSS
AND HER WORK FOR EDUCATION
BY
ANNIE E. RIDLEY
“We work in hope”
THE SCHOOL MOTTO
WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
AND NEW YORK
1895
All rights reserved
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PREFACE
In a life written by a friend for friends there must of necessity be
more of the intimacy of private friendship than in a record written
dispassionately for an unknown public. The world in general knows
Frances Mary Buss as a public worker—capable, energetic, successful. By
her friends she was loved as one of the most womanly of women—true, and
tender, and loyal. Her work, to which all women of this generation owe
so much, must assume prominence in the story of her life; but what is
most desired is to show her as she was to her friends.
My warmest thanks are here offered to all who have so freely and so
kindly helped me in this labour of love: first, to Miss Buss’ own family
and personal friends, and to old pupils; to Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., and the
members of the staff in both schools; and, for many valuable educational
details, to Miss Emily Davies, Miss Beale, Mrs. William Grey, Miss
Shirreff, Miss Mary Gurney, Miss Agnes J. Ward, Miss Hughes, and Dr. and
Mrs. Fitch.
A. E. R.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY—THEN AND NOW 1
BOOK I.
EARLY LIFE.
I. CHILDHOOD 25
II. GIRLHOOD 41
III. INFLUENCE 58
IV. HELPFULNESS 73
BOOK II.
PUBLIC WORK.
I. TRANSITION 87
II. “WE WORK IN HOPE” 103
III. “THE SISTERS OF THE BOYS” 117
IV. TIMELY HELP 131
V. TRIUMPH 146
VI. WITH HER FELLOW-WORKERS 166
VII. LIFE AT MYRA LODGE 181
VIII. EARLY EDUCATIONAL IDEALS 200
IX. PRACTICAL WORK 215
X. THE HEAD-MISTRESSES’ 231
ASSOCIATION
XI. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR WOMEN 252
XII. TRAINING COLLEGES FOR TEACHERS 273
XIII. GENERAL INTERESTS 287
BOOK III.
LATER YEARS.
I. IN THE HOLIDAYS 309
II. ROME 321
III. SOCIAL LIFE 336
IV. FRIENDSHIPS 349
V. REST 366
VI. “AND HER WORKS DO FOLLOW HER” 379
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
FRANCES M. BUSS Frontispiece
FRANCES M. BUSS IN 1860 AND 1872 87
THE LOWER SCHOOL 131
THE GREAT HALL, NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE 162
SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
THE GYMNASIUM, NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE 200
SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS 214
MISS BUSS AND DR. SOPHIE BRYANT 273
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ERRATA.
Page 1, line 2, for “July 29” read “July 18.”
Page 29, line 12, for “lighted” read “lifted.”
Page 39, line 25, for “to play” read “for play.”
Page 111, line 27, for “lady on” read “lady in.”
● Transcriber’s Note:
○ These corrections have been applied to this electronic version of
the book—Oct. 25, 2019.
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INTRODUCTORY.
THEN AND NOW.
“Educate women, and you educate the teachers of men; if the
child is father to the man, the woman forms the man in educating
the child. The cause of female education is then, even in the
most selfish sense, the cause of mankind at large.”—C. G.
NICOLAY.
Gracious speech can seldom have been more truthful than when the Prince
of Wales said, on July 18, 1879, that few of their many public functions
had afforded the Princess and himself more gratification than the
opening of the great hall, given by the Clothworkers’ Company to the
North London Collegiate School for Girls, a ceremony putting the final
touch to the work of so many years.
It would not be easy to find a more attractive sight than this spacious
building, filled with its five hundred happy young girls, either on
“Founder’s Day,” when, decked in the school flower, we see them in that
April mood in which
“The heart with rapture fills,
And dances with the daffodils;”
or when, on Prize-day, in the glory of summer roses, their jubilant
young voices ring out in the favourite school-song, as, with fearless
and confident eyes, they look “Forty years on!” while their elders,
looking back down that long vista, think of the difference they can
remember between _Then_ and _Now_.
It was in this hall, on the prize-day of 1892, that the chairman, Mr.
Fearon, drew a remarkable contrast between the present days of light for
girls’ education, and the dark days of the first Schools Inquiry
Commission of 1864, of which he had been a member. Then, it was still
possible for the Commissioners to gravely ask if girls were capable of
learning Latin and mathematics? Now, as he pointed out, this question
might be answered by the results of this one year for this one
school—eighteen passes, with two honours, on the University
Examinations—to say nothing of the recent success at Cambridge, where a
woman took a place _above_ the Senior Wrangler.
As a member of the Commission of 1864, and, later, of the Endowed
Schools Commission, Mr. Fearon was glad to claim some part in the making
of this first public school for girls, of which he felt that “if ever
there was an institution of which they might be proud, the success of
which was calculated to stir the pulses, excite the emulation and
enthusiasm of others, and give intense satisfaction to all who took part
in it, either as founder, well-wishers, or friends, it was the North
London Collegiate School for Girls.”
Then, from the brilliant hall, with its “rose-bud garden of girls,” the
scene changed to the dark November day—November 30, 1865, a date to keep
in mind—when, struggling through the November fog, Emily Davies and
Frances Mary Buss made their way to the dull committee-room in Victoria
Street, where the Commissioners awaited their coming.
The members of the Commission were Lord Taunton, Lord Lyttelton, Lord
Stanley, Sir Stafford Northcote, the Dean of Chichester, the Rev. A. W.
Thorold, Mr. Acland, Mr. Baines, Mr. Forster, Mr. Erle, and Dr. Storrar.
To these, as Assistant-Commissioners, were added Messrs. D. B. Fearon,
H. A. Giffard, C. H. Staunton, T. H. Green, J. L. Hammond, J. G. Fitch,
J. Bryce, and H. M. Bompas.
The work of this Commission lasted from 1864 to 1869, and, later, many
of the same gentlemen were appointed on the Endowed Schools Commission,
and may be said to have carried on the same work, since they here
applied the remedy to ills previously discovered by their researches.
There are few of these names which will not be held in lasting honour by
all thoughtful women who know how much is due for steady help in every
cause most concerning their welfare.
It has, nevertheless, taken thirty years—since that same November 30,
1865—to give women a place side by side with men, on a Royal Commission,
when, in 1894, Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., took the seat Miss Buss was no longer
able to fill on the second Royal Commission of Inquiry into Secondary
Education. It is not difficult to imagine the feeling of satisfaction
with which Miss Buss saw her “brilliant young fellow-worker,” as she
delighted to call her, taking this proud position.
Further to mark the contrast between 1865 and 1894, we may take a
passage in a letter from Miss Buss to Miss Davies, dated December 5,
1865, whilst still waiting for the Commissioners’ Report, in which she
says—
“When will the evidence come, I wonder? I am so curious to know
what I said, and what you said too. It is very odd, but the mist
which surrounds that interview does not clear.
“They were indeed kind, and more than kind, as you say. As for
Mr. Acland, he is what the ‘Home and Colonial’ consider you to
be!
“I can’t get over my astonishment at their civility; and it is
such fun to be told to ‘take a chair,’ as if we were the ‘party’
whom servants are so fond of announcing.”
This is the one side. Wherever it was possible to see “fun” Miss Buss
would see it. But there was another side too, revealed in a little
remark made by Mr. Fearon to Mrs. Bryant, when the prize-giving was over
at which he gave his reminiscences of that November day: “We were all so
much struck by their perfect womanliness. Why, there were tears in Miss
Buss’ eyes!”
And small wonder if this were so! In 1865—thirty years ago—it was an
event to cause a heart-thrill when a woman was summoned, not to meekly
receive information, but actually to give it; not to listen, but to
speak, and before so important a body. It is quite conceivable that as
they paused on the threshold these two ladies may have felt far more
than a merely imaginative flash of sympathy with brave women of old, who
had faced sterner tribunals to pay forfeit with life itself for the
holding of new and strange doctrines.
To say that great events may hang on smallest incidents is a mere
truism, trite as true. But we cannot doubt that a real turning point in
the history of the English people was reached in the first official
recognition of the equal share of women in the task of training the
young. From this date what was before impossible became fact, and
education takes rank as a true science.
It is of special interest in our own day, when the jarring note of
antagonism between men and women is too often struck, to look back and
remember the help given by men to the higher education of women. We note
that the two most definite starting points of the new educational
movement are to be found in the very innermost sanctum, in the strongest
stronghold of masculine rights and privileges—the Universities and the
House of Commons.
When, in 1863, the University of Cambridge opened its Local Examinations
for girls, and when, in 1864, the House of Commons gave authority to a
Royal Commission to extend its inquiry into the state of the education
of girls, the new era was practically inaugurated. Henceforth women
became free to do whatever they had power to do.
Nor was this the first help given by men to the better education of
girls. In 1848—the great year of revolution—the professors of King’s
College had opened the classes which speedily developed into Queen’s
College, the forerunner of Bedford and Cheltenham Colleges. In 1850 the
Rev. David Laing, who had been associated with the Queen’s College
movement, gave his valuable help in the expansion of Miss Buss’ first
small school on similar lines into the North London Collegiate School
for Ladies. In 1865 this school stood so high that Miss Buss was asked
by the Commissioners to give her views of education generally. This
summons was doubtless the result of the report of the Assistant
Commissioners who conducted the inquiry.
It was mainly due to the efforts of Miss Davies and Miss Bostock that
girls’ schools were included in this inquiry. These ladies sent up a
widely signed memorial from persons who had been interested in the
extension to girls of the Local Examinations. Mr. Roby, the secretary,
early in 1865, responded favourably to this appeal, pointing out that,
as so many girls were privately educated, the limits of investigation in
their case were much narrower than those for boys, and also pointing out
that the numbers and value of endowments for girls were also restricted.
But, “subject to these limitations,” he added, “the Commissioners were
willing to embrace in their inquiry the education of both sexes alike.”
He stated also that the Commissioners expected to derive much important
information from the evidence of persons of special experience and
knowledge in the various matters connected with their inquiry. Among
these witnesses they were ready to include _such persons as may be
recommended to them as best qualified to express opinions on the subject
of this memorial_.
In November, 1865, Miss Davies and Miss Buss were called to give their
evidence. Miss Beale followed in April, 1866, and, during that same
year, information on the education and the employment of women was given
by six other ladies—Miss Wolstenholme, Miss Porter, Miss Kyberd, Miss
Martin, Miss Smith, and Miss Gertrude King.
In 1870 a valuable summary of this evidence was compiled by Miss Beale
from the twenty large volumes issued by the Commissioners. It is from
this smaller blue-book that the following extracts are taken, the
evidence of Miss Davies, Miss Buss, and Miss Beale being selected as
characteristic of the views of the whole.
Read in the light of the recent University honours gained by women, many
of the questions and answers of these examinations will have a curious
interest for the “modern girl.”
When Lord Taunton put the question to Miss Buss:—
“‘Your girls come up to you extremely ignorant,’ there is
evident conviction in her brief reply: ‘Extremely ignorant!’
“‘Do they seem to be very little taught at all?’—‘In all the
essentials, hardly ever. They seldom know any arithmetic, for
instance. We have a large number of girls, of thirteen,
fourteen, and fifteen, come to us who can scarcely do the
simplest sum in arithmetic.’
“‘Have you taken any interest in the movement which has been
made to induce the University of Cambridge to institute
examinations and confer honorary distinctions on girls?’—‘Yes;
twenty-five of our pupils went up to the experimental
examination.’
“‘Do you anticipate any beneficial results from the steps which
the University of Cambridge has been induced to adopt?’—‘Yes; I
am quite sure that great good has been done already. An immense
stimulus has been given, especially to English and arithmetic.
The girls have something to work for, some hope, something to
aim at, and the teachers also.’
“‘As far as you are able to judge, do you think the class of
school-mistresses is as good as it ought to be?’—‘The class of
teachers generally is not.’
“‘In your opinion, should the education of a girl differ
essentially from that of a boy in the same rank of life, with
regard to the subjects which are to be taught?’—‘I think not,
but it is rather difficult to ascertain what is the proper
education for a boy.’
“‘You believe there is not such a distinction between the mental
powers of the two classes as to require any wide distinction
between the good education given to a girl and that to a
boy?’—‘I am sure girls can learn anything they are taught in an
interesting manner, and for which they have a motive to work.’”
Miss Beale, when asked her opinion as to the admission of girls to
University degrees, replied in a slightly modified strain—
“‘It seems to me that our opinions are so divided at present as
to the modifications that will be introduced into girls’
education, that I should regret to see anything done hastily to
assimilate it to that which may perhaps be altered for boys; but
at the same time I think it is good for boys and girls to have
similar tastes that their minds may not be entirely bent in
different ways, so that in their after life they should
understand and be interested in the same things.’
“‘In using the word “similar,” do you mean identical?’—‘I have
had some boys as pupils in mathematics, and, as far as I can
judge from these and the public schools they attended, I do not
think that the mathematical powers of women enable them
generally (their physical strength I dare say has a great deal
to do with it) to go so far in the higher mathematics as boys;
and I think we should be straining the mind (which is of all
things to be deprecated) if we were to try to force them to take
up several examinations as are necessarily passed by those who
are taking the higher branches at the Universities.’
“‘I therefore probably should not be wrong in inferring that,
while you recognize the similarity of the male and female mind,
you would not go the length of saying that they must necessarily
move in the same channel?’—‘No, I should be sorry to see them
take up classics at all exclusively, because I do not think
that, as regards the education of boys, it has been the most
desirable to limit it thus. That is my individual opinion.’”
But Miss Davies, after her two years’ experience as Hon. Sec. of the
Cambridge Local Examinations, had no hesitation concerning identity of
standard for boys and for girls, when Lord Lyttelton put the case to
her—
“You have taken a very active part in persuading the two
Universities to listen to facts which you had to lay before them
in reference to the state of female education. Will you be so
good as to tell us what difficulties you have encountered, and
what objection you have met with on behalf of either gentlemen
or ladies, and then make any remarks which you have to make upon
these difficulties?”
Objections and difficulties equally disappear in Miss Davies’ concise
answer—
“It is difficult to state objections fairly when one does not
agree with them. I think it was chiefly a sort of general
feeling that it was not in accordance with the fitness of
things. The objections seem generally to resolve themselves into
that.”
To the proposition of some special scheme of examination which might be
adopted for the special requirements of women, she said simply—
“I do not see what advantage it would have. It would be
difficult to frame a curriculum specially suited to girls,
because almost everybody has a separate theory about what it is
good for girls to learn—about what is apposite to the female
mind.”
The three ladies were agreed in accepting generally the verdict of the
Commissioners on the existing state of girls’ schools, afterwards thus
briefly summed up—
“It cannot be denied that our picture of middle-class education
is, on the whole, unfavourable. The general deficiency in girls’
education is stated with the utmost confidence, and with entire
agreement, with whatever difference of statement, by many
witnesses of competent authority. Want of thoroughness and
foundation; slovenliness and showy superficiality; inattention
to rudiments; undue time given to accomplishments, and these not
taught intelligently or in any scientific manner; want of
organization;—these may sufficiently indicate the character of
the complaints received.”
There is also complete agreement as regards not only the need of better
schools, but of better systems of training for teachers. Although
thankful to accept concessions on the existing lines of boys’ education,
_faute de mieux_, they are by no means persuaded that this education is
even for boys all that could be desired. Even at that date they could
venture to intimate the opinion that the mere fact of a University
course did not, _per se_, make a good teacher.
Miss Davies called special attention to the fact, that while no
endowments were applied to girls above the Elementary schools, many of
these must have been intended for girls as well as boys, since they form
part of bequests made “_to the children_” of certain parishes or
districts.
Dr. Fitch has pointed out[1] that at this period, whilst 1192 boys were
receiving at Christ’s Hospital an education fitting them for the
Universities, there were eighteen girls only, and these trained as
domestic servants. Elsewhere he goes into the question, showing that
while charity schools were open to girls, they were entirely excluded
from the grammar schools, where boys were being trained “to serve God
and the State.” There is scarcely a record, he says, of any school whose
founder deliberately intended a liberal education for girls.
Footnote 1:
“Woman and the Universities,” _Contemporary Review_, August, 1890.
“A girl was not expected ‘to serve God or State,’ and was,
therefore, not invited to the University or grammar school; but
she might, if poor, be needed to contribute to the comfort of
her ‘betters’ as an apprentice or a servant, and therefore the
charity schools were open to her.”
And Dr. Fitch’s own experience confirms this fact. Mr. George Moore,
wishing to devote £10,000 to scholarships, sent in a scheme for the
consideration of some of the leading educationalists, when, finding
mention only of boys, Dr. Fitch ventured to suggest the fact that boys
have sisters, receiving the explanation from Mr. Moore that it was from
no intention of excluding them that they had been omitted, but simply
that it had never occurred to him to think of girls in such a
connection.
With the Endowed Schools Commission this state of things came to an end.
We cannot tell how far the influence of the evidence given by women to
the Schools Inquiry Commission may have extended, but it was then
decided that “in any enactment or constitution that may be brought into
operation on this question the full participation of girls in endowments
should be broadly laid down.”
Among Miss Buss’ most able supporters in obtaining the endowment for her
new schools she counted five members of the Schools Inquiry
Commission—Lord Lyttelton, the Rev. A. W. Thorold (Bishop of Rochester
and of Winchester), Dr. Storrar, Mr. Fearon, and Mr. Fitch. In 1866,
while the Commission were still at work, Miss Davies thus speaks of it
in her “Higher Education of Women”—
“Specific schemes adapted to circumstances will be devised as
occasions arise. In the meantime, any kind of recognition of the
fact that the education of women is a matter worth thinking
about is of the utmost practical value. In this point of view,
as indicating and expressing a growing sense of the importance
of the subject, the extension to girls of the Local Examinations
of the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, and the steps
taken by the Schools Inquiry Commission in their pending
investigations, have an indirect inference quite out of
proportion to the immediate and calculable results obtained,
affording a moral support and encouragement the effect of which
it is not easy to estimate.”
The direct influence of the Commission may be gauged by the fact that
within ten years of this date Miss Buss was able to make a list of
forty-five new endowed schools for girls, to contain severally from
fifty to four hundred pupils, with salaries for the head-mistresses
varying from £100 a year to £200 (exclusive of capitation fees). Of this
list she remarks—
“It is not complete, but will be useful in establishing my
point, viz. that there are some good positions for properly
qualified women-teachers.
“St. Paul’s is the greatest prize in the profession, or rather
would be if the scheme had become law. Do you see, the salary
might be £2000 a year. _Ours_ is second, with a hundred more
pupils, and therefore more work and less pay than St. Paul’s. My
object in drawing up the list was to show the importance of
training and high education for women-teachers. Such prizes are
not to be had elsewhere. Look at Scotch girls’ schools, at
German also. We women owe a deep debt to the Endowed School
Commission.”
The verdict given as the result of the Schools Inquiry Commission does
not, of course, exclude the fact that there were then, and had always
been, _some_ good private schools where a good education had been given.
The true teacher, like the poet, “is born and not made,” the power to
teach being as much a Divine gift as that of song or of painting. It is
true that the perception of every gift must depend on its full culture,
the extent of success being determined by the amount of genius; but
there have always been born teachers, some self-educated and some
developed by exceptional home surroundings. Women of this kind have
always existed as the loved and honoured centres of exceptional
influence, sending out pupils formed on their own model.
Doubtless, there could have been found, at any period in the world’s
history, a sufficient justification for the attitude condemned in one of
the early papers in _Fraser_ on the then quite new Queen’s College:—
‘Educate the women!’ exclaimed an accomplished and excellent man
in our hearing, and with marked surprise. ‘Where is the
necessity? A college for ladies! Nonsense! Women are admirably
educated! I see none but well-educated women around me!’ in the
tone of a man who, when told of those who hunger for bread,
should reply, ‘Want bread? Nonsense! Hunger! There is no such
thing! I see a good dinner before me every day.’”
But, granting that there was education, and of a real kind, we must
agree that this, as a rule, was accessible only in the form of a very
highly paid private governess, or in select and very expensive private
schools. That even so much was not common, and not to be secured by the
very highest payments, may be inferred from the account given by Miss
Cobbe, in her “Autobiography,” of a typical fashionable school, where a
two years’ course cost £1000, of which she says that “if the object had
been to produce the minimum of result at the maximum of cost, nothing
could have been better designed for the purpose.” In this school, she
adds, “everything was taught in the inverse ratio of its true
importance. At the bottom of the scale were morals and religion, and at
the top music and dancing.”
The point to be kept before us, in considering the special work of this
past half-century, is that for the middle-classes, including
professional persons of moderate means, good education was practically
out of reach, the cheaper schools which were open to them being, for the
most part, of the order condemned by the Commissioners. It follows,
therefore, that the opening of the new schools—with the best teaching on
moderate terms—was a change of which the importance can scarcely yet be
justly estimated, especially when, side by side with this preparatory
movement, the advantages of University training were added. Before this
time no girls’ schools, however advanced, had gone beyond the subjects
considered suitable for women, and any women with knowledge of classics
or mathematics were either exceptionally gifted, or had accidentally
been taught with their brothers.
When we go back to November 30, 1865, the fog outside that
committee-room is a true symbol of the gloom that prevailed regarding
the higher education of women. Darkness still held rule, even though a
few of the topmost peaks had already caught the first rays of the coming
dawn.
At that date the future was still so veiled that it could by no
possibility have occurred to Miss Davies or Miss Buss, standing there
before the Commissioners, even to dream of themselves as what we now
know them to have been—the representatives, one of University Education
for Women, and the other of Public Schools for Girls, that is to say, of
the two most powerful agencies in the greatest revolution of modern
times.
But in those days Miss Buss’ school was still her own private property,
and, as yet, no glimpse had crossed her mental vision of its future as
the model of the great public girls’ schools now spread throughout the
land. So, too, with Miss Davies. Girton was not, and even Hitchin had
not come into view, though possibly some vague ideal of a true college
for women may have been taking shape in Miss Davies’ mind. But if so, it
must still have been as baseless as the poet’s dream, for no “sweet
girl-graduate” existed as yet out of the domain of the “Princess Ida.”
On this lower earth at that time, and for many a day after, she could
serve only as matter for a flying jest.
There were indeed three “Colleges” for girls—Queen’s, Bedford, and
Cheltenham, as well as the North London Collegiate School for Ladies—all
in full work, and even then ready for the rapid expansion which followed
the opening of the Universities to women. But, at that date, these could
not rank as more than collegiate schools; nor was more desired, for
Professor Maurice is very careful, in his inaugural address, to
deprecate all intention of emulating the poet’s creation, thus guarding
himself:—
“We should indeed rejoice to profit in this or any undertaking
by the deep wisdom which the author of the ‘Princess’ has
concealed under a veil of exquisite grace and lightness; we
should not wish to think less nobly than his royal heroine does
of the rights and powers of her sex, but we should be more
inclined to acquiesce in the conclusions of her matured
experience, than to revive—upon a miserably feeble and reduced
scale, with some fatal deviations from its original statutes—her
splendid but transitory foundation.”
Only the first step to the great changes of the present day had then
been taken, when, in 1863, the University of Cambridge had allowed
girls, _as an experiment_, to join the Local Examinations. Miss Buss
always dated the later superiority of the teaching in her school to her
experiences on that occasion. Out of eighty-four girls who went in, she
sent twenty-five, of whom fifteen passed. The failure of ten in
arithmetic pulled her up short, with the result that the teaching was so
far changed that none failed in the next year, when girls were finally
admitted on the same terms with boys, and the London Centre was formed
under Miss Davies. But, even in 1866, success was so far limited, that
Miss Beale could reply as follows to Lord Lyttelton’s query, “If she had
heard of these new examinations?”—
“There seems to be some difficulty in applying them to the
higher middle classes. I think of our own case. The brothers of
our pupils go to the Universities. Now, generally speaking,
those who go in for the Local Examinations occupy a much lower
place in the social scale, and our pupils would not like to be
classed with them, but regarded as equal in rank to those who
pass at the University. These feelings are stronger in small
places.”
The far-reaching effect of these examinations is indicated by Miss Buss’
opinion that “until the Local Cambridge Examinations were organized,
there was no sort of recognition on the part of men that the feminine
mind could under any circumstances rank with the masculine.”
We see from this fact that, before the middle of this century, the
“woman’s movement” could not be said to exist at all. The question of
equality—so much to the front at present—could not then even have been
formulated. It is not till 1869 that we find it taken at all seriously,
in a paper in the _Macmillan_ for March of that year, by a writer who
remarks that—
“Two alternatives are open to the would-be reformers of woman.
The first of these is the line of Miss Lydia Becker, the second
of Miss Emily Davies.”
And he adds that—
“Without wishing to disparage unduly the efforts of any earnest
woman for what she believes to be the improvement of her sex, a
thoughtful man must feel that the second is of the two the wiser
course; the one which is most practical, most sensible, least
dangerous, and most likely to secure the sympathy of the mass of
Englishmen and Englishwomen.”
It is true that, in 1864, Dr. W. B. Hodgson, one of the first and best
friends to the higher education of women, recognizes the fact that there
might “rise up before the affrighted fancy” visions of what are
derisively called “strong-minded women,” disputations, brow-beating,
troubled with “a determination of words to the mouth,” loud and harsh in
voice, arrogant in temper, dogmatic, self-willed, unconventional,
undomestic, impatient of the matrimonial yoke as a badge of slavery, and
with, perhaps, a leaning to waistcoats, and collars turned down, cigars,
and hair parted on the side—such, in short, as a recent Italian
dramatist, Castelvecchio, has so amusingly delineated in his “Donna
Romantica.” But of this type, Dr. Hodgson adds—
“I know not whether the experience of my hearers is like mine;
but assuredly of the very few women in whom it has been my lot
to meet with any resemblance to this offensive type, not one has
been distinguished by superior breadth or depth of culture. Very
much the reverse. They have been remarkable for nothing more
than the want of a truly liberal education, of which it is the
high office to impart a large sympathy, a tolerant appreciation
of various opinions, respect for others, and a modest distrust
of self. It is not assuredly among the Mrs. Jamesons, the Mrs.
Somervilles, the Mrs. Brownings, the Miss Swanwicks, that such
portents are found. Dogmatism and presumption ever attend
ignorance, not knowledge; shallowness, not depth.”[2]
Footnote 2:
“The Education of Girls,” etc., by W. B. Hodgson, LL.D.
There were, indeed, indications of the two distinct lines of action in
the work for higher education, and in the work for political reforms.
But as yet they were not distinctly divided. The sympathies of the most
thoughtful women went out in both directions, even whilst they might
follow the one or the other more definitely. It was no more possible
then than it would be possible now to draw a hard and fast line; placing
on the one side the Educationalists, and on the other the workers for
Suffrage and other reforms affecting women. Then, as now, women could be
divided into two classes only—the wise and the foolish. Then, as now,
the wise worked wisely in whatever line they followed, while the foolish
worked also after their own kind.
The educational reform attracted the larger following, content to work
in preparing women for the best use of extended power when the time of
possession might arrive. In the mean time, the object sought was merely
the preparation for actual duties, either in home-life, or in
employments rendered necessary by the pressure of circumstances.
In looking back over the great educational movement, which has so
changed the aspect of society, two points stand out most sharply: (1)
that the work was done in the true natural order by men and women side
by side; and (2) that it was done in the true spiritual order, in that
_quietness_ which is the appointed avenue to higher inspiration, that
_stillness_ which leads to vital knowledge; and also that it was done in
the _obedience_ which is the link that binds man to God—practical
religion.
It is impossible to judge as yet what may be the final outcome of the
intellectual freedom now opened to all women. There are signs of what
was the most probable immediate effect—the exaggeration of recoil from
all ancient bonds, including those of religion and duty. Whilst it would
be very short-sighted to suppose that such a state of things could ever
be permanent, so long as women retain any remnant of the intuitional
quality which is their special dower, it may still be seasonable to call
special attention to the fact that the pioneers in the educational
movement are, without exception, deeply religious women. This
circumstance may or may not be an accident of no particular moment. The
point is that it is historic fact, and as such has its own significance.
In a quite special degree, we may point to Miss Davies and to Miss
Beale, as well as to Miss Buss and Miss Clough, as quite typically
_law-abiding_ and _obedient_ women.
_Quietness_, in its most literal sense, is most curiously characteristic
of all the educational leaders. The very thought of Emily Davies,
reticent and self-controlled, gives a sense of calm and stillness. For
long years we see Frances Mary Buss curbing her magnificent energies to
the “daily round, the common task.” Anne Clough works in silence for a
lifetime, between the first little day school in Liverpool and the
success of Newnham. Dorothea Beale, though she can rise to all poetic
heights, is observant of all the small sweet courtesies of lowly
service, and, if “learned” in all school-lore, is also notably “learned
in all gracious household ways.” And the same must be said of Frances
Martin, who, in her College for Working Women, has so extended the range
of the new education that none now need be left out.
Nor are these qualities less conspicuous in the group of what may be
termed the “amateurs” of the movement—true “lovers” of their kind, who,
having all that heart could desire of this world’s good, have made it
their business to share it with those less favoured: Lady Stanley of
Alderley, Lady Augusta Stanley, Lady Frederick Cavendish, Mrs. Manning
and her daughter Miss E. A. Manning, Mrs. Reed, Miss Bostock, Mrs.
Wedgwood, Madame Bodichon, Miss Ewart, and Miss L. M. Hubbard, all more
lavish of time and thought and wealth than of words. And then all the
active workers: sweet Mrs. Grey, with the touch of old-world stateliness
adding strength to her sweetness; Miss Shirreff and Miss Mary Gurney, of
few words, but these straight to the point; Mrs. Burbury, true to her
University traditions, and Mrs. Garrett-Anderson, with the professional
reticence learned in her fight through the medical schools; Miss
Davenport-Hill, known to the School Board as the woman who can hold her
tongue, and her sister Florence, “wisest of wise women,” as her friends
call her, also with a great gift of silence; Miss Laura Soames, too
early taken from us; and the many more like-minded, whose works rather
than their tongues still speak for them.
It is not, indeed, that any one of these lacks the power to speak, for
on some occasion most have been known to speak even from the platform,
and to speak well. But not to women like these could those famous words
of Mrs. Browning’s ever be held appropriate—
“A woman cannot do the thing she ought,—
Which means whatever perfect thing she can,
In life, in art, in science,—but she fears
To let the perfect action take her part,
And rest there: she must prove what she can do
Before she does it, prate of woman’s rights,
Of woman’s mission, woman’s function, till
The men (who are prating too on their side) cry,
‘A woman’s function plainly is—to talk!’”
And these quiet women are the true pioneers—the women who have actually
done the work. They did not call on the world to listen to what women
might, could, would, or should do under quite different conditions; they
simply did—under the actually existing conditions—just the thing that
needed to be done, then and there.
There was not in those days the need of perpetual discussions about
“rights” or “wrongs.” The easiest way to cure the wrong seemed to lie in
doing the nearest right. It was not that they were indifferent either to
existing abuses, or to past wrongs, or blind to the need of necessary
reforms. There was not one of them who was not stirred to the depths of
her being by the wrong of past ages, or by the present anguish under
which women agonize. It was because these deepest depths were so stirred
that there they found themselves at one with the Divine love, which has
not only suffered, but has conquered suffering—in this love finding
strength for work and patience for waiting; and, as they worked and as
they waited, there came forgiveness for the past, healing for the
present, and hope for the future. All work that is done in the spirit of
Christ is thereby lifted above anger, bitterness, or despair. In these
moods no great or lasting work has been done or can be done. Not for
selfish ends, not even for self-development, do the greatest workers
leave the quiet of home, but only and always for freedom to do the
highest duty, for the glorious liberty of love. Therefore the secret is
not in revolt, but in obedience to the higher law which may indeed at
times seem to be a breaking of the laws of men. By this test we may
measure all our greatest women leaders. In turn we may find that each
has defied to the uttermost the public opinion of her time in daring to
prove her right to free action. But just in proportion to the height to
which she rose we find her true womanliness strong to withstand any
strain. The only real stepping out of woman’s proper sphere is when she
descends to measure her strength with man on the lower level of
self-love and self-seeking.
But weary as we grow of the present phase of empty “sound and fury,
signifying nothing”—the language of revolt and invective—we need not
fear for the future, or doubt that a true progress is taking us through
all this jarring and wrangling and strife to a safe goal—
“Where beyond these voices there is peace.”
“When, at the last, a woman set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain upon the skirts of Time
Sit side by side, full-summ’d in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self reverent each, and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other even as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;
Then reign the worlds great bridals, chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of humankind.
May these things be!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK I.
EARLY LIFE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD.
“The very pulse of the machine
• • • • • •
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly plann’d
To warn, to comfort, and command.”
The record of the life of Frances Mary Buss includes within it, in
brief, the story of the modern educational movement, in which she took
so leading a part. It is not the less a story of perfect womanliness, in
a career that is one of natural and steady growth, from seed to full
fruitage. The woman simply fulfils the promise of the child.
It is a life most remarkable in this completeness. To very few of the
greatest even is it given to see their life-work crowned with complete
success. Frances Mary Buss was one of the few who begin life with a
fixed aim, and who live to see self-devotion end in triumph. And the end
left her, as the beginning had found her, as humble as she was loving.
In an age of incessant movement it is very restful to find a life of
constant action which is yet so quiet and orderly, with continuity of
place as marked as its continuity of purpose. All her work, widely as
its influence extended beyond these limits, was carried on within the
parish of St. Pancras—fifty years of ceaseless energy, from eighteen
years of age to sixty-eight.
In holiday-time she used her freedom for as much change as could be
compressed within holiday limits, thus seeing much of Europe as well as
of her native land. But, excepting for one term of absence from illness,
she might always, in working time, have been found at her post.
“Not for her name only, but because of her love and good works do I love
to connect her with St. Francis!” writes an old pupil;[3] and though at
the first shock there may seem a touch of incongruity in thus linking
the great ascetic saint of the past and this essentially modern worker,
there is, nevertheless, much suggestiveness in the association.
Footnote 3:
In a bright little sketch in the _Woman’s Penny Paper_, of June 8,
1889.
Are they not, after all, of the very same order? What is the greatest
saint but that child of God who is most aware of his Divine sonship, and
therefore most intent on doing his “Father’s business”? Fashions of
service may change, but this fact remains changeless. The fashion of the
past was to mortify the flesh, and to serve the world by prayer rather
than by work. The fashion of the present sees that “laborare est orare,”
and serves the world by self-devotion instead of self-denial. The past
was ruled by negations, and the stern “Thou shalt not!” rose as a
barrier between man and man. The “saint” was not merely, as the word
signifies, one “set apart” to do the will of God “on earth as it is
[done] in heaven,” but he became instead one _cut off_, or _separated_,
from the life of ordinary humanity. In our day we have risen to the
power of the _affirmation_, “Thou _shalt_ love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and we go on
to the inevitable sequence, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Not the denial or the evasion of human duties, but their fulfilment
utterly, is our test of sainthood in the present. It may be less easy to
trace our saints by the quiet fireside or in the busy street; in the
senate house or on the market-place; but none the less saintly are these
in their modern garb than those who went their way apart, as stately
abbot or humble anchorite, as hooded friar or cloistered nun.
The form may change, but the fact is the same. With the fact of a great
love filling his soul, St. Francis, vowed to poverty, is still richer
than the richest; and our modern saint, with all life’s gifts
consecrated to service, may safely make the most of life, having thus
the more to share. Having love, riches and poverty alike fall into their
true place, as accidents, and not essentials of being.
We go back to far Assisi, and, looking across the Umbrian plain, see the
quaint quiet little hill-town—unchanged in seven centuries—still looking
like a white dove fluttering down the dark slope of Monte Subiaco. Here
we find the boy Francis, gay and careless, dreaming his boyish dreams of
royal courts and of knightly fame; till, falling as a dark shadow across
the glittering pageant, comes the vision of the world’s poverty and
pain, and the dreamer wakes to take his chosen place among the poor and
sorrowing. To spend and be spent for love’s sake is henceforth the aim
and the achievement of this perfect life.
Then we turn to commonplace St. Pancras, within sound of the crowding,
hurrying, tumultuous life of the great modern city. Here we find the
girl, Frances, dreaming over her books, with who can tell what ambitious
dreams of her own future, as her heart burns with the sense of conscious
power? But to her, too, comes the vision of struggle and of hard toil,
and to her ear the cry of pain. And she awakes from her dream, to spend
and be spent, that in the future every woman may rise to her full
stature, set free for ever from the trammels of ignorance and of fear.
It is the very same story, only read in the light of a different age.
The key-note to these harmonious lives is the same—love. Love,
simplicity, humility, poverty of self, and devotion to others, form the
common chord of this heavenly music, vary the movements as we may.
With merely technical or dogmatic theology neither the mediæval nor the
modern saint has much to do. Religion forms an integral part of daily
life. Love to God—accepted in His appointed channels, and for His
appointed ends—is the sum and substance of this creed. The life of our
modern worker had its roots deep down in the love and life eternal, as
is seen by its fruits. One who knew her best—her eldest brother—says of
her, “All through her life she acted on the highest principle—as a
loving Christian. Out of this came, as the natural fruit, her
large-hearted charity, her help she gave ever willingly to all who
needed assistance.” This love interpenetrated all her being and
expressed itself in service, in deeds, not words. “Don’t preach, but
_be_; your actions will do more than your words!” she was wont to say to
her pupils.
It must all come back again to the key-note—love. And we notice as the
special quality of the modern, as opposed to the mediæval saint, a
certain _humanness_ which stoops to the smallest things, and, so
stooping, lifts them to highest uses. We read of one of the typical
saints of the olden days how she pressed into the seclusion of her
convent, stepping over the prostrate body of her old father, whose
prayers had failed to move her. “Heaven is the price,” she would have
said, in the favourite words of another such saint of our own century,
the Mère Angélique, who, lying pillowless on the bare ground, spent her
last dying breath in sending from her the one human creature for whom
she had a human love, a young novice, who obeyed her, broken-hearted.
The inevitable outcome of the ascetic ideal—of pain for pain’s sake—has
always been and must be _inhumanity_. The distinctive outcome of the
wider grasp of God’s love which in our day says instead, pain for love’s
sake only, is the exact opposite—an ever deepening _humanity_, in which
human love is lifted up into the Divine, gathering into its embrace not
only every race of mankind, but the brute creation too.
That this was characteristic in a most remarkable degree of her whom we
are glad to recognize as one of our foremost teachers, remarkable
especially in her power of loving and of inspiring love, we see most
clearly in the word which seems by common consent to be that chosen to
describe her—_motherly_, the most human as it is the most Divine word of
mortal speech.
Few things are more delightful than the effort to trace the process by
which a great personality is fitted for a great work. We may rejoice
that we possess sufficient indications of her childhood to show how this
child grew up to make life different for the children of after times.
Frances Mary Buss, born August 16, 1827, was the eldest child—and only
daughter who survived infancy—of parents who were both persons of
exceptional force of character. Her father was not only an artist of
skill far beyond the average, but was a man of cultivated literary and
scientific tastes. His influence was a powerful factor in the training
of the child who was his joy and pride in her public career, as well as
the most obedient and devoted of daughters.
The mother, almost adored by her children, was one of those strong
loving souls whose silent lives are eloquent beyond all speech, who are
enshrined in the hearts of all within their sphere as very ideals of
love and loyalty.
* * * * *
Mrs. Septimus Buss thus writes of—
“the large-hearted loving Mother, whose motherliness was not
only for her _own_, but for all children. It was a family joke
that she came home from her walks penniless, as she could never
see a poor child looking longingly into a cake-shop without
sending it happily away in possession of a ‘goody.’ Many of us
remember how we naturally went to her for comfort, and always
felt the trouble lightened by some brave or kind word, or
personal help, if possible. What merry, cheerful, little
impromptu parties there were in her ever hospitable house, among
her own children and others who, having finished their work,
remained to play!
“Her watchword, like Miss Buss’, was _Duty_. I once answered, in
real fright, ‘Oh, aunt, I am sure I cannot!’ She replied,
‘Child, never say I cannot, when called to any duty, but do the
best you can!’ The devoted love that her children bore her was
only the due return for her unwearied care of, and tenderness
to, them in every detail of their life.”
Her family regard it only as traditional that their mother was descended
from Mrs. Fleetwood, the daughter of Oliver Cromwell; but I had it as an
accepted fact from one of the undoubted members of that family, who was
proud to claim even so remote a connection with one whom she had so much
admired. Miss Andrews must have been educated at Mrs. Wyand’s school, in
the generation preceding Miss Buss, and she probably spoke with
authority on the matter. She also had remarkable power as a teacher,
with quite original views on education, a fact interesting as throwing a
sidelight on the school in which Miss Buss was educated, the best in the
neighbourhood of Mornington Crescent.
In a book of “Memories,” compiled for the family circle of Dr. Henry
Buss—the “Uncle Henry” to whom, as a girl, “Fanny” owed some of her
first holiday trips abroad—we find it recorded that “in 1689, William
and Mary brought in their train from Holland a Mrs. Buss, who held the
post of nurse to the Princess Anne, afterwards queen.”
The descendants of Mrs. Buss settled chiefly in the county of Kent. At
Bromley, in 1775, we find one of them, Robert Buss, holding a post in
the Excise. He afterwards became a schoolmaster at Tunbridge. His son,
William Church Buss, became known as “a skilled engraver,” and, marrying
“pretty Mary Anne Starling,” made his home, in 1803, in Jewin Street,
Aldersgate.
We must dismiss entirely all our present associations with Aldersgate,
and go back to the beginning of the century, to the description given by
Dr. Buss of the city at the time when his parents made their home there—
“At this time the city itself was separated by fields from the
village of Islington. It was the custom for pedestrians,
especially after dark, to collect at Aldersgate-bars in
sufficient force to protect each other from footpads, while
crossing the fields to this village.
“The site of the existing City Road Basin was a market garden,
thus utilized when the Grand Junction Canal Company extended
their waterway through the city to the Thames. From the village
of Islington to Highgate and Hampstead it was nearly all fields.
Copenhagen House stood in the midst of cornfields. This spot is
now the centre of New Smithfield Cattle Market.... The river
Fleet was then as wide as the New River, and was supplied with
boats for rowing. Excepting the Thames, it was the nearest
river, and also a favourite bathing-place for the youth of
London.”
There was probably no great change, as it was still before the days of
steam and rail, when the little granddaughter of William Church Buss was
sent to visit her grandparents, who had then removed to Newgate Street.
Her maternal grandparents still lived in Clerkenwell, near the market
gardens there.
William Church Buss was a very skilful engraver, and his son, Robert
William Buss, was trained by him, and was a clever engraver before he
became a painter, and subsequently a well-known etcher on copper and
steel, and draughtsman for wood-engravers. Working in this way, he
illustrated the novels of Mrs. Trollope and Captain Marryat, and other
writers, and two of the first etchings for “Pickwick” were his doing.
For Charles Knight he illustrated “Chaucer,” helping also in the
“Shakespeare,” “London,” and “Old England,” issued by that publisher.
Many of his own original pictures were engraved and had wide sale, such
as “Soliciting a Vote,” “The Musical Bore,” “Satisfaction,” “Time and
Tide,” etc. And, with all this, he still found time for lectures on “The
Beautiful and Picturesque,” on “Fresco,” and on “Comic Art”—this last
re-written at the close of his life, and dedicated to his daughter,
under the title of “Graphic Satire.”
It was when on a visit to her paternal grandparents, in Newgate Street,
that the future Educationalist made her first acquaintance with
school-life, after a very quaint fashion, as she thus tells us—
“To get me out of the way, my grandparents sent me to a little
school in the city, on a first floor, with a few forms, and, as
far as I remember, with no other appurtenances for a school at
all.
“The second school to which I went was kept by a Miss Cook—a
mixed school of boys and girls. In Miss Cook’s school we sat on
forms, and learned lessons which it never occurred to her to
explain. I remember learning a good deal of ‘Murray’s Grammar.’”
In Frances Power Cobbe’s “Autobiography” she tells us that the first
practical result of her attainment of the arts of reading and
writing—throwing a lurid light on the agonies of the process—was to
inscribe on the gravel walk, in large letters, “Lessons, thou tyrant of
the mind!” A similar inscription might have been engraven for the
benefit of Miss Cook by Frances Mary Buss, after this prolonged course
of Lindley Murray without explanation. But she seems to have found other
solace. The tyranny of lessons was powerless to crush this independent
young mind, or to repress an independence of action more suitable to the
age of “Revolting Daughters,” than to that of “Mrs. Trimmer” or of
“Evenings at Home.” Her next story tells how she invited a little
companion to a juvenile party, which existed only in her own active
imagination, until the kind mother gave it objective reality, on hearing
of the small boy’s bitter disappointment. It might be at this school
that Miss Buss acquired that ideal of “mixed schools” which she kept
before her to the end, though she knew it was not to become fact in her
day.
She was very far from spending her young life only in sitting on a form,
learning lessons by rote. “Children,” says Mr. Ruskin, “should have
times of being off duty, like soldiers;” or, as Dr. Abbott puts the same
truth very clearly, “Children should have time to think their own
thoughts.” These privileges certainly did belong to the children of the
past, and, like many another clever child, the little Fanny made full
use of her liberty, for she continues—
“As soon as I could begin to read I revelled in books, and
especially fairy tales. I devoured every fairy tale that was to
be had. In those days the books available for children were ‘The
Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ‘Miss Edgeworth’s Tales,’ ‘The Arabian
Nights,’ and the old nursery stories. Of these I had single
copies, which I managed to buy out of the money given to me. I
had, in addition, translations of the Countess D’Aulnoy’s tales.
As my father had a very fair library for the date, and as I had
access to all his books, I had a wide course of reading. I knew
Milton’s introduction to ‘The History of England,’ with the
legends of Bladud, Lear, etc.; ‘Hume’s History,’ in every part,
except the political, which I invariably skipped; the novels of
the eighteenth century—‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Pamela,’ ‘The Man of
Feeling,’ ‘Joseph Andrews,’ ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ etc. ‘Pamela’
was in four large volumes, the first of which I could never get
because my mother hid it. At about ten years of age I became
acquainted with Scott’s novels, and knew all the stories by
heart, except ‘Rob Roy,’ for which I did not care. My father had
the ‘Abbotsford Edition,’ with the poems, in twelve volumes. I
never, however, read the poetry. In consequence of my father
being engaged to illustrate books for Charles Knight, and for
Bentley and Colburn, the publishers, I used to have the
opportunity of reading the proofs, by going down, at six o’clock
on summer mornings, to his room before any one was there. I
remember my chief difficulty, however, with the proofs was
paging them correctly; this I never learned to do, and therefore
I read the pages as they came, fitting them into my mind
properly afterwards. In that way I read Mrs. Trollope’s ‘Widow
Married,’ Marryat’s ‘Peter Simple,’ etc.... During this early
period of my life I must have become acquainted with the
contents of about forty volumes of plays, published by
Cumberland. There were also many volumes of plays of the
previous century, which I knew almost by heart. Amongst these
were volumes of Peruvian, Persian, and Turkish tales, belonging
to a young aunt, my mother’s sister, who lent them to me. In
these tales there was no attempt at connection, every person
introduced merely telling his or her own story.
“I remember that, as my brother Alfred grew up, I used to find
it necessary, in order to enjoy my book, to hide myself under a
sofa, in a room on the second floor, which was occupied by a
Government clerk. This gentleman was out all day, and therefore
his room was available. My mother must have known this, because
we children—the boys at any rate—were not allowed to go to this
room.”
At about the same time we find the insatiable child reading Miss
Strickland’s “Queens of England,” of which she says “each volume came
out by itself, and I remember I used to save up all my pence to hire a
volume to read, and even at that early age I made many notes.”
History remained her favourite study, and her mode of teaching it must
have made it fascinating to her pupils. One of these, afterwards a
member of the staff, remarks of it—
“I was at school from 1864–67, and the pleasantest part of the
time was the lessons I had in history, French, geography, and
literature from Miss Buss. How thorough her teaching was! It
seems to me that I have never forgotten what she taught, while
most of the lessons from others (except Dr. Hodgson and Miss
Chessar) seem to have passed away without leaving any definite
trace in my memory. Her lessons were alive; the historical
characters and scenes she described seemed as familiar as if one
had known them personally, and she made everything interesting
because she herself had such interest in what she taught.”
Another of the old pupils says also—
“But for picturesqueness and interest her history lessons
excelled all others. It was then she gave us ‘the cream of her
life’s reading,’ as I have heard her say. Two lectures specially
remain in my mind on ‘The Rise of the Hydes.’ There were many in
the class who lost not a point from beginning to end, so
graphically was the story presented to us.”
And at any time, to the last, to hear her sum up the characteristics of
any special period, or describe any great event, with her instinctively
picturesque presentation of the scene, was a treat of no common order.
To this graphic power of description, her early artistic surroundings
must in no small degree have contributed. At one time she taught drawing
in her class, but she never had the time for any artistic work of her
own. She had, however, keen and cultivated artistic tastes, and her
feeling for colour was especially marked. Her visits to Italy
intensified this delight in colour, and she indulged it in ways
sometimes regarded as hazardous by eyes accustomed only to sober British
tints. But they were in the end obliged to admire these innovations. She
was among the first to appreciate the new developments of decorative
art, and Myra Lodge and the Cottage at Epping revealed her taste at
every turn.
In the account of the next stage of her school-life, we get glimpses of
her social surroundings which show that there must have been much to
stimulate the child’s eager and inquiring mind—
“At ten years of age I was sent to a much higher school, kept by
Mrs. Wyand, at the corner of Rutland Street, Hampstead Road.
Here I met with the daughters of David Roberts, Clarkson
Stanfield, and other artists. Mr. Wyand had a boys’ school,
largely attended by the sons of artists. A few doors lower down
lived George Cruickshank. Clarkson Stanfield also lived in
Mornington Place; and, still nearer the school, Frederick Bacon,
the engraver, with whose niece and adopted daughter I was on the
most intimate terms. At a later date the daughters of Goodall
entered the school, and also Isabella Irving, the daughter of
Edward Irving, a tall, fine dark girl, very like her father. Her
brother, Martin Irving, was in the boys’ school.”
We have to bear in mind that at this date Mornington Crescent occupied
much the same position, as a literary and artistic centre, which is held
by Hampstead at the present day. Even as late as 1850, the westward
migrations had not begun, for market gardens filled the space between
Kensington High Street and Chelsea proper, and Notting Hill Square was
on the verge of the country. In 1850, University and King’s Colleges
made a centre in the west central district; and the establishment even
of a Collegiate School for Ladies was regarded as a slight infringement
of the dignity of Camden Street, which could boast at that date of so
choice an intellectual _cotérie_ as Professor De Morgan, Professor Key,
Professor Hoppus, and Dr. Kitto. It was near enough to town life, and
yet near the country, long stretches of green fields and flowery hedges
leading to the heights of Hampstead and Highgate. Regent’s Park was the
nearest of the parks, and the New Road had not then outgrown the
freshness of its name.
In these records of Miss Buss’ childhood we seem taken back to another
world, as we read of the “long coast journey to the Docks,” on the way
to Margate, when the child sees “the remains of the illuminations of the
day before for the celebration of the Princess Victoria’s birthday.” In
the next year also there are, again at Margate, “triumphal arches in
honour of the Queen’s coronation.” And then there is the first sight of
the young Queen—
“I had been taken to the park by my grandmother, and an open
carriage passed with three ladies in deep mourning—one was the
Queen, the other the Duchess of Kent, and the third a lady in
waiting. The following year I also saw the Queen in an open
carriage going to the Academy. She then wore a white dress, and
a very large bonnet lined with pink. I think she had a green
parasol.”
On another occasion there is “a vision of scarlet and of a mass of white
drapery” as “the young couple are returning from St. James’ Chapel on
the Queen’s birthday.”
Very pleasant, in its old-fashioned simplicity, must have been the life
of this artistic circle, united in tastes and occupations, and living,
as it were, between town and country, with the advantages of both. It
was no wonder that, under such influences, this child early developed
intellectual tastes. But her growth was equal on all sides, love of
books being only one of her varied “talents.” She tells us—
“At that date it was considered necessary that every girl should
work; and before I was ten years of age I had made a shirt for
my father, all the parts being cut out and arranged by my
mother, sewing machines not being then invented. So, too, as it
was long before the days of Peak and Frean, or Huntley and
Palmer, for our childish parties, I used to help my mother make
all the biscuits, as well as the cakes and tarts. I remember one
large grown-up party which my parents gave, on which occasion
the door was smoothed in some way, and a very handsome border
painted round it by my father (an elaborate design about two
feet wide). This was my first appearance among grown-up people,
and I quite well remember the delight I felt at the idea of
being asked to dance by a very tall man, an engraver, whose name
I forget, whom I met in after years and found to be very
insignificant. The _belles_ of that evening were the Miss
Cumberlands, daughters of the publisher, for whom at that time
my father was painting a series of theatrical portraits.”
Among the celebrated actors forming this series were Charles Matthews,
Reeve, Harley, Mrs. Nesbit, Buckstone, Ellen Tree, Vandenhof, Macready,
and Dowton. At an early age “Fanny” had been taken to the theatre, of
which we learn that “at that date the Sadler’s Wells Theatre was held in
high repute. The stage was very large, and being situated near the New
River was able to utilize a great deal of water.” We may imagine the
excitement of the children over the arrival of these wonderful
personages; how they peered silently over the banisters, and how, when
the sittings were over, they stole into the studio to examine the
costumes which were left for the artist’s use, with what glee to
discover, for instance, that Vandenhof’s cap, in some great character,
was “made of a large blue sugar-bag covered with some coloured
material.”
Amateur theatricals were a favourite amusement at the young parties—at
first, when the kind father was the chief performer, in “a series of
dancing card figures, exhibited on a sheet as shadows, he writing and
reading the text;” afterwards, the performances were of more ambitious
character, at Mr. Wyand’s school, when the boys were allowed to invite
their sisters and friends, and “where the plays were written by the
boys, and the women’s parts taken by boys, to our great delight, as they
invariably tumbled over their skirts.”
In one play, the king’s part is taken by John Blockley, son of the
author of the then favourite song “Love Not,” in a play in which the
chief characters are “King Edward” and the “Sultan of Turkey,” Edward
being a “tall, thin, shy lad, who in the meekest possible way announced
that while he lived no Turkish prince should wield Edward’s sceptre” (a
folded sheet of exercise paper). “My brother Alfred contributed a large
cloak, lined with red, which continued to be a famous piece of stage
property. The swords, shields, etc., were made by my father.”
The pupils who knew the school when Miss Buss was in full vigour will
read with interest these early developments of the dramatic power which
played such part in the _tableaux vivants_, plays, charades, or costume
dances of that period. These entertainments, involving parties counted
by hundreds where ordinary folk have units, were a great feature of
school-life. They must have formed a delightful break in that excessive
study so condemned by the world outside, which assuredly in no wise
prevented the most hilarious enjoyment of these revels, shared by all,
from the dignified head down to the most frolicsome of the “little
ones.”
And for all readers it is pleasant to have these glimpses of the happy
home-life in which this loving nature had such free room for growth. So
much is implied as we see the busy father making time for play with his
children, as well as for “writing letters on grammar,” which the
studious little daughter “used to find on the stairs;” or again, as we
note the good mother, not less busy, kindly shutting her eyes to those
surreptitious studies under the sofa, instead of calling on her only
girl to take her part in amusing the younger children, of whom, in
course of time, one sister and eight brothers made their appearance in
the active household. Of these, however, only four brothers attained
manhood.
In later years the elder sister needed no bidding to stand by the mother
to whom she was devoted, and whose comfort and stay she became in the
long struggle with the many claims on a narrow income. In those days
life was a struggle to even the most distinguished artists, and fame was
by no means synonymous with fortune.
In the natural course of things more than one opportunity came to the
girl to change this home struggle for a life of her own under easier
auspices. And once she had felt the force of the temptation; but duty
had early become the watchword of her life; and as she looked at the
mother burdened with her weight of cares, the good daughter, at a cost
none but herself could measure, turned from the dreams of her girlhood,
from the hopes of womanhood, and kept her place by her mother’s side.
Years afterwards in a few words she tells us all the story—
“I have had real heart-ache, such as at intervals in earlier
life I had to bear: when I put aside marriage; when Mr. Laing
died; and again when my dearest mother, the brave, loving,
strong, tender woman, left all her children. I quite believe in
heart-ache! God’s ways are not our ways!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
GIRLHOOD.
“O’er wayward childhood would’st thou hold firm rule
And sun thee in the light of happy faces,
Love, hope, and patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.”
COLERIDGE.
Of Miss Buss as a girl we have a very telling little sketch in her own
words, showing how this happy childhood merged only too quickly into a
girlhood early fitting her for the strenuous life-work towards which she
was moving on through long silent years of training.
“I may as well take this opportunity of saying that within a
month after I had reached my fourteenth birthday I began to
teach, and that never since, with the exception of holidays and
two occasions of serious illness, have I spent my days out of a
schoolroom. I was in sole charge of a large school for a week at
a time when I was sixteen. When I was twenty-three I was
mistress of a large private school, containing nearly a hundred
pupils; that hundred was turned into two hundred by the time I
was twenty-five.
“I mention these facts just to show you how intensely active my
life has been, for it is always to be borne in mind that in
addition to spending my days in the schoolroom, I had to gain
the whole of my education, such as it is, in the evening or in
the holidays, and that for some years in my early life there was
a great burden of money anxieties.
“You will see that I have never, therefore, known leisure. Of
late years, since the work has developed so much, I have done
less teaching, but until the last four or five years, and for
some years after the opening of the Cambridge Examinations, I
was the sole mistress of the highest class, teaching every
subject in it—English, French, German, and some Latin.
“After the Cambridge Examinations began it was necessary to be
free one hour in the morning, in order to see what was going on
in other classes.
“As a matter of fact, I have had to teach almost everything at
different times. For some years I assisted in the teaching of
model and freehand drawing.
“Circumstances never seemed favourable for my having time to do
anything, so to speak, but live inside the schoolroom, and there
carry into practice such theories as crossed my mind. I think it
would have been much better for me if I had been able to have
had a greater knowledge of the _theory_ of the profession by
private study, but hard practice has taught me something.”
In one of this girl’s early sayings—“Why are women so little thought of?
I would have girls trained to match their brothers!”—we have the
key-note of her harmonious life. It was experience transmuted into
sympathy. In the stress of her own girlish efforts she gained her
life-long feeling for the half-educated, on whom is too early laid the
burden of money getting. Then, when occasion demanded, she was ready to
give up her own ease, and to undertake the heavy work which has secured
to thousands of wage-earning girls the practical training of a thorough
education.
Not less plainly, also, do we see, in her desire to fit herself for her
own work, the first impetus to secure for all teachers the training
needed for their special calling; an object ever close to her heart, and
one in which her success will be her strongest claim to the gratitude of
future generations.
The claim of an increasing family was no doubt in this, as in so many
cases, the reason why the mother and daughter opened the first school in
Clarence Road. And then, like so many other sisters, this girl would
watch her brothers going off to school or college for the studies in
which she—_being a girl_—could have no share. But, like many a good
sister before and since, she would contentedly put aside her own dreams
or desires, doing her best to help her brothers. Such sacrifice was
taken simply as the highest duty, and thus turned to deepest delight;
but we can see how this loving obedience was in reality a storing up of
energy for the great revolution of which she had caught the earliest
intimations.
It is a pleasant thought to take in passing that this good
sister—happier than many—had brothers equally good. If she was all that
a sister could be she found in them good brothers, who were friends and
fellow-workers, helping her in all the great aims of her life. Her
eldest brother, the Rev. Alfred J. Buss, as clerk to the governing body
of the schools, quite relieved her mind from all anxiety concerning
business arrangements; whilst the religious instruction given by the
Rev. Septimus Buss carried on the early tradition of the school. There
was a wide gap between the eldest of the family and number seven, so
that her relation with this brother, after the mother’s death, was half
maternal as well as half sisterly. When he early became engaged to her
pupil, cousin, and friend, and thus gave her the truest and most tender
of sisters, the bond was doubled, and the children of this beloved
pair—her namesake _Francis_, especially—became as her very own. Her
letters are full of allusion to “my boy,” who was her joy from his
peculiarly engaging babyhood till he fulfilled her heart’s desire by
taking Holy Orders. His next brother followed in this example, first set
by the son of the Rev. A. J. Buss, now Minor Canon of Lincoln.
This clerical bent was very strong in the family. As a boy, Alfred
Joseph Buss shared his sister’s enthusiasm for teaching, and for any
hope of head-mastership Holy Orders were essential. Before he was out of
his teens he became the first assistant-master in the then newly opened
North London Collegiate School for Boys. He was also English tutor at
one time to the young Orleans princes. But later in life he found
himself drawn most strongly to the work of the parish priest. Septimus
Buss inherited so much of his father’s genius, that he seemed destined
for art, having a picture in the Royal Academy whilst only nineteen
years of age. But, though in obedience to his father he worked hard at
painting, he still had his own intentions, and worked harder at Greek
and Latin. Knowing, however, that there was at that time an extra strain
upon the family finances, he bravely kept his own wishes to himself till
he had earned the means of carrying them out. The story of these two
brothers is among the helpful and instructive tales that ought some day
to be written, to show what can be done by high aims and resolute will.
Of both it may be said that they are all the stronger as fighters in
their splendid battle against East End misery, because, in their own
boyhood, they knew how “to endure hardness as good soldiers.”
This attraction to the clerical profession was a natural sequence to
early associations. The most powerful influence of Miss Buss’ girlish
life was undoubtedly that of her revered friend of whom Mrs. Septimus
Buss writes, when alluding to—
“the earnest spiritual influence of the Rev. David Laing, who
built the church and schools of Holy Trinity, Kentish Town,
giving his whole fortune and his life to found the parish. His
teaching by precept and practice was self-sacrifice, and the
large-hearted charity that beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, coupled with the wide culture that
welcomed new thought, and proved all things. His hospitable home
was constantly open to his parishioners, where he received them
among his cultured circle of literary, scientific, and artistic
friends. He at once took his stand by the North London
Collegiate School, while others waited till its success was
sure. We, oldest of old pupils, still thrill with somewhat of
the past enthusiasm when we recall his inspiring teaching. The
band of devoted workers he gathered round him in his
parish—which was then almost unique for the number of works of
charity carried on in it, and for the weekly lectures by Mr. S.
C. Hall and others—testified to his personal influence, the
motive power of which was not what he saw, but what he was.”
In memory of her lamented friend, Miss Buss, after his death,
established six “Laing Scholarships,” by which so many girls who needed
this help received a free education in her school. Thus for ten years
Mr. Laing’s memory was kept in mind. With the changes of 1870 these
Scholarships ceased, but Miss Buss’ devotion to Mrs. Laing knew no
intermission till her old friend’s death in 1876; and Miss Fawcett has
an interesting little comment on this unfailing thoughtfulness—
“All associated with our dear friend must have been struck with
her loyalty and faithfulness to her old friends. I am thinking
especially of her treatment of Mrs. Laing, for so many years.
Sunday by Sunday she went to see her after morning service as
regularly as the day came round; flowers were sent to her very
frequently, also nice books to read. On her birthday Miss Buss
never failed to see her before the school-work began.”
Among the school records there is a letter which is of interest as
showing the close relations which existed between Mr. and Mrs. Laing and
the school. It is addressed to the chairman presiding at the first
prize-day after the double loss which made so sad a change for the young
head-mistress—the death within a year of her mother and of Mr. Laing—
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,
“May I beg you to express my great regret at the
impossibility of my being at your meeting to-day? I do not say
that it would not have been very painful to attend, when two so
loved and honoured are missing since we last assembled for the
same purpose; but it is still more painful to stay away. I
wished to show my true interest in the cause Mr. Laing had so
much at heart; my warm regard for the friends he so much valued;
my deep sense of the respect and affection shown to his memory
in the establishment of the Laing Scholarships.
“Many to-day will remember how in much pain and weakness he
filled his place last year, but a few days before he took to the
bed whence he was to rise no more. It was the last evidence he
was permitted to give of his feeling with regard to the work
carried on here; and I feel I can do nothing better than adopt
that which in various ways he has so often said to me, ‘Miss
Buss is doing a great and good work. Hundreds will rise up and
call her blessed.’
“I am, yours faithfully,
“MARY E. LAING.”
To the influence of Mr. Laing, and of his no less admirable wife, Miss
Buss owed much of the mental and moral breadth for which she was
afterwards so distinguished. In their home she was always welcome,
finding a never-failing sympathy and encouragement. Often in our quiet
talks she delighted to refer to these early memories, speaking of the
advantage such a friendship had been to her in her young life; and to
this grateful memory it is probable that many of her own young
assistants, especially those least fortunate in their social
surroundings, may have owed much of the thoughtful kindness so valuable
to girls beginning their career as teachers.
With the knowledge of the satisfaction she would have felt in fuller
recognition of Mr. Laing’s services to education in general, as well as
in particular to her own school, it will not be out of place here to
give some notes supplied by the Rev. A. J. Buss, with his own comment on
them—
“There is much that I would say about the connection with Mr.
Laing—about himself as a great leader (almost unacknowledged) in
the educational movement of the latter half of this century. To
me the question is an interesting one, for I loved Mr. Laing as
a young man, and cherish his memory as most precious now that I
am advanced in life. It is at least remarkable that he who, as
honorary secretary and a member of the Board of Management of
the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution, took some part in the
foundation of Queen’s, should have been a prime mover in the
foundation of that school which has become the North London
Collegiate School for Girls, and has rendered possible, and
given such impetus to, the higher education of girls and women.”
The story of the rise of Queen’s College is of interest from many points
of view, beyond that concerning our present purpose of showing the
influences that inspired Frances Mary Buss with her special zeal for
education. In knowing Mr. Laing she came into direct touch with the
newest educational effort, and must have heard the whole question
discussed from all sides.
Mr. Laing, in 1843, rescued the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution from
decay, remaining its active honorary secretary till his death in 1860.
This society was formed—
“with the idea of benefiting governesses in every possible way;
to help in temporary difficulty; to provide annuities for aged
governesses; to help the younger to help themselves; to provide
a home for governesses during engagements, and an asylum for the
aged; also a system of registration, free of expense, to those
seeking engagements.”
The whole of these objects were contemplated in 1843, and, in 1844, were
a matter of negotiation with the National Society, with the Committee of
Council, and with the heads of the Church.
In giving an account of the early work—as a reply to an article in
_Fraser’s Magazine_ (July, 1849), commenting unfavourably on the efforts
that were then made—Mr. Laing shows that with the foundation of the
Governesses’ Benevolent Institution the first principles of all future
movements were really incorporated. He says—
“In undertaking an institution for the benefit of governesses,
it was felt to be absurd and short-sighted to remedy existing
evils without an attempt at their removal.... To do this the
character of the whole class must be raised, and there was the
bright thought that to raise the character of governesses as a
class was to raise the whole tone of Christian society
throughout the country.”
But it was easier to plan such a college than to carry out these plans,
and several years passed without practical results. Reference is made,
year by year, on the subject, in the annual reports of the Governesses’
Benevolent Institution.
In that for 1845, we find that “difficulties which the committee had not
anticipated, have arisen with the several authorities, from whom Boards
of Examiners, with power to grant a diploma of qualification, might
originate.”
In the report for 1846, “an act of incorporation and arrangements for a
diploma” are still “subjects of consideration, upon which the committee
are prepared to enter into communication with all parties friendly to
the cause. Unexpected difficulties still intervene.”
It was in 1848 that the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution received a
royal charter of incorporation, thus worded—
“We have been graciously pleased to permit the name of _Queen’s
College_, in which certificates of qualification are granted to
governesses, and in which arrangements have been made with
professors of high talent and standing in society to open
classes in all branches of female education.”
Queen’s College was governed by a council of gentlemen, and its first
principal, Professor Maurice, was followed by Professor Plumptre. A
committee of lady-visitors was formed, but the duties of these ladies
was merely to be present while the teaching was done by men. Among them
we find the familiar names of Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mrs. Marcet, Miss
Maurice, Mrs. Kay Shuttleworth, and Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood.
It would appear, from the report of 1849, that while the Governesses’
Benevolent Institution was thus working for better education for women
and girls, other schemes had been proposed, first by Miss Murray, one of
her Majesty’s ladies in waiting, and then by the professors of King’s
College. Eventually, the formation of a Committee of Education, of which
Mr. Laing and Professors Maurice and Nicolay were active members,
brought things to a practical point, as Professor Nicolay states[4] that
the “Committee of Education,” thus formed, did its work in connection
with, if not actually for, the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution.
Footnote 4:
In the _English Education Journal_, 1849.
In his inaugural lecture at Hanover Square, in 1848, Professor Maurice
shows how this institution, beginning with a provision for distress
among governesses, came to associate distress with incompetency, and
hence to provide better instruction. In like manner, beginning as
examiners, the professors soon found that before they could examine they
must first teach, and for this purpose organized the classes that grew
into Queen’s College.
In _Fraser’s Magazine_, early in the fifties, are to be found several
papers concerning the foundation of Queen’s College, thus finally summed
up by the editor—
“With reference to the article on Queen’s College in our last
number, Mr. Laing, as Hon. Sec. to the Governesses’ Benevolent
Institution, desires us to state that the society was in
communication with the Government and other parties respecting
the establishment of the college as early as 1844, whilst there
was no communication with the present professors until 1847; and
that her Majesty granted to the society the permission to use
the Royal name for the college before any connection was formed
with the present professors.
“Whilst, therefore, the success of the college is wholly
attributable to the character and talents of its teachers, the
college would have existed under any circumstances.”
In the same year, six months later, Bedford College was founded, mainly
by Mrs. Reid and Miss Bostock, and among the ladies interested we find
many names afterwards prominent in the movement for opening the
Universities to women, as those of Lady Romilly, Lady Belcher, Mrs.
(afterwards Lady) Crompton, Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Goldsmid, Mrs.
Jameson, Mrs. Bryan Walter Procter, Lady Pollock, Miss Julia Smith, Mrs.
Strutt (afterwards Lady Belper), Miss Emily Davies, Miss Anna Swanwick,
and Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood.
One distinct difference between Queen’s College and Bedford College is
that the first was managed by men, with a man as the principal and women
only as lady-visitors. Bedford College had from the first a mixed
committee, and the visitor who represented the head might be of either
sex. Latterly Miss Anna Swanwick has held this post. Results seem to
indicate the advantage of giving women an equal share in the education
of girls.
It was by Mr. Laing’s introduction that Miss Buss became one of the
first pupils of the evening classes at Queen’s College. The Queen’s
College of that day (1848) bore little resemblance to the colleges of a
quarter of a century later, but there was an enormous stride onwards in
the curriculum offered to its first pupils.
In her “History of Cheltenham College,” Miss Beale gives us a glimpse of
these classes—
“Queen’s College offered to grant certificates to
governesses.... My sisters and I were amongst some of the first
to offer ourselves for examination. For Holy Scripture the
examiner was the Rev. E. H. Plumptre, afterwards Dean of Wells,
so well known for his Biblical Commentaries, his great learning,
and his translations of the Greek dramatists and Dante. He also
examined in classics. In modern history and literature we had
the pleasure of being examined by Professor Maurice. The _viva
voce_ was a delightful conversation; he led us on by his
sympathetic manner and kindly appreciation so that we hardly
remembered he was an examiner. For French and German our
examiners were Professors Brasseur and Bernays; for mathematics,
Professor Hall and Mr. Cock; for music, Sterndale Bennett; and
for pedagogy, the head of the Battersea Training College.”
The names of the Rev. Charles Kingsley, for English literature and
composition; of Professor Nicolay, for history and geography; and of
Professor Hullah, for vocal music, also appear on the list.
It was of classes like these that, as a girl of twenty-one, Frances Mary
Buss became a happy pupil. Her father’s interest in art and science had
prepared her to enter into the spirit of such teaching, and to profit by
the influence of the great men who threw their whole souls into their
work. What this meant to the girls thus privileged is shown in lives
like those of Miss Buss, Miss Beale, Miss Frances Martin, or Miss Julia
Wedgwood, and many more perhaps less known to fame.
A memory comes back to me of an evening in 1881, spent at Myra Lodge,
where the difference between the old and the new order of things was
emphasized in a marked degree. Standing out from the far past, as
precursors of the new era, were Miss Buss herself, Miss Beale, and Miss
Frances Martin; midway, as a Schools Inquiry Commissioner, was Mr. J. G.
Fitch; while the moderns bloomed out in Dr. Sophie Bryant, one of the
earliest Cambridge Local candidates, and the very first woman-Doctor of
Science; Miss Rose Aitkin, B.A., stood for the arts; and, I think, Miss
Sara A. Burstall (since B.A.) as the first girl who had, like her
brothers, educated herself by her brains, passing, largely by
scholarships, up from the Camden School, through the Upper School, and
on to Girton.
It was a thing to remember to hear how the three elder women spoke of
the old and new days, and then to see what had been done for the girls
through their efforts. Miss Buss told us many things of her girlhood,
and her difficulties in fitting herself for her work; and especially of
the stimulus and delight of the new world of thought and feeling opened
by those first lectures. Miss Beale and Miss Martin, coming later, had
enjoyed all the advantages of Queen’s College, but they did not the less
appreciate those first lectures. As they spoke in glowing terms of
Professor Maurice, one could not but wish that he might have been there
to see the three grand women who have done so much for womanhood—pupils
worthy of even such a master.
The picture fixed itself in my mind of Frances Mary Buss, in the first
ardour of this new intellectual awakening. She was teaching all day in
her own school, so that she could take only the evening classes. There
were at that time no omnibuses, and night after night, her day’s work
done, the enthusiastic girl walked from Camden Town to Queen’s College
and back. Night after night she sat up into the small hours, entranced
by her new studies, preparing thus not only for the papers which won for
her the desired certificates, but for that greater future of which she
did not then even dream.
In her Autobiography, Miss Cobbe gives a very telling summary of the
education of the earlier part of this century, in her account of the
particular school in which her own education had been, as it was called,
“finished,” at a cost, for two years, of £1000. How she _began_ it for
herself afterwards she also tells, but of this finished portion she thus
writes—
“Nobody dreamed that any one of us could, in later life, be more
or less than an ornament to Society. That a pupil in that school
should become an artist or authoress would have been regarded as
a deplorable dereliction. Not that which was good or useful to
the community, or even that which would be delightful to
ourselves, but that which would make us admired in society was
the _raison d’être_ of such requirement.
“The education of women was probably at its lowest ebb about
half a century ago. It was at that period more pretentious than
it had ever been before, and infinitely more costly; and it was
likewise more shallow and senseless than can easily be believed.
To inspire young women with due gratitude for their present
privileges, won for them by my contemporaries, I can think of
nothing better than to acquaint them with some of the features
of school-life in England in the days of their mothers. I say
advisedly in those of their mothers, for in those of their
grandmothers things were by no means equally bad. There was much
less pretence, and more genuine instruction, so far as it
extended.”
We are justified in the conclusion that Mrs. Wyand’s school, in which
Frances Mary Buss received her training, as pupil and then as assistant,
was one of the survivals from this olden time. From one of the pupils,
who was there as a child while Miss Buss was assistant-mistress, we have
a sketch of Mrs. Wyand as a slight, erect little lady, with very dark
eyes, and with black hair, in the ringlets of that era, confined on each
side by tortoiseshell side-combs. She always wore long rustling silk
gowns, and altogether was an impressive personage, before whom the most
volatile schoolgirl at once grew staid and sober. Mention of Miss Buss
herself seems limited to a certain satisfaction in having carried
provocation to so great an extent as to make the young teacher cry. But
we may easily imagine that before the end of that encounter the tables
were turned, and that then may have begun the treatment of “naughty
girls” so successful in later life.
Thanks to the good training received under Mrs. Wyand, Miss Buss was
able, at the age of eighteen, to take an active part in the school
opened by Mrs. Buss in Clarence Road. Before she was twenty-three she
had gained the Queen’s College Diploma, and she then became the head of
the new school in Camden Street, which was the outcome of this first
venture.
The course of instruction included most of the subjects now taught, and
Miss Eleanor Begbie—who claims to have been the first pupil in Camden
Street, and who has been superintendent of the Sandall Road School,
familiar, therefore, with all new methods—affirms confidently that the
Science and Art classes taken by Mr. Buss were “as good, and quite as
interesting, as anything given now.”
This is confirmed by Mrs. Pierson, who says of these very happy
school-days—
“Her dear father greatly added to the enjoyment of school life
by giving us courses of lectures illustrated by diagrams on
geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, and chemistry, quite equal
to those given by highly paid professors of the present day, and
he gave them for love, and nothing extra was put down in the
bills, although each course was an education by itself, given in
his lucid and most interesting way.”
These lectures, as Mrs. S. Buss says in her reminiscences—
“awakened in many a pupil the thirst for reading and study. His
artistic talent, and the pleasant excursions for sketching from
Nature, were novel inspirations in the days when the ordinary
girlish specimens of copied drawings resembled nothing in
Nature. A good elocutionist himself, he taught us to read and
recite with expression.”
His daughter had the same gift, inherited or acquired, and her school
has always been specially distinguished in all examinations for the
excellence of the reading.
Mrs. S. Buss mentions, in addition to Mrs. Laing, as also specially
interested in the school—
“the Rev. Canon Dale, Vicar of St. Pancras, and his two sons,
Pelham and Lawford Dale; the Rev. Cornelius Hart, Vicar of Old
St. Pancras; the Rev. R. P. Clemenger, Vicar of St. Thomas’,
Agar Town; the Revs. E. Spooner and Charles Lee, the immediate
successors of Mr. Laing; the Countess of Hardwicke, one of the
earliest and most faithful friends of the school, whose
daughter, Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, still continues the yearly
prize for good conduct, and whose warm letter of sympathy, in
January, was one of the many we received. We all remember, too,
Judge Payne, and his witty impromptu verses at so many
prize-givings.”
When we listen to these memories of the earlier school-days, we cannot
dispute the position that—
“The foundation of the North London Collegiate School for Ladies
was not merely the commencement of one special school, but was
an era in education. If we _very old pupils_ can carry our mind
back to the time when the ‘Guide to Knowledge’ and ‘Mangnall’s
Questions’ were the chief standard school-books for most of the
scientific and historical instruction that girls received; when
the mildest _form_ of gymnastics (such as jumping over a stick
held a few inches above the ground) was deemed so unladylike
that some girls were withdrawn from the earliest classes formed;
when the study of the most rudimentary physiology horrified the
Mrs. Grundies of the period, who would not permit their
daughters to continue the course after the first lesson (like
the mother of later times at the primary school, who wrote to
the teacher, ‘Mrs. S—— asks that my Mary Jane do not go again to
those lessons where they talk about their bodies: first, which
it is nasty; and second, which it is rude!’); the time when we
learnt pages of dictionary, with meanings, _in the first class_,
and rules of dry-as-dust grammar, without any meaning to us for
years afterwards; the time when it was asserted and believed,
that a girl’s mind was incapable of grasping any mathematical
knowledge beyond the first four rules of arithmetic;—we can,
remembering those good old times, see what a wonderful stride
was taken in girls’ education by the North London Collegiate
School, even in its infancy. Can we not recall those long
tramps, to and fro, when the present North London Railway ran
only between Chalk Farm and Fenchurch Street, and when there was
no service of omnibuses between the various districts? Fares,
even when a conveyance could be had, were fares, sixpence or a
shilling. Do we not remember the overskirts insisted on by Miss
Buss as a protection from the wet, at a time when waterproof
clothing was unknown? What dressing and undressing went on round
the stove, where _Miss Reneau_ sat with the default list, to put
down the name of any too riotous girl! What a delight the giant
strides and see-saws were to the athletic young damsels of the
period, while the more staid elders waited anxiously for the
chance of a turn with the dear head-mistress, who gave up her
hour of leisure to talk and walk with us on the playground, and
give us a word of sympathy, counsel, or encouragement, or tell
some funny story, or teach some new game, sharing her brimming
cup of life with us all—ever regardless of her own need of
rest!”
From letters at this period we have a glimpse of this young
head-mistress at work and at play, both of which she did very
thoroughly. The work must have been rather overdone, and we may admire
the self-control which is remembered as so marked a characteristic, when
we see that it came from real self-conquest. In 1859 she writes to her
brother Septimus, speaking of herself and her cousin Maria (Mrs.
Septimus Buss)—
“As usual at this period—and, for that matter, at most
periods—of the year, we are over-worked. At times I am so
irritable I feel inclined to throw things at people, and twice
this week I have allowed myself to be provoked into a fit of
temper. It is so grievous afterwards to reflect upon. Why was I
made so gunpowdery? I do think, however, the provocation was
very great, though that, of course, is no excuse.”
The next letter is to her father in holiday-time:—
“Dinan, 1860.
“Everything has combined to make this holiday delightful, and I
am so well and happy, that I feel as if I was only twenty years
of age, instead of a hundred, as I do in Camden Street. I find
myself talking slang to the boys, and actually shouting fag-ends
of absurd choruses from mere lightheartedness.
“I am very sorry to say that I do not feel any more industrious,
though doubtless I shall have to recover from that complaint in
London. Also I regret to say that I have to-day incurred the
severe displeasure of our wee blue-eyed laddie!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
INFLUENCE.
“You were the sower of a deathless seed,
The reaper of a glorious harvest, too;
But man is greater than his greatest deed,
And nobler than your noblest work were you!”
EMILY HICKEY.
“I am always thinking of the first time I ever saw her—in the
old house in Camden Street, when I was seven years old, a timid
child, sent upstairs with a message, which I stood and mumbled
at the door. I remember her now—an elegant dark young lady, she
seemed to me—with curls and a low-necked dress, as we all had
then. She told me to come forward and deliver my message as if I
wasn’t frightened; and I remember now how her vigorous intensity
seemed to sweep me up like a strong wind. And that is forty-four
years ago!”
This graphic sketch, from the pen of Mrs. Alfred Marks, gives us the
young head of the new school as she must have looked in 1850, when the
first venture in Clarence Road became the North London Collegiate School
for Ladies, reconstructed after the lines of Queen’s College, founded
two years before.
Among the many appreciative notices with which the entire press of
England met the news of the death of one of the foremost educators of
the time, none went so straight to the mark as that of a country paper,
the _Bath Herald_, which seized on the most distinctive point of this
remarkable personality. After observing that it is rare for the
influence of a school-mistress to be felt beyond her immediate circle,
it thus proceeds—
“There is not a county of her native country, not a colony of
its empire, where the news of this death will not have saddened
the hearts of pupils and friends.
“When she began her great work the matter of girls’
education was still a ‘question.’ Miss Buss solved it in the
most direct and practical fashion; and every college for
women, and every high school for girls, is a memorial of her
labours. A personality of singular charm, and of what the
slang of the day calls ‘magnetism,’ wholly without pedantry
or self-consciousness, persuaded Royal Commissioners, City
Companies, Lord Mayors and Royal Princesses, physicians, and
even Universities, that women might be thoroughly educated
without any danger to themselves or the State. To mention
her name to any one of the many thousand pupils scattered
over the face of the earth, was to raise constantly emotions
of affection and pride. Undoubtedly she was one of the
‘pioneers’ of the century, and is secure of a niche in the
temples of memory and of fame.”
These words are written at the end of her career, but they were true
from the beginning. It is most truly characteristic of her that her
power was exercised without self-consciousness. On one occasion I had
remarked on her wonderful influence, and find her answer in a brief
sentence, after which she turns to some more practical subject with her
instinctive distaste for introspection or self-dissection: “What you say
about personal influence strikes me curiously. I cannot possibly measure
it or even understand it. To a certain extent I am conscious of an
influence over young girls, but am not able to explain it.”
To those who knew her well, the explanation comes readily enough as we
find her power of impressing others to be the result of the vividness of
her sympathy, and of the imagination which, transcending mere personal
limitations, is able actually to enter into the life of others, no
matter how diverse in temperament or in circumstances.
Speaking of her as she was in middle life, Mrs. Marks offers a
suggestion full of interest, as she says—
“Her utter spontaneity, her sense of people and things in their
living essences, made a very deep and lasting impression on me.
And some kind words she said to me—which showed she had seen
into my very heart—were a greater encouragement to me than I can
express. Their meaning was that she felt I was spontaneous, and
had not settled down into conventionality; and as things were
very real to me, it was a comfort to know that she too thought
them so.”
It was doubtless as a direct consequence of this vision of the “soul of
things” that the mere _names_ of things meant so much more to Miss Buss
than to most of us, to whom in general a name is the mere husk of the
thing it stands for. Seeing through these names as she did, they stood
to her for all the living reality of which they were the symbols. With
the _name_, she came into possession of all that went to make up the
personality represented by it. Surroundings, time, place, with every
other relation, became an inseparable part of any name that once fixed
itself in this truly royal memory. To every one who met her it was a
standing wonder how she could know so much of the thousands of girls who
had passed under her care. That she did know them is a fact that comes
into almost every memorial relating to her, from those first simple days
when she gave herself without stint to the little band of pupils, up to
the very last, when her circle of influence was bounded only by the
bounds of the empire itself.
It is not surprising that so many of these girls should bear for life
the impress of this strong influence. But still there is something to
call for comment in the depth of the feeling thus aroused. Before even
the suggestion of approaching death had lifted the veil of commonplace,
which so often hides from us the beauty of those with whom we walk the
dusty path of everyday life, there came, in answer to questions about
the “story of the school,” so many reminiscences of the early days,
giving the freshness of early enthusiasm, all undimmed by the daily
intercourse of nearly fifty years, that one could not but marvel.
Many of those first pupils have remained as teachers, many others have
settled in the neighbourhood as friends, and to not a few this deep
affection has been the master-passion of their lives. In the wisdom of
these later times it is thought well to chill the fervour of the too
engrossing devotion to which very young enthusiasts are prone. But
nothing seems to have checked the ardour of these early days, while only
good has resulted from a love which has moulded so many lives to
strength and beauty.
One of the old pupils says of this time—
“She was true, so staunch, so utterly wanting in all the little
pettinesses that so often mar even noble characters, that it is
no wonder we, her own girls, made a ‘hero’ of her and worshipped
her. But it was a noble worship, and killed our selfishness. We
wanted not so much her approbation, but to live such lives that,
could she know them, might deserve her approval.”
And another, of later date, commenting on the modern repression of
youthful enthusiasm, fixes on the point that essentially divides the
influence that is only life-giving from that which is sickly and morbid—
“Any devotion roused by her love and care for those brought into
contact with her never savoured of this foolish adoration,
because her sympathy, though so personal, was in a sense so
impersonal and altruistic. She helped people because they wanted
help, and not that _she_ might be an absorbing personality to
them.”
Of a piece with the selflessness of such ministry is another
characteristic mentioned by the same writer—
“There is one point which always specially struck and helped me,
and that was the wonderful way she had of bringing together
people who would help each other by virtue of her sympathetic
insight into character. Many most fruitful friendships must owe
their origin to her loving thought. Even when, from the fulness
of her own life, she was unable, to the same extent in the small
details, to ‘mother’ all her ‘children,’ yet she always had some
friend or ‘other child’ ready to go on with what she had begun.”
How she could keep to her old friends, when the pupil grew up to closer
intimacy, is shown in one of the letters written to me while she was
still amongst us. It is also touching in the light it throws on her
relation to the sanctities and sorrows of quiet home-life, and what she
could be to those who needed her. It is happy to remember that in the
lovely home of this dear pupil-friend the beloved teacher found rest and
refreshment in many a weary time; and we may thank Mrs. Pierson for this
glimpse into that deeper life, of which she writes from a full heart—
“It is not often that ladies contend for the honour of age, but
Miss Begbie and I have had one or two friendly squabbles as to
which of us is the elder ‘old pupil.’ _I think_ it was the
second term of the opening of dear Miss Buss’ school, in 1850,
that I became one of her happy pupils, and from that day to this
she has been my loving guide and friend, sharing many deep
sorrows and deeper joys. She has been so great an influence in
my life that I have always felt I could realize the verse, ‘For
a good man some would even dare to die.’
“In those early days we were a comparative handful of girls, and
had the benefit of Miss Buss’ society nearly all to ourselves,
enjoying the very cream of her young life, intellect, and
enthusiasm.
“It was all like fairyland teaching to me, and in the exuberance
of my enjoyment, I am obliged to confess that I was a little
troublesome, and often managed to upset the equilibrium of the
class, bringing upon myself the ordeal of a lecture in Miss
Buss’ private room after school. I always went into that room
raging like a young lioness, but invariably came out a plaintive
lamb, vowing never to offend again. In order to comfort and
soothe my passionate grief, dear Miss Buss often kept me to tea
with her and her pleasant family party, and I fear that that
enjoyment had a demoralizing effect upon my good resolutions.
“I was motherless when I first knew Miss Buss, and had been
utterly spoilt by an over-indulgent father until he married
again a lady quite out of sympathy with a girl of fourteen. I
should have turned into a veritable fury, and ended in
perdition, if I had not come across the spiritual influence of
dear Miss Buss. She supplied every want in my soul, and I gladly
gave myself to her loving guidance, often falling, but always
encouraged, until in after years I was strong enough to be able
to part with life’s best treasures one by one, and to say—
“‘It is well with my husband,
It is well with my child.’
“I could fill a volume with all dear Miss Buss has enabled me to
be, to do and to suffer, and with what she has been to me
through all—and _not to me only_, for all the girls of my time
worshipped her, and she never of _her_ own accord loses touch
with an old pupil. But what I have said will doubtless suffice
for your purpose.”
A large volume might indeed be filled with “memories”—extending from
those early days till a year ago—of the kindness and sympathy ever
flowing out from that time to this. It seemed to me very striking when
the same post brought two letters—one dating back to 1850, the other
only to 1890—and, spite of the forty years between, telling just the
same story.
The one shows us the young teacher standing at the parlour door, “with a
kiss for each pupil at the end of the day’s work,” with a “grace of
manner and gentle voice” deeply impressing the child to whom for
forty-four years afterwards she became “ever a most kind and constant
friend, ever ready with sympathy.”
Then comes a picture of a wild, daring girl, dashing to the end of the
long garden and back in the rain, on her return to be called into the
parlour to account for herself. Of the reproof she adds—
“I remember little but its gentleness, and the kind arm round me
while it was being given; but, at the end, I was required to
promise never to do anything because I was dared to do it. After
that Miss Buss led me by a silken thread all through my
school-days, though the other teachers often found me headstrong
and troublesome.”
There is an account of how Miss Buss ended a standing feud between the
girl and “Mademoiselle” by the exaction of a promise from the reluctant
pupil that she would set herself to win the French prize. And finally
comes the graver side of this happy relation—
“When at the age of thirteen I left school to go abroad, Miss
Buss still continued her kindness, writing to me while I was
away, and giving me kind welcome on my return. To see her again
was always my first thought after the home-greeting.
“After my first trouble she wrote thus to me—
“‘I feel much for you, dear E——. Your experience of life is
beginning early, and so is your discipline. Discipline, though
wholesome, is never pleasant. And then, when one is young, one’s
feelings are so acute. I remember what I went through at your
age, and under similar circumstances. Nevertheless, my greater
experience than yours, poor child, makes me confess that
“tribulation worketh patience.” Amidst all your trials, dear
E——, always trust me. I do not intend to let a light thing come
between me and “auld lang syne” folks.’”
The second letter is also from one of the madcap order—a wilful,
high-spirited bit of mischief, fascinating in her pranks, but often
enough a source of real anxiety to her teachers, and even to the
dignified head herself, known to this child only when almost worn out
with the long strain of school-life and of her heavy public work. But
here are words as straight from the child’s heart as from that of the
woman who could count back through nearly fifty years of friendship—
“Jan. 31, 1895.
“DEAR MISS EDWARDS,
“There is so much I want to say, but I do not know how to
say it. This distance is so awful.
“I think it is because I cannot realize that I shall never see
Miss Buss again. If I were near I could realize it better; it
seems more like some fearful dream to me.
“I wish I was near you to tell you how deeply I sympathize and
share in the sorrow that I know the loss of so kind and true a
friend must be to you.
“And how many hundreds of girls will feel the same!
“All the world over there will be hearts aching to think that
they will never see Miss Buss again.
“I can but judge others by myself, and I know that it was not
till I had left school, and had been out here some time, that I
realized more fully what a great blessing had been mine that I
had been allowed to know Miss Buss; that, while I was at the age
when girls most need loving, firm guidance, I should have had
_Her_ for a kind teacher and friend. It will always be to me one
of the best and happiest remembrances of my life, for I truly
feel it a great honour bestowed on me.”
There will always be the two kinds of girl—the one who is content with
the life of the present moment, and the one who “looks before and
after,” to whom the present moment is only a fixed point between past
and future. In speaking for herself, one of the first kind speaks for
many more, as she naïvely says, “I fancy we were too much occupied with
ourselves to think much about Miss Buss while we were at school!” The
second class speak for themselves in every variety of intensity, but all
to the same purpose: “No one can ever know what she was to me. All that
I am, and all that I have, I owe to her influence or to her help!” Over
and over comes the same cry, in which the blank of present loss
foretells the future loneliness bereft of the strength and comfort of
the past.
From one of the younger pupils we have again the growing sense of what
she had less kindly felt at the moment—
“I feel that there are so many women, not in England only, but
all over the world, who will rise up to call her ‘blessed.’ As
time goes on I more appreciate the training I had under her, and
it seems to me now, that but for her influence I could not
possibly have fulfilled the home and public duties that have
fallen to my lot, and that it has been a pleasure to me to
undertake.”
And yet another—
“We who were with her in the impressionable days of our youth
must all feel how much we owe her, in the view of life she gave
us, and the tone of healthy energy she brought into our lives. I
am sure her loss will be as widely felt as that of Arnold by his
old pupils long ago.”
To give the experience of all who come back year by year to give a
record of their work in hospital ward or East End slum, in home
workhouses or foreign missions, would be too heavy a task; but, as
illustrative of the wide range of influence exercised in matters social
and philanthropic, we may give a letter from one in whom the “Gospel of
Work” found an apt disciple.
Mrs. Heberden, one of the first three ladies elected as lady guardians
in St. Pancras, was, as Sarah Ward Andrews, one of the pupils of the
second decade, dating from 1861, but she has the same record of delight
in the teaching and the same devotion to the teacher as those of earlier
date. What most impressed her, however, she gives as follows:—
“During my stay Miss Buss’ mother died, and though in great
sorrow, she continued all her work. I remember her remark that,
‘Work, originally a curse to mankind, was now a blessing, not
permitting us to dwell on our trials and losses.’ From that time
Miss Buss was a great factor for all that is best and highest in
my life; and when, in 1873, I lived near her in Hampstead, I was
brought into active public life by her request. She asked me to
help in the School Board election of that year, when Miss
Chessar and Mrs. Cowell were returned for Marylebone.
“All the great interest I have taken in women’s work began then,
encouraged by Miss Buss’ earnest sympathy and advice.
“In 1880 I was elected Poor Law Guardian in St. Pancras, for the
ward in which Holy Trinity Church stands, where Miss Buss had
attended for a long time. Her name secured me much support;
without it, I doubt if I should have been returned, for the
opposition to Women Guardians was then very great, and the
difficulties enormous. Miss Buss’ counsel was most valuable to
me at this time as always, so wise and judicious. ‘Forward, but
not too fast,’ was ever her motto.”
Here is another word to the same purpose, from an East End hospital:—
“How many lives will be impoverished now! She was so true and
great-hearted. Wasn’t it wonderful how she remembered the
details of so many lives? She never treated us collectively. My
life would have been so different but for the time spent with
her. She prepared many for a sharp wrestle with life’s
difficulties. And how she remembered one’s home people too!
“Such a wave of sadness comes over me as I think of her; and
yet, what a life hers was to rejoice over! So full and generous.
Hers was such a rich loving nature. Surely many, thinking of
what she has done, may indeed ‘take heart again!’ If I felt
less, I might be able to say more.”
We could go on adding witness after witness in those who have thus loved
her. One thing only is more wonderful than this general love, and that
is the power of loving to which it all came as response. It is by
putting together the impressions of complete satisfaction given to each
of these many varying needs, that we finally reach some adequate
estimate of this grand personality. Each person in any relation to her,
had a special and real place in her regard, just as each child has its
own place in its mother’s heart—a place of its very own. In this wide
heart there was room for all, and each distinct and distinctly separate.
There was here no mere jumble of meaningless amiability. The loves and
the likings were quite definite. And possibly the dislikings also; but
of these no one heard very much. Of hate and scorn there was none for
anything but evil itself. Her practice, like her teaching, was “to be
merciless to the sin, but very tender to the sinner.”
Almost more telling, in their intensity of regret, than even these
thanksgivings for the joy of such a friendship, are the thoughts of one
who was “glad just to claim a place among the old pupils” in the crowded
church on that sad New Year’s Eve, when every heart in the vast assembly
beat in unison in the same love and sorrow. During life there seemed
always a vitalizing principle in the influence of the leader thus
mourned; and who may measure the latent forces set free in this great
wave of feeling?—forces that might help to bring about the hope of these
first words—
“As for the public loss, that is greater than we can understand,
because we shall never know how much she has done for women till
we know how much women will be able to do in the future. But she
helped more than women by what she did. She raised the whole
standard of life in raising the standard of women’s education.”
And then, in the light of this flash of insight into the greatness of
the work, comes a sense of personal loss, in a lament which seems to
bear with it the echo of all the sighs of all the women of past ages,
who desired and aspired, but yet strove in vain, to break the chains of
ignorance that held them bound—chains broken at length by this strong
hand!
How many a girl must have inwardly rebelled against the deadening
routine of the old conventional schools, though so few had the strength
by which this once “timid child” won her own freedom. Measuring what
have been by the force of that first never-forgotten impression of the
“vigorous intensity that swept her up like a strong wind,” her words of
regret that her school-life had not been spent under that influence come
as among the saddest of the laments of that sorrowful day—
“Thinking it over after she was gone, a perfect agony of regret
came over me that I was not always her pupil. In church, that
day, the regret was so pregnant that it almost stupefied me....
When I think that Miss Buss was at our very doors, I can
scarcely bear to look back. Think of what I might have been
saved—the unutterable loneliness of those five years, the
misery, the deliberate fostering, of set purpose, of a morbid
self-consciousness and self-distrust. Why, I have never got over
it! The deadening effect of those five years clings to me still.
I consider that it kept me back fifteen years. Instead of
leaving school broken-spirited and irresolute, I should have had
the inspiration of knowing that I had been part of the great
human movement. As it was, I had to grope my way to modern
thought.
“I made very few friends at school, and shrunk from all. If I
had gone _there_ I should have found a door open into the real
life I sought. But, above all, just think of exchanging Miss S——
for Miss Buss!—spontaneity for repression, an honest
straightforward ideal of duty, for a system based upon ‘Mason on
Self-knowledge’! (That book ought to be burnt by the common
hangman.)
“Oh, I thought some bitter thoughts as I sat that day among the
old pupils, thankful just to have the right to sit there at
all!”
There seems indeed good cause for regret that a nature so sensitive
should not have had full room for unchecked growth in the warm sunny
atmosphere of this school, when the young teacher was free to throw
herself into the lives of her pupils. Freedom of growth—with all the joy
of such freedom—forms the great wonder of those early days.
The proof of the true vitality of this growth is in the fact that these
early pupils came themselves into possession of that power of impressing
others which was so distinctive of their teacher.
I was very much struck by this fact when I first heard of Miss Buss from
one of these old pupils, Miss L. Agnes Jones, who, though only for a few
months under her influence, never lost the impression either of the
teaching or of the teacher, so unlike all previous experience. Years
afterwards, the time for action found her ready, and she became a potent
factor in the first stages of the change that has affected so many
lives.
All the “memories” from old pupils bear witness to the same thing, put
strongly by one who was afterwards a member of her staff:—
“She was to me a guide, a magnet, leading me on, higher and
higher, above all self-seeking, all petty vanities, all ignoble
ambitions.... I speak reverently when I say that her whole life
seems to me a sort of ladder or pulley to help us up nearer to
the Perfect Life lived on earth by our Great Model.”
One example of this life giving influence may be given, belonging to the
early days when, through Miss Jones, I also had come within its sphere,
and felt its fascination. Up to the day when, in a chance call on one of
us, she heard us talk of Miss Buss and her work, Miss Fanny Franks had
been quite content and happy as a somewhat exceptionally successful
daily governess, appreciated by her pupils and their parents, and taking
just pride in the instruction given after her own original fashion. She
taught in this way for part of five days a week, and, for the rest,
lived a pleasant girl-life at home with her sisters, all undisturbed by
educational theories.
One flash of the new inspiration was enough to change all this easy and
happy experience into struggle and effort. After the talk on that first
day Miss Franks had gone straight to Miss Buss and offered her services.
“But, my dear, you have had no training! In these days some credentials
are necessary,” was the sufficiently discouraging reply. But having now
seen Miss Buss for herself, there was no going back for the new
adherent. If training were necessary, training must be had. At what cost
is shown in her letter—
“Having given up so much to this end, I should be sorry not to
go on. By ‘going on’ I mean the examination, and by ‘giving up,’
leaving home and coming to live up here with only books for
seven or eight months. This examination and the hard study, and
the ill-health and spirits consequent thereupon, are the reasons
why I did not take an express-train to London immediately on
receipt of dear Miss Jones’ letter, which at any other time
would have gladdened me beyond expression. But it is all Miss
Buss’ fault. She first inspired me with the idea of an
examination. Had it not been for her I should, in happy
ignorance, have looked upon myself as a good and capable
teacher, not merely _in the making_—as now—but ready and fit to
do whatever she might propose.”
Having been the cause of so decided a change, Miss Buss was too loyal
not to do all in her power to make it a success. In her letters to me I
find allusions during the whole time which show her thoughtful
consideration of the best means to the end. She found a post in the
school, and lost no chance of fruitful suggestion. At her wish Miss
Franks attended Mr. Payne’s lectures, at the College of Preceptors, on
the Theory, History, and Practice of Education, and no one was more
pleased when Miss Franks came out as an Associate of the college. Again,
when Miss Franks finally discovered her true vocation, Miss Buss
arranged to give her two days a week for the Kindergarten experiments,
now so supreme a success.
And now, being herself a leader, with her own band of students taking a
foremost place in the Kindergarten movement, Miss Franks is only the
more loyal to her own chosen leader, and among the many expressions of
loss come her pathetic words—
“The sad time has come, and we have lost our wonderful friend.
Never will there be another Frances Buss! It makes me ache to
think of the faithful ones like Miss Begbie, and many others,
who have worked under her flag for so many years, and have lost
their splendid leader! Ah me! it is a sad time for us all!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
HELPFULNESS.
“A mother, though no infant at thy breast
Was nursed, no children clung about thy knee;
Yet shall the generations call thee blest,
Mother of nobler women yet to be.”
_To F. M. B._
Just ten years after that picture of splendid vigour which had so taken
captive “the timid child of seven,” we have a companion portrait in a
not less lasting impression made on a shy girl of seventeen, who after
the long lapse of years, thus recalls that first interview—
“You ask me what it is which stands out most clearly in my early
recollections of our dear friend. It is nearly thirty-three
years since I saw her first, but I always remember her as I saw
her then. She was seated at her table (a round table) in what in
those days was always called ‘the parlour.’ It corresponded to
the ‘office’ of the present day, but with this difference, that
Miss Buss was always to be found there whenever she was not
occupied with her girls, in teaching or in superintending their
work. She was her own secretary, and we all became thoroughly
accustomed to seeing her writing there, but ready to lay aside
her pen and give her undivided attention to any one who needed
it. Indeed, to the best of my recollection, the door always
stood partly open. I felt there was something different about
her from what I was accustomed to observe in other women. There
was such a mingling of motherliness and sweetness with intense
earnestness and thoroughness about her work. She was at that
time in deep mourning. Her mother had died shortly before, and
also the Reverend David Laing, under whose wing she had begun,
and for several years carried on, her school. The double grief
had been felt very keenly, and she had been so ill that her hair
was already mingled with grey. I remember the way she dressed
it—the front hair being brought down over the ears, and the back
rolled under and covered with a black net. Her black dress was
plainly made, but fitted well. It was long, and made her look
taller than she was.
“I felt attracted to her at once, and, as I got to know her, I
found that my first impressions were more than justified by
experience.”
The change is very striking from the vivacious and vigorous young head
of the new school of 1850 and this grave, kind woman of 1860, a change
greater than the mere lapse of time can justify. But the loss of her
mother, followed so closely by that of her friend Mr. Laing, who had
been the mainstay of all her school career, must have been to her as the
uprooting of her very life. To the end she spoke of her mother with the
same deep tenderness. She had been friend as well as mother, a double
tie that meant so much as the daughter grew to be the helper. Family
claims took firm grasp of this loyal nature, and the mother’s death
meant also taking her place to the father, left for the time helpless
without the all-pervading care that had stood between him and all the
minor miseries that loom so large to the artist temperament.
How this trust was fulfilled shows in the daughter’s words when, fifteen
years afterwards, this work of love was ended.
“Jan. 3, 1875.
“On Saturday I go away with my father to Worthing. He has been
growing more and more feeble, and is a constant source of
anxiety. I feel that he needs me, and yet I cannot give up more
time to him than can be got on Sunday. But, you see, this means
Sunday as well as week-days. If you could peep in on me it would
be a pleasure to see your dear face. I think often of you in my
hurricane-speed life.”
“Feb. 11.
“My father is still very ill. It looks as if he were fading
away. He is so patient, gentle, and loving to us all, and
especially to me, that I can scarcely keep up.”
“Feb. 20.
“My heart is wrung with grief. My dear, dear father is, we
believe, sinking. I am going now to him, and shall stay in the
house. He likes to have my hand in his, and to speak faintly
from time to time of my mother. He tells me I alone can soothe
him as she did. He is very peaceful, and suffering no pain, but
he is too weak to help himself in the least.”
“Mar. 10.
“I am so sorry to know you are again ill. It makes me sigh. As
soon as I can I will call, but I am almost breaking down from
nervous prostration.
“My Liverpool journey, though likely to be useful, was trying.
It is full of my dear father.
“You cannot imagine how large a blank he has left in my life.
Only time can fill it up. He was the one person to whom I was
necessary, and to whom my presence always carried pleasure, and
I cannot get into the way of remembering that he is not.”
“Mar. 13.
“I am not well. Some old symptoms have returned, though not in a
bad form. I can get through the day, but my evenings and nights
are distressing. I am in a sort of anguish which does actually
seem to affect my heart. Yet I would not recall my dear, dear
father if I could. But nature must have some expression, and I
really loved him. Besides, I was nearest to him and closest to
him! Many things we understand better now.”
Knowing so well the power of a mother’s love, this daughter had grown
into that mother’s power of giving herself out, a power that is
universally felt as her chief characteristic. Here is a description of
her as she was at the time when this portrait is drawn—
“I think, in those early days, it was her sweet and motherly way
of drawing each one of us to her, and caring for each particular
person’s concerns, and remembering them, which impressed me more
than anything else, excepting indeed her very encouraging
manner. She lost no opportunity of saying a loving word of
praise, and it would be accompanied by a motherly hug, which
warmed one’s heart for a long time. That comfortable, loving
manner was a great power among teachers and pupils. Many a girl
who had given trouble in one department or another, would go out
of the parlour, after a talk with Miss Buss, thoroughly softened
and helped into a right frame of mind.”
This motherly kindness won the devotion of a lifetime from the lonely
girl so early called to face the world, and Caroline Fawcett well earned
her great privilege of being one of the little band whose love soothed
the last hours of the friend who had been so much in their lives. Her
latest thought, as she writes on that sad New Year’s Eve, is the same as
the first of so many years before—
“But, indeed, it must be a great miss for us, the never being
able to go to her for motherly loving sympathy. One of the
lights that will go on shining out of her life, and will kindle
others, is that loving motherliness. If one could only show a
little of it, following in her dear footsteps!”
This aspect of her character impressed even those who had to do with
Miss Buss outside her own work. Mr. Garrod, secretary to the Teachers’
Guild, who knew her in her public life, says of her: “To me she seemed
to be one who was born to shine as head of a family, and to have the
domestic rather than the public excellencies.”
Her school can fairly be regarded as her family, for she may be said to
have “mothered” them all—teachers as well as pupils—even in the later
days, when public work took so much of her attention. Miss Emily Hickey,
one of the visiting professors, who came so much less into contact with
her than did the teaching staff, puts this well, as she says of her
intense “motherliness”—
“There is no other word for it. No one brought into any
emotional contact with her, could fail to realize this, and one
can see how much it must have had to do in binding so fast to
her so many women so much younger than she, both in years and in
experience.”
Mrs. Marks says also—
“I remember when I saw her again some years afterwards, and I
remember how like a mother she seemed to me who wanted a mother
so dreadfully. Always after that I thought of her as a sort of
_universal mother_. There are few women like that!”
On reading these words, a pupil of later years adds to them—
“I, too, wanted a mother, and found so much of what I wanted in
her. These might have been my own words, and are, indeed, almost
identical with what I have said.”
And yet another—
“I have every reason to remember her with tender regard, and to
deeply regret her loss. From the fact that I was motherless, she
took an especial interest in my studies and health, making my
father and myself deeply grateful to her. I more than ever feel
what a friend I have lost. Camden Town is very lonely without
her.”
Mrs. Marks continues—
“And then the general impression of geniality and life which was
always so conspicuous! She was so _warm_, everything about her
was _infused with warmth_. There was no cold impersonality in
any of her thoughts. They were all alive. I need not say how
kind she was.”
This kindness was all-inclusive, going down to the least as well as
rising to the highest. Among the hundreds of letters of condolence
received by Miss Buss’ family was one from the firm which undertook the
charge of the school clocks, speaking strongly of the kind and gracious
way in which their _employés_ had always been treated.
And there is a characteristic story of her in connection with her old
cabman Downes, who drove her, year after year, to school and to church.
On one occasion, hurrying to catch the train to Cambridge, Downes upset
his cab, and Miss Buss was extricated without having time to decide
whether she was hurt or not, her business being too important to admit
of delay. Her first act on reaching her destination was to telegraph to
Downes to assure him that she was not hurt.
All records go to show how lasting was her interest in all who made any
claim on her, confirming the words of another of her staff, when she
says, “Girls, as soon as they left school, felt that they had a friend
ever ready to sympathize with them in sorrow or in joy. A happy marriage
was a delight to her”—a remark confirmed by a passage in one of Miss
Buss’ letters, where she says, “I wish Ada would bring Mr. Z—— to Myra.
I like to see my _sons-in-law_. He cannot be shyer than Mr. Q——.”
Here is a note just after the opening of the new buildings by the Prince
and Princess of Wales, written for the wedding-day of one of her pupils—
“DEAR MARY,
“Just a line to express my love and good wishes for you
and yours to-morrow.
“May God bless you in your new state of life! I shall be with
you in spirit, and think of you all.
“I hope you have received the little tea-table. The mats for it
have been delivered I know, but I am not sure about the table.
“I hope Eleanor will send me a short note to say where you have
gone, and to give me some account of to-morrow’s ceremony.
“With my dear love and good wishes,
“Believe me, yours affectionately,
“FRANCES M. BUSS.”
To “meet the glad with joyful smiles” would always have been easy to
her, but she was more often called “to wipe the weeping eyes;” for the
words of another of the recent pupils was curiously true—
“Of late years it has often struck me as melancholy that the
most successful and happiest of her old pupils, settled in homes
of their own, or teaching in schools at a distance, could do
little more than send an occasional letter, or pay a flying
visit, while numbers of the unsuccessful, the weak and helpless,
came back to her for the advice and help she never failed to
give. Seeing, as she did, numbers of these, she was very
strongly impressed by the absolute necessity for young girls to
be trained to some employment by which they might, if necessary,
earn a livelihood. For women to be dependent on brothers and
relations, she considered an evil to be avoided at all costs,
and she tried to keep before us the fact that training for any
work must develop a woman’s intellect and powers, and therefore
make her—married or single—a better and a nobler being.”
Another friend adds on this point—
“She was so kind and unprejudiced by unconventionality, that she
was just as interested and sympathetic and helpful towards an
old pupil, who came to her about trying to set up a business
(such as dressmaking or millinery), as she was to one going to
Girton or trying for a head-mistress-ship.”
As instance of the thoroughness that characterized her efforts to help
the girls, one of them gives a little experience which will come home to
many a mother, as she recalls the solicitude with which Miss Buss went
to any medical consultation needed by delicate girls under her care—
“I left school to become a governess myself, and during my first
holiday she made an opportunity for a quiet talk with me,
entering into all my plans and difficulties, and helping me
greatly by her wise and loving counsel. No effort was too great
for her to make, if she could thereby help or benefit any of us.
Many years later, when my sister had been under Dr. Playfair’s
treatment, he ordered her abroad, and she was to be accompanied
by a companion of whom he should approve. Miss Buss _not_ only
offered to let her join her party, shortly to start for
Marienbad, but _went_ herself to see Dr. Playfair at eight a.m.
(the only time she was free during term-time), in order that he
might be satisfied with her as an escort. This meeting proved a
mutual pleasure to them.”
It is pleasant to know that, out of this special thoughtfulness, there
came to Miss Buss, not only the companionship in travel, but frequent
resting in the happy home of these girls; and also—a very great
satisfaction—the gift to the school of the “Crane Scholarship,” to mark
their mother’s appreciation of this motherly care of her children.
But the help given so kindly was by no means limited to inspiration,
instruction, or advice, carefully and considerably as this might be
thought out for each separate case. Where the means of acting on her
suggestions were wanting her sympathy expressed itself in more tangible
terms. I remember, one day, after discussing ways and means in some
instance of this sort, stopping short, and saying to her, “Do you know
_how many_ girls you are helping at this moment?” In the most
matter-of-fact way she answered reflectively, “Well, I could scarcely
say, without going into the question!” Occasionally she would ask help
of some one of a little band of friends willing to give it—often of Miss
Laura Soames—so soon to follow her—and of Miss Edith Prance, and others.
But more often than not she said nothing about it, generally taking it
on herself. When the school had been her own this was easy enough, but
in a public school the fees must be paid even by the head-mistress
herself. She was, however, free to please herself as to the help she
gave at Myra Lodge, and those who may have made calculations of the
income derived from the pupils there, might, if they had known all, have
found themselves far from accurate in their sum total.
Here is a little story from far-away times, showing not only her
burdens, but that still rarer gift, her unwavering steadfastness to an
obligation once taken up—
“Among her friends was one family whose means were not in full
proportion to the large-heartedness which made the good mother
decide to keep as her own a little motherless baby, which she
had taken in during its mother’s fatal illness. Not only did her
own little daughters welcome the baby sister, but even the
over-worked father accepted without a murmur the sleepless
nights which were a small part of his contribution to the
new-comer. As soon as Miss Buss heard the story she said at
once, ‘And I must do my part. Her education shall be my care!’”
—a care that lasted beyond school-days, and included the finding of a
fitting occupation for later life.
Still another record may be added as typical of so many more; a story
none the less touching for the humorous way in which it is told—
“A SHORT TRIBUTE FROM ‘A LAME DOG.’
“The work of ‘helping lame dogs over stiles’ is not recognized
publicly or read on the list amongst the various names of the
good works and societies with which our dear Miss Buss was
connected, and probably only the ‘Lame Dogs’ themselves know
what a kind strong hand helped them to climb the dreaded
barrier; but surely among the many thousands who call themselves
‘Old North Londoners,’ or ‘Bussites,’ there is a long roll-call
of such silent work, deeply graven upon the hearts of those who,
like myself, _know_.
“The first morning on which I took my place in the class-room
among several other new-comers introduced me individually to
Miss Buss, for on hearing my name mentioned she called me to her
and asked how it was spelt. This impressed me very much at the
time, as I was the only one upon whom this honour was conferred,
and my surname was hardly one to deserve special attention.
“As time went on, however, the little extra notice was
sufficiently explained, for I discovered that another family in
the school bore a name nearly similar to my own, and indeed,
throughout my school-life, I was constantly being congratulated
upon honours never won, and credited with talents really
possessed by the happy bearer of the other name.
“This incident doubtless might appear to be trivial and
insignificant to many, but to one nervously entering a new
sphere of life this was not so; from that moment I felt I was
known to the head-mistress as having a separate individuality,
although insignificant enough among so many.
“A few years went on, and school-days passed happily enough,
without my having any special intercourse with Miss Buss, until,
owing to an unexpected crisis in affairs at home, it was
suddenly arranged for me to leave.
“Then it was that I really began to know our dear head-mistress,
and to realize what she was to her girls, and how much she cared
individually for each one.
“On a memorable morning for the second time she called me out to
have a chat with her, and fully discussed my future. She pointed
out the drudgery incumbent upon one who was only inefficiently
educated, and upon finding that my personal desire was to have
studied more thoroughly, she insisted most strongly upon my
remaining at school for another year.
“I held no scholarship, neither, as affairs then stood, could I
receive any help from home.
“All remonstrance was immediately swept aside. Miss Buss offered
to pay all school fees from her own pocket until I had earned at
least a matriculation certificate. She also insisted upon my
joining the gymnasium classes, which at that time were enjoyed
by those only who paid additional fees.
“How could such kindness be refused? From that time work was
sacred, and as the terms flew by and the examination loomed in
the near future, _failure_ became the one evil in the world most
to be dreaded. When the good news at last came out, and Miss
Buss, as excited over the result as the expectant candidates,
warmly congratulated us, she seemed to let each one know, in a
way peculiarly her own, what the pleasure or pain really meant
to her; to myself, having worked under high pressure, her silent
sympathy may be better understood than explained.
“She trusted us so thoroughly.
“My debt was never mentioned in any way by her, and it was only
on repaying the loan she told me she was glad to have the money
back, as she could then help others in a similar way.”
And there are so many who, like the writer of this story, also _know_,
though what they know is known to themselves alone. But still, even from
such vague hints as have come to them, many intimate friends can echo
Eleanor Begbie’s exclamation, as she ended an interesting talk about the
early days, “No one will ever know, on this side of the Day of Judgment,
how many girls owe all their education to Miss Buss!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK II.
PUBLIC WORK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
1860.
]
[Illustration:
1872.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I.
TRANSITION.
“The old order changes, giving place to new.”
My first remembrance of Miss Buss—dating from October, 1870—is one that
will come up very vividly to all who remember her Tuesdays’ “at home,”
at Myra Lodge, and who will recall her gracious way of advancing, with
outstretched hand and welcoming smile, to meet her friends.
There was a touch of ceremoniousness in her reception of strangers that
made this smile seem all the sweeter, dispelling a certain awe excited
by the presence and dignity, the sense of power and purpose, which were
there as the natural outcome of the habit of rule from her childhood
upwards. She was rather below than above middle height, but she always
gave an impression of being taller than she was in reality.
No one could be with her in any close relation without speedily knowing
how really kind she was, and, after a very short acquaintance, it was
quite easy to believe the story that as Miss Buss made the announcement
of one of the first passes with honours, the delighted student, in the
exuberance of the joy at this success, seized the dignified
head-mistress, and whirled her round in an impromptu waltz, ending
without doubt in one of those loving embraces which gave so much warmth
to school-life; a warmth that carried her so happily through so many
long years of incessant strain.
The heavy responsibilities and many cares of her arduous life always
made Miss Buss look older than her years, even before she adopted the
distinctive style of dress which, though never out of the fashion, had
still a speciality of its own, which always made it seem appropriate.
She acted up to her theory that each person should take pains to
discover the style most suitable, and then, having found it, should keep
as near to it as possible. This she herself did, contriving at the same
time to keep in touch with prevailing fashions. Her gowns were always
well made—for school and for mornings of some strong serviceable black
material, with a simple collar and cap. For receptions, prize-days, and
evenings, she wore rich silk or satin, with cap and _fichu_ to match of
real lace—her one cherished “vanity.” She had a weakness for good lace,
not forgotten by her friends on anniversaries, so that she acquired a
good store of this valued possession. For ornaments she did not care
enough to buy them for herself, though as gifts she appreciated them
sufficiently. It was a matter of principle with her that it is no less
the pleasure than the duty of every woman to make the very best of her
appearance; a duty especially incumbent in those days on all who held
any views which could be called “advanced.” As Mrs. Marks says of her,
“there was about her an entire absence of peculiarity. Never any one
seemed less eccentric, and it was impossible for the most rabid opponent
of woman’s rights to say that she was ‘unsexed.’”
And just as she had a woman’s regard for her appearance, she also cared
about her house. The drawing-room of 1870 was not yet what it was
later—one of the first finished specimens of decorative household art.
That came years afterwards, with her full success. But even before that
era, though it might be simple and old-fashioned, it was certain to be
tasteful, and as artistic as was then possible.
In my very first talk with Miss Buss we touched at once at the point on
which she felt most deeply. I had been interested in the question of
employment for women, having written some papers for the _Art Journal_
on the “Art-work Open to Women,” in which I had come to the conclusion
that here, as everywhere, the chief obstacle to success lay in the want
of education and of training. A paper read by Dr. W. B. Hodgson at the
Social Science Congress, held in Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1870, followed by
an able discussion, had proved the connecting link between the question
of employment and that of higher education, and I then recalled all I
had heard from my friend Miss Jones about Miss Buss’ schools and their
new developments.
After the Newcastle meeting I received the following note from Miss
Buss, which shows how things stood at that date:—
“12, Camden Street, Oct. 18, 1870.
“DEAR MADAM,
“At Miss L. A. Jones’ request, I forward you four proofs
of our appeal. What we now want is funds.
“As you will see, our list of subscriptions is very small. The
paper is as yet only a _proof_, because we cannot circulate
largely any statement, until the lease of the new house is
actually signed.
“When you return to town, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing
you. Agnes has often spoken of you to me, and I am glad to know
you are interested in our plans.
“If we can get one school for girls well started, the ice will
be broken, and many others will be set up in imitation.
“If you wish for further information, or for more copies of the
proof, I shall be glad to give you either.
“Believe me,
“Very truly yours,
“FRANCES M. BUSS.”
Pleased as I was with this first communication from one whom I had
already learned to admire, I could have no inkling of all it would mean
for me in the future, as the beginning of a friendship which steadily
deepened through the four and twenty years that followed; a friendship
which can only go on deepening after we cease to count by days or years,
since it is of the kind not begun for any ending.
As I left her that day the feeling of her life went with me in my
impression of the grief it had been to her, just as her pupils began
really to profit by her teaching, to be compelled to give so many of
them up. Social reasons, family reasons, financial reasons, no reason at
all—anything, in those days, was sufficient excuse for ending a girl’s
education. But, nevertheless, year by year, these same girls came back,
under the pressure of some unforeseen need, or even in the ordinary
course of things, as their fathers death broke up the family, to ask
their teacher’s advice how they might gain a livelihood, and to rack her
tender heart with the hopelessness of their lot. Half-educated, wholly
untrained, what could they do? They could do nothing. What she could do
for them as individuals was utterly inadequate, though she never failed
to do whatever might lie in her power. But each separate case that came
before her made her the more resolute to help them, as a whole, by
giving them the greatest good of all—_a thorough education_.
It is quite in keeping that the crowning work of her life should be the
outcome of the passion of helpfulness, in which this full mother-heart
poured itself out. She was a born educationalist, a teacher with the
whole bent of her nature, and she must in any case have devoted herself
to the task of making education a science. But her great schools were
the work not of her head, but of her heart, having their rise in her
feeling for the half-taught girls who were compelled to teach for a
livelihood. With her head she gave them the instruction and training
that would best help to this end. Then with her heart she made the gift
doubly precious, since she gave them not merely the means of living, but
also a life worth living; they were fitted for work, but, in the
inspiration of her own life, she made it work worth the doing; work that
enriched the world as well as the worker. It was her aim that teaching
should cease to be a mere trade—so many hours grudgingly given for so
much pay—and that it should take its true place as foremost among the
“learned professions,” in which excellence of work, and not work’s
reward, is the object of ambition.
From the time of her interview with the Commissioners in 1865, the idea
of making a public school for girls had been growing in her thoughts,
and, five years later, several of her own personal friends who shared
her feeling agreed to form a trust to ensure the permanence of the
system worked out with so much care.
The trust-deed was signed on July 26, 1870, by the Rev. Charles Lee, who
had succeeded the Rev. David Laing, at Holy Trinity, and by Dr. M. A.
Garvey and Mr. W. Timbrell Elliott. The Rev. A. J. Buss, who acted as
honorary secretary, and the Rev. S. Buss were also members of the Trust.
During the ensuing week the number was increased by the addition of Mrs.
Wm. Burbury, Mr. T. Harries, and Dr. Storrar, a member of the Schools
Inquiry Commission. During the next six months the Board was increased
by the election of Dr. Thorold, Mr. W. Danson, Mrs. Offord, Miss Ewart,
Miss Vincent Thompson, and myself.
Translated into plain fact, this trust-deed represents the transfer by
Miss Buss to the public of the results of twenty years’ labour. The
school was her own property, being merely under friendly supervision
from the St. Pancras’ clergy. The income was at her own disposal, and
out of school she was free to cultivate all the refined tastes with
which she was so richly endowed.
Until 1866 Miss Buss had remained with her father in Camden Street,
making no change in her life since her girlhood, and not even having a
banking account of her own. It had not occurred to any one that in
making the money she had any special right to it.
In this year it became desirable for her health that she should live
away from the school, and as Mr. Buss could not be induced to remove
from Camden Street, he remained there, in the care of a relative, while
Miss Buss went for a time to Mr. and Mrs. Septimus Buss, in Maitland
Park. But in 1868 it seemed necessary to prepare for the coming changes,
and she then took Myra Lodge, to which she removed the boarders who had
been under her supervision, though in the charge of Miss Mary Buss and
Miss Fawcett, at 15, Camden Street. She had to be prepared with some
alternative in case of failure; for on all sides she was warned against
a venture so rash as to be almost hopeless. Who was likely to send girls
to a “public school”? To make the experiment meant that the old
school—the work of so many years, and now a splendid success—must go.
What, then, would be left?
Success would mean the realization of the desire of her life—that
success which came at last after nine years of effort—success beyond all
hope. But in 1870 the experiment was more than doubtful, and the chance
of failure had to be boldly faced. She did not hesitate, and gave
herself to the labour of the new organization, with its anxiety,
struggles, and all the chances of failure. After having been all her
life her own mistress, she put herself under rule, and in addition to
the loss of personal freedom, she risked a present certainty, and the
prospect of future affluence, to accept for the next three years a
greatly diminished income with doubled or trebled work; giving up at the
same time assured honour and widespread reputation for misunderstanding,
suffering, and disappointment.
A letter written at the close of 1871, after a year of struggle, shows
how keenly she could feel these things—
“I am beginning to feel very hard and bitter. Were it not for
that Anchor to which alone one can cling, I should sometimes
lose all hope and faith. One gentleman, who can well afford £5,
who is largely mixed up with education, responds, in answer to
an appeal for that small sum, ‘Let Miss Buss do it; she has been
making heaps of money for years’! This is the general view, and
is one reason why I told you my name did no good, but rather the
reverse. At any time within the last ten years, having even then
a large connection and some reputation, I _could_ have ‘made
money;’ but how? By taking a grand house, a small number of
‘select’ pupils, offering fashionable accomplishments, and
asking high terms. In that case there would have been little
work and plenty of money! Even now, if I cut myself off from the
public schools, and lived in Myra Lodge, devoting myself to
twenty pupils, I could ‘make’ a good income, and live the life
of an independent lady!
“But as I have grown older the terrible sufferings of the women
of my own class, for want of good elementary training, have more
than ever intensified my earnest desire to lighten, ever so
little, the misery of women, brought up ‘to be married and taken
care of,’ and left alone in the world destitute. It is
impossible for words to express my fixed determination of
alleviating this evil—even to the small extent of one
neighbourhood only—were it only possible. If I could do without
salary I would; but it is literally true—although this is of
course to _you_ only—that I have to earn about £350 or £400 per
annum before there is anything for my own expenditure. This
house has been a great burden, but I hope it will pay in time; I
could not have surrendered the other place if I had not had
this, and that is why I undertook it.
“You see I, too, am growing very confidential!
“What work can do I have honestly tried to do. Money I have
never had to give, and if I had earned money as mentioned, I
should never have had the experience of numbers and consequent
sympathy.
“Pray destroy this note, and bury its contents in silence. You
can never know how much hope you have given me, as well as
practical help.”
Expecting that I should in the future write the story of this work, I
thought myself justified in not obeying this request, as now in breaking
the silence of four and twenty years.
Miss Buss began to work at eighteen, and worked till she was
sixty-eight, and she was one of the most successful women of her time;
but surprise is expressed that she could leave behind her the sum of
£18,000. Considering that her personal wants were very few, and that for
nearly twenty years she had £1300 a year from the school (£100 a year
and capitation fees) and from Myra Lodge not less than £2500, the wonder
rather is that she did not leave a great deal more. It is evident that
she must have spent largely, and it is certain that this expenditure was
not on herself.
As a point of principle—that good work should receive good pay—the
salaries in the Upper School are higher than in most schools.[5] As a
matter of principle also Miss Buss thought it right to make provision
for old age, as she did not mean to accept the pension which would have
been offered. And considering what she had been having, as well as the
accumulated claims of her generous life, this provision can surely not
be called extravagant.
Footnote 5:
“Some time ago I had occasion, on behalf of a joint committee of
head-mistresses and assistants of which I was a member, to make a
careful inquiry into the salaries of assistants, in the girls’ public
day schools, both endowed and proprietary. In the course of this
inquiry it came out that the North London Collegiate School _is able
to afford_, and does pay a higher average salary than any other of
those from which we obtained statistics.... The Camden School also
held its own, with salaries well above the means of those obtaining in
schools of its type.
“I agree in desiring the average salary to be much higher than it is
for assistant-mistresses and assistant-masters too. But I claim for
the great leader who has passed from amongst us, that in this matter
she has given the true lead.”—Letter from Mrs. Bryant, _Educational
Times_, March, 1895.
But in 1870 she had not begun to save on any large scale. And for the
next three years her gifts to the new movement were out of all
proportion to her receipts, while she was credited with the possession
of means that were non-existent, as well as with a salary which she
declined to take, knowing that the money was needed for working
expenses.
Myra Lodge, though at first an anxiety, was before long not merely a
success, but also a help to the school. In a note written at the end of
1873 Miss Buss remarks—
“It seems that I have paid from Myra, _in fees_ (paid by her for
her boarders), just about £850 in these three years: £200, £232,
and £410, and I have received in all (from the school) £1600. So
your head-mistress has not been a costly article!”
Counting the value of furniture, as well as the balance of salary not
accepted, Miss Buss gave during this period not less than £1000, besides
paying the £850 in fees from Myra. After the removal of the Upper School
from 202, Camden Road, as the lease was still in her possession, she
supervised a Preparatory School, the profits of which—£1500 in all—she
handed over to the governing body, thus supplying funds for the
gymnasium. Nor was this all; she made in addition to these gifts several
very helpful loans, without which the work must have come to a
standstill. Early in 1873 an entry on the minutes records the thanks of
the Governors—
“The Board wish to record their strong sense of the generosity
and public spirit shown by Miss Buss, when she last year pressed
the Board to take on mortgage the ground and building in Sandall
Road, for the enlargement of the North London Collegiate School,
and when, in March last, she proposed that a considerable sum
should be laid out in enlarging the building in Sandall Road;
Miss Buss in both cases sacrificing the additional income which
would have been hers, and undertaking at the same time still
greater responsibility and harder work.”
Under the new scheme Miss Buss’ own school remained as the Upper School,
but was removed to 202, Camden Road, leaving the former premises in
Camden Street, with most of the furniture and “school plant,” for the
new Lower School, of which the fees were fixed at £4 4_s._ per annum,
for a thorough education up to the age of sixteen years.
All the provisions of the scheme were in accordance with those proposed
by the Endowed Schools Commission, and it was intended that the fees
should meet only the working expenses, the buildings being supplied by
some endowment. For the Lower, or Camden School, the sum of £5000 was
considered sufficient, and it was not unnaturally imagined that this
moderate amount might be supplied by the same generous public which had
given £60,000 for a similar school for boys. For the Upper School only
£1000 was asked to supply the furniture left behind in Camden Street,
for the use of the Lower School.
In September, 1871, Miss Buss says of the Camden School—
“No furniture has been paid for at all; the school is poorly
supplied, and the teachers are badly paid. Instead of being rent
free, we pay £115 per annum, and rates, amounting at least to
£20 more.
“It is clear to me that all such schools need—First, to be rent
free; second, to have an endowment, largish or small, to keep
the buildings in repair and to offer scholarships; third, to
have all the school furniture and fittings given. Then, but not
till then, can the teachers be fairly paid, and the trustees
free from anxiety. For such a purpose, I imagine five or six
thousand pounds are wanted—say, £4000 for building, £1000 for
furniture, apparatus, and the rest for repairs, etc.
“For the Higher School the same kind of thing is wanted, only on
a more extensive scale, as furniture and fittings must be more
expensive. The higher fees would still be required to meet the
demand for higher teaching. According to my notions, gymnasiums
are needed for every school, and large places for swimming.”
But at the first start how natural it seemed to expect the small amount
of help which should do so much! “What we now want is funds!” And those
very modest sums then formed the total of this requirement. She asked no
more for the fulfilment of that early dream, “I want girls educated to
match their brothers.” Everything was there except the funds. The
educational system had been tested by experience and stamped by success;
the teacher, fitted at all points, was ready for work. Friends were
ready with time and thought to help in carrying out the work. Having
thus all the important essentials, who could doubt that the rest must
follow?
In our own enthusiasm for Miss Buss and her work it seemed to Miss Jones
and to me that all that was needed was to make the case known. We were
both accustomed to the use of our pens, and placed ourselves at Miss
Buss’ service, beginning first by an appeal to our own personal friends,
with enough of success at the outset to justify our going on. But we
soon discovered that beyond this range things were of a different order.
I had seen so much of the kindness shown by Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall to
all sorts of philanthropic effort that I fully counted on their help. In
addition to the _Art Journal_, Mr. Hall was editor of _Social Notes_,
and Mrs. Hall had not given up the _St. James’ Magazine_; so that we saw
here our way to a wider public.
The reply to my appeal seems worth giving _in extenso_, as a measure of
the public opinion of that day. If a woman who had made her own mark on
the world in ways out of the beaten track, could so write, what must
have been the feeling of the average woman, to say nothing of the
narrowminded and ignorant? Mrs. Hall was, besides, amongst the foremost
who showed interest in higher education in being one of the earliest of
the lady-visitors at Queen’s College.
Here is the letter—
“15, Ashley Place, Oct. 31, 1870.
“MY DEAR ANNIE,
“I dare say you learned a good deal at the Social Science
meetings. But women have no business on platforms. They have
enough, and more than they can accomplish, in performing the
duties which God and Nature have assigned them....
“I too am most anxious to find employment for women, and would
give every female, rich or poor, a _trade_—call it a profession
if you like—so that she could help herself. But this is not to
be done by sending her to _College Examinations_.
“There are not a greater set of ‘_muffs_’ and extravagant
fellows in life than our College lads. It is not by _them_ that
the _business_ of _life_ is carried on. Do you want to educate
girls in the ‘arts’ as practised in the Universities?
“I have no fault to find with the arrangements of the
_Lower_ School, except its incompetence to provide the means
which will enable women to exist. They should be taught
trades—painting on glass and china; hair-weaving; certain
branches of watchmaking (as abroad); confectionery;
_cooking_—each half-dozen going into training for this at
least once a week; clear-starching;—_trades_, in fact. When
I was a girl I went down once a week into the housekeeper’s
room to see how jellies and blanc-mange, soups, and pastry
were made; to learn the quantities _and help to do all she
did_.
“This did not prevent my accomplishments going on; or my riding
and enjoying all the amusements a country girl could have.
“If a revolution came I know I could have found pupils to teach
French and music to. I could have made a good nurse, or
housekeeper, or clear-starcher.
“I would also have every boy and girl learn the Latin grammar
first, or at the same time as the English. In law-copying, for
instance, which young women should be trained in later,
knowledge of Latin is invaluable.
“No; dear Mrs. Laing never told me of Miss Buss’ new plans. She
is really so good and right-thinking a woman that I wonder how
she would give the sanction of her practical name to any plan
embracing ‘College Examinations,’ by way of making women useful
or bread-earning members of society. Better, more useful
education in what can be more practically useful, without being
unsexed, is what they want, but are not likely to get while such
women as Emily Faithfull lead the van.
“I saw some time ago you were restless and uncertain on the
question of Woman’s Rights, which might almost be defined as
Man’s Wrongs. _Your_ head would work you up at one of the
Cambridge Examinations, and now and then work up a clever woman,
but what good was to arise from that if a revolution came I
cannot understand!
“I should, indeed, be astonished if your father ‘went in’ for
College Examinations for girls!
“I hope you will not endeavour to enlist X——’s sympathies in
College Examinations for women. Dear darling! any strong-minded
notions would be a source of trial to her admirable husband, and
do her no good.
“I am sorry you have taken up this matter.
“Yours sincerely,
“A. M. HALL.
“I shall have a great deal more to say on this matter hereafter,
if I live.”
This letter was as discouraging as it was unexpected. But I bided my
time. Happily, Miss Jones had succeeded better. She not only received a
donation of £30 from Miss Caroline Haddon, but Mrs. Offord, Miss
Haddon’s sister, became a member of the Board, and by her practical
knowledge gave a sympathy most helpful to Miss Buss. Hearty adherence
had also been secured from Mr. E. C. Robins, a successful architect, who
made schools his _spécialité_. Both Mr. and Mrs. Robins proved valuable
friends to Miss Buss’ work, as they have since done to the Hampstead
High School, to the New Technical Schools, and the Hampstead Branch of
the Parents’ Union, started by themselves.
Mr. Robins first of all demanded a personal statement of her needs from
Miss Buss, as he said—
“We are interested in _her_; in _her_ experience; in _her_
aspirations;—we want to know her ultimate aims. We want a sketch
contrasting what is provided for middle-class boys with what is
provided for middle-class girls; also how this particular scheme
is likely to effect the desired result.”
This paper was accordingly drawn up, with Miss Buss, Mrs. Robins, Miss
Jones, and myself as honorary secretaries, and we confidently expected
to get the £1000 which was then the modest limit of our hopes.
Soon after this all the friends of the movement were gathered together
at a drawing-room meeting at Myra Lodge, that they might see Miss Buss,
and hear from herself of her plans. Her notes at this time are in
curious contrast with those written nine years after in the height of
her fame—
“Nov. 20, 1870.
“MY DEAR MISS RIDLEY,
“Many thanks for your note; you have worked hard and
successfully. I have invited several people, but as yet the
number of acceptances only amount to fourteen.
“Mrs. De Morgan is interesting people in one plan.
“I hardly think we ought to ask Miss Garrett just _now_; she is
almost worn out with meetings, having been obliged to attend two
and even three a day, since the election excitement began.
“My notion is to get a mixed meeting, in Camden Street, the week
after next, and then we can have speeches from the gentlemen.
“I am hopeful about next Wednesday’s meeting; the thing is to
interest women, and to convince some of them of the necessity of
schools for girls. Then to answer as far as possible any
objections so that they may be armed to meet them.
“I have to go to a Council meeting in Queen’s Square, so am
rather hurried.
“Yours sincerely,
“FRANCES M. BUSS.”
“Myra Lodge, Dec. 1, 1870.
“DEAR AGNES,
“Will you and Miss Ridley make up a list of the names and
addresses of the ladies present at our meeting yesterday? Your
lists and mine will probably complete the number.
“Were you content? I thought it a great success to have so many
ladies. Including everyone, there must have been forty-two or
forty-three.
“There had been a meeting of trustees yesterday, when it was
decided that we should hold a parents’ meeting at Camden Street
next week, and a public meeting in the Vestry Hall the week
after. That is why I could not announce a meeting for next week.
“With love and best thanks,
“I am, yours affectionately,
“FRANCES M. BUSS.”
Certainly the thing then needed was “to interest women” generally in the
subject. There were, of course, a certain number of women deeply
interested in everything relating to the status of women, educational or
political. But at that special time these two groups were fully
occupied, the one with Miss Davies’ new venture at Hitchin, and the
other with Miss Garrett’s election on the School Board. These two ladies
themselves took full interest in Miss Buss’ plans, as she did in theirs.
But they all needed funds from the outside public, and demand and supply
were far from being equal.
Public opinion in 1870 was very much what it had been in 1849, and to
most persons the stir about improved education for women seemed very
unnecessary. Most women were quite satisfied with their own girls, and
did not trouble about the rest; and till women cared about the subject,
it could scarcely be expected that men would rouse themselves. Thus, out
of London’s millions those really concerned in this question might be
counted by hundreds, and persons who for objects that really interested
them would give hundreds, or even thousands, thought themselves very
generous if they gave units or tens to the new movement.
Nothing could show more clearly the indifference of the public to higher
education than the insignificance of the details of the work of the next
two years. They may, however, be worth noting, on the principle on which
the mother treasures the baby-shoes once belonging to the strong man,
who, since those first uncertain efforts, has left deep “footprints in
the sands of time.”
The year 1870 ended with what was then a very great and important
event—one of the very first public meetings concerning the education of
girls—held at the St. Pancras Vestry Hall, under the presidency of Lord
Lyttelton. Very considerable interest seemed to be excited in the larger
world outside the immediate circle of friends, and hopes rose. One
important practical issue came immediately in the addition to the
governing body of the Rev. A. W. Thorold, Vicar of St. Pancras
(afterwards Bishop of Rochester and of Winchester). Both in his official
capacity, and as having been a member of the Schools Inquiry Commission,
Dr. Thorold was a most valuable supporter of the work.
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