“in honour preferring one another.”
“the relationship between head-mistress and teachers was surely most unique, for miss buss seemed never to tire of having her teachers about her, and even in the holidays they were constantly at her country house.”
so writes one of the members of the staff, whose knowledge dates from the time when she was a “very naughty little girl of seven, constantly sent into the ‘parlour,’” where she hid behind the door, waiting till, with a pained expression, never forgotten in all these years, miss buss would turn to say, “marion, here again! i am so sorry,” and then take the weeping child on her lap, and talk till she could be sent away with the kiss that made her happy as well as good.
that this loving influence was successful is proved by the sequel—
“one day, to my great surprise, miss buss asked me if i would like to become a teacher in the school! what i should have missed in my life if i had refused i dare not think, for, from that day to this, it has been a life-long pleasure to be with her, to share in even so small a degree her work, and, above all, to feel her inspiration!”
and so many more of the staff had, in like manner, 167been pupils that the habit of “mothering” them went on, and was quite naturally extended to new-comers.
from another of the staff we have, in three scenes, a life-story. the first shows miss buss at her happiest with a little child—
“i cannot tell you how much i owe her—nearly everything, i think, that makes life worth living. i do not remember any time in my life when her name was not to me a loved and honoured one.
“my sister was a pupil of the school before me, and when i was quite little i remember longing for my tenth birthday, when i should be old enough to go there myself. i did not, as a matter of fact, go till several years later, as i was rather a delicate child. my first introduction to miss buss must have been when i was very small, for my sister used to tell me how she took me into the office, and how miss buss set me on the table before her and put my two little feet together, as she told me i was not quite ready for her class just yet. how like that is to her way with little children! i think i must have loved her from that very time!”
the child is a woman grown as we see her again—
“i was in great trouble and perplexity, and in the midst of it went to spend my holidays with miss buss at fécamp. it was nearly midnight when we reached her, but she was sitting up for us, with some hot soup ready, and everything was thought of as it might have been by my own mother. i had no mother then; but when miss buss took off my wraps with her own hands, and folded me in her arms, i felt that a second mother had indeed been given to me. perhaps i felt this the more because i was with her at herne bay when the news came of my own mother’s sudden death. it was a sunday morning, and the trains would not allow of my going home till later in the day. it would have been a terrible time but for miss buss’ tenderness. she seemed to feel with me as if the loss were her own. i shall never, never forget it.”
in sorrow, in joy, or in disappointment she was ever ready with comfort, with sympathy, and with cheer. the third scene is given in a letter, sent with the remark: “how characteristic it was of her warm sympathy with all with whom she had to do”—
168“nov., 1881.
“my dear emily,
“old pupil and friend of so many years! i send you my warmest congratulations. i am very glad for you and our dear friend mrs. bryant, also for florence eves and constance dicker.
“it seems to us short-sighted mortals that it would be desirable to have our pleasures unmixed, but it never is so. my pleasure is alloyed by my dear r——’s and e——’s failure, and yours by the absence of your dear mother! but ‘all things work together for good,’ if we will but believe.
“always yours lovingly,
“frances m. buss.
“to miss emily findon, b.a.”
equally to the point is another note, of which the recipient says: “the whole tone was so strong and so strengthening, so different from the many letters of kind, but more or less worrying, sympathy received at the time”—
“schlangenbad.
“my dear a——,
“i am very sorry to hear that you and x—— have failed to get through the ‘intermediate.’ i send you my love and sympathy. do not fret. you will succeed later on, when, as i hope, you will try again; and your knowledge will be all the firmer for having to work longer.
“you will, no doubt, carry out the proposed plan, viz. go to cambridge for a year, and leave the degree till after? you will have a very happy time at cambridge, i know.
“have you heard how y—— is getting on in sweden? how well i remember my delightful holiday there.”
and with an account of life at a german spa, and messages to other members of the family, the letter ends, hopeful and cheery.
it was always delightful to watch miss buss with those of her former “children” who had expanded into the dignity of b.a., or b.sc., and were entitled to wear the gown and “mortar-board” appertaining to this new rank. no mother ever took more interest in her girls’ 169first party frock or presentation robes than did miss buss in those early days in the then quite novel attire of her “girl-graduates.” mrs. bryant had not been a pupil in the school, but she was young enough to pass for one, and the sight of her gorgeous gold-and-scarlet doctor’s gown was a supreme joy to her older friend, to whom no such distinction had been possible in her own young days. there was never a touch of envy or of selfish regret in this sympathy with the winners of the honours for which she herself had longed in vain—no, not in vain, since that longing had helped to open the way to those who had since outstripped her in the race. miss toplis, in her sketch of miss buss, in the educational review, calls attention to—
“two characteristics which may perhaps be known only to those in daily contact with her. one was that jealousy and selfishness were impossible to her nature; the other, her power of living in the lives of others. the success or distinction of friend or colleague was one of her greatest pleasures. no one could share such pleasures as miss buss did, and the loss of her ever-ready sympathy in joy or sorrow is one of the realities we cannot yet face.”
in such sympathy, miss buss certainly well earned the right to the exaltation expressed in a postscript to a letter on “guild” work to mr. garrod, when she says, apropos of the recent success of miss philippa fawcett at cambridge, “thank god, we have abolished sex in education!”
there are some amusing little touches of the purely feminine in connection with these first academic gowns and hoods, which were presented by the staff to its first graduates at a fancy-dress ball given by miss buss in honour of the occasion. the hoods were made among themselves, the pattern being taken from that of sir philip magnus, in the intervals of his inspection 170of the school. mrs. bryant cut them out, and the pieces left over of the yellow and brown silk are still in the drawer where thrifty housewives keep their pieces.
it may be imagined that no small excitement prevailed among the girl-graduates about the first public appearance at burlington house in the full dress. on the first occasion of the presentation of degrees to women, the shy counsel prevailed, and the ladies went up in their usual garb. the next step is thus described by mrs. bryant—
“but the following year we called a meeting to settle among ourselves, if possible unanimously, the course to be pursued. i confess i resented the idea of being denied my academicals as much as i have thought it hard to appear as a number only in the senior cambridge lists years before. there was much hesitation on the part of several, however, but in the end i was instructed to write to the registrar enclosing our resolution to wear the academic dress if no objection to this course was made by the senate. there was no lack of comedy in the situation—consulting a body of staid and serious gentlemen as to whether we should or should not wear the robes to which we were entitled by the university regulations. however, it was necessary to allay all doubt, and the message from the senate received in reply settled the question for that time and henceforth. we have often smiled over these little incidents, seeing what universal approval was at once won for our ‘gowns and hoods.’ and at school, on festive days, when these are worn, the poor cambridge graduates—graduates in all but name—grieve because they have no such symbol with which to deck—it does not veil—their femininity.”
it may not be out of place here to give some extracts from letters to miss buss from mrs. william grey which show how needlework is regarded by the leading educationalists. speaking of the maria grey training school (in connection with the college), mrs. grey writes—
“rome, nov. 27, 1880.
“i also wish to give a yearly prize of ￡2 to the school for two subjects. you have suggested botany and needlework. but as 171i know nothing of botany, and have always said that needlework should be taught at home to girls above the elementary school class, i should prefer english or french. if, however, you have a special reason for wishing for a botany prize, i will at once agree to that instead of the french.”
“h?tel du louvre, rome, jan. 7, 1882.
“your pleasant and affectionate letter reached me some days ago. the kind feeling you express warms one’s heart, at this distance from home, when one feels very acutely too often that one has drifted away from all who know, or care, or are cared for. one’s life feels so useless, and the current of life seems so strong in england that those who can no longer go on with it have a sense of isolation which kind words like yours break in upon most soothingly.
“i wanted to tell you that you have nearly, if not quite, converted me to the needlework in schools to which i have always been opposed on our council—not from any want of realizing the importance of the art, but because it is one that ought to be taught at home. i was a great worker till a few years ago. in all our young days we made everything we wore, and i was so fond of embroidery that i scarcely trusted myself to look at it in the morning, lest i should be tempted to waste my time upon it. i tell you this that you may see how little likely i am to undervalue the art; and if mothers are so foolish or so ignorant as not to teach it, then, sooner than leave it untaught, i acknowledge that we ought to take it up.
“but with our scanty time and overcrowded subjects, the difficulty is very great. this reminds me of what i thought a good thing in the st. martin’s lane school—and i believe it was your friend miss doreck who established it—and that was a prize for the best piece of needlework done in the holidays. that stirs mothers as well as daughters.”
those who were inside the university movement had many a quiet laugh over the baseless terrors of the outsiders who prophesied the dire results to arise from the possession of degrees by women. i remember the appreciation with which miss buss repeated a story she had just heard from one of her girls, who had gone to a dance shortly after gaining her b.a. degree, whilst 172the subject was still matter for talk. her partner, feeling himself quite safe with this peculiarly fair, sweet, girlish-looking girl, in her pretty evening frock, had made himself merry over the lady-graduates, winding up with the remark, “there is always something quite unmistakable about them, don’t you know! you can’t fail to spot them at a glance!” his very amiable partner only replied gently, “do you think so?”
but one of her friends proved less merciful, and the poor young man found himself in a position to sympathize with another victim, also at an evening party, who had been for some time talking, without knowing it, to the fair winner of a prize essay on some abstruse point of law. when at last he discovered her name, the shock was so great that, without waiting to collect himself, he blurted out, “what! you miss orme? why, i thought you hadn’t an idea in your head!”—a remark naturally treasured by that lady as one of her most cherished compliments.
to those who are familiar with life at the north london collegiate schools, knowing the relations already indicated between the head-mistress and her staff, there is something of the same entertainment in one of the press notices relating to miss buss and her work—almost the only notice not wholly sympathetic. it did, indeed, do full justice to her exceptional qualities, but it concludes with a remark worthy of preservation as a valuable fossil for future explorers into the early history of the new education. the reviewer feels that he “cannot let the vague sentiment occasioned by her death pass without an honest criticism of her work,” thus concluding this criticism—
“it is perfectly true that ‘the influence of her work stretched beyond her own two schools,’ as the times says; but perhaps there has been as much loss as gain in this. the movement for 173founding ‘high schools for girls’ spread, and miss buss’ establishments were the models; the consequence is that a high school education only fits a girl to be a high school teacher—and she could scarcely choose a worse calling.”
it must be inconsistent with the dignity of a “saturday reviewer” to explain himself, since this writer remorselessly leaves the whole class of high school teachers—including, of course, those of the “model establishments”—under the ban of this hopeless condemnation.
it could be wished that this critic might have gone over at least two of the schools thus judged, and have been present at some of the varied “functions,” when the head-mistress was found in the midst of her “children.” the teachers holding their classes might possibly have failed to please him, since he still holds the belief in “sex in education”; but the girlish laughter of the gymnasium, where it was difficult to distinguish teacher from pupil, would have rung in his ears with a pleasant chime; or that same gymnasium on “founder’s day,” with its show of useful garments for the poor, and of ingeniously constructed toys for the children of the hospitals, would have been a sight to the credit alike of teachers and taught; or, again, if lucky enough to witness a performance of the amateur dramatic club—an association among the teachers—he might have gone away comforted by the knowledge that girlish grace and brightness, as well as womanly thought and goodness, are not the exclusive prerogative of women outside the new public schools for girls.
one of the members of the amateur dramatic club writes—
“nowhere was miss buss’ organizing power more visible to us girls than as stage-manager. in the summer of 1882, for the last time, the sixth form gave tableaux vivants on two or three 174consecutive days. miss buss herself said she could not undertake them again, as the preparation fell too heavily on her and the staff at the end of the summer term. for us, after our london matriculation examination it was only rest and pleasure. they were a brilliant success; and miss buss praised us openly for the way in which we had worked for each other, and the pleasure we had shown in each other’s parts. looking back, i am convinced that it was to her that we owed the kindly spirit which did indeed animate us, and still brings back that summer as a delightful memory. it would indeed have been difficult to quarrel when she was working her hardest to make each one enjoy herself.”
very far indeed from dull or prosy were the associations of school or college to these girls. here is one bit of fun, from some “tableaux” given in 1869, for the benefit of hitchin, which realized ￡13. at the close of a series of very artistic pictures, the curtain rose on a concourse of european nations, and britannia, coming to life, advanced to the front, with an appeal written by an “old girl,” an appeal not quite obsolete even in our day—
“there was an old woman who lived in her shoe,
she had so many daughters she didn’t know what to do;
for they all of them possibly couldn’t be wed,
so she gave them a good education instead.
(ruefully) but alas and alack for that poor old dame,
the better she taught them the faster they came!
(solemnly) hark to the echo of ‘sublime despair’
that sobs along the mournful wintry air!
(distant chorus of girls’ voices.)
we’ve got no work to do,
we’ve got no work to do,
we’ve done our hair,
and we declare
we’ve nothing else to do!
(air, ‘molly bawn.’)
ye college dons, why leave us pining,
sure there’ll be classes for us too;
ne’er deem bright eyes more bright are shining
because they’ve nothing else to do.”
175of the graver side of their work, and as giving an idea of the kind of relation existing between miss buss and her “dear colleagues,” or “dear fellow-workers,” as she loved to call them, mrs. bryant gives us an outline, which lets us see not merely the workers themselves, but also the high quality of their work—
“i have been asked to write some account of these latter—perhaps we might call them triumphant—years of my dear friend’s life-work, as i saw them in the light of my close connection with her, and the marvellous friendship she extended to me. these were the years when she had entered, in one sense, into the fruits of her labours. the school she founded had become a public school—‘miss buss’ school’ still—but immortalized. the women’s educational movement, in the moulding of which she had been a potent force, had taken shape, and was moving to its goal—that goal of equal opportunity with the hitherto more favoured sex, which we younger women are apt to regard as our natural birthright, although we have not entirely secured it yet. there were many worries for her still, and very much work on educational problems; but as regards the general question of the education of girls, the critical turnings on the road were practically passed when i joined it, and to reverse the course of our educational efforts would have been like turning back the thames at—well, not london bridge—say, maidenhead.
“in 1875, the future of women was, i believe, much more certain than it appeared. it may be that i think this because it was always taken so much as a matter of course in the logic of my family circle. it had never been suggested to me in my life that i had not an equal birthright to knowledge with my brother. hence it happened most naturally that i was an early candidate for the senior local examinations, out of which came my acquaintance with miss emily davies, and afterwards with miss buss. i remember seeing her among her girls in the intervals of the examination; and she, as i afterwards learned, was interested in the girl whose chief subject was mathematics. our family birthright was specially in mathematics, and all of us, boys and girls, grew up to cultivate that soil. i dwell on this fact here because it was as a woman who could teach mathematics that miss buss first sent for me. she believed that young girls should be taught by women, and she wanted to build up mathematical studies.
176“presently a time came when i resolved, not to do a little teaching, but to throw my whole life into the work of education. especially i wanted to teach girls mathematics. i thought that women’s lives would be happier and sounder if they had, as a matter of course, their fair share of the sterner intellectual discipline that had been such a joy to me. my father was a born teacher and an educational enthusiast. moreover, to his scientific habit of mind it was as natural to regard teaching as a scientific art as to believe that girls should be fully educated. my feeling about these things was, in the first instance, the continuation of his. then i was early a disciple, in matters philosophical, of the great mill; and my first definite idea of a science of education, comparable in practical efficiency to the science of medicine, was built up out of a suggestion in the pages of his great work on logic. i had just begun to be a student of psychology, and was so profoundly interested in problems of life and character that i was strongly drawn to turn my taste for scribbling, then very strong, to writing novels of a serious workmanlike kind. however, i was resolved that they must be first-rate novels, and i had doubts—wise doubts—that i could count on myself for such. but in education the work was sure to be good world-building work, however humble, if honestly done, and my interest in psychology could take practical shape in it. so i resolved to leave the pen for leisure moments, to take to blackboard and chalk instead, and thus to work out real results in thought and character—that is, if i could get the chance. and presently the best of all chances was given. an old pupil of the camden street school had been a student with me at bedford college, and from her i obtained an introduction—a great boon, i thought it—to the founder and head of the north london collegiate school.
“so i first saw miss buss in her own home, in the drawing-room of myra lodge, gracious, dignified, strong of head, tender of heart, as i ever knew her afterwards. she gave me an hour or more of her precious time, and explained to me clearly and graphically, as she was wont, the then present position of affairs as regarded the education of girls and the prospects of teaching as a professional career. great was her zeal at all times, and her ambition in the cause of the women who work for their living, and so she laid stress on the new opportunities for making a position and an ample income that the educational demand was opening up to women, a profession with a few great prizes and many smaller ones having taken the place of the resident governess’ 177limited outlook. so she told me about the new endowed schools for girls, and, among other things, that the great prize (financially speaking) would be the projected st. paul’s school for girls, the mistress of which would have a salary rising to as much as ￡2000 a year. alas! that was a project which is only a project still, and the north london collegiate school remains, as it was twenty years ago, at the high-water mark of remuneration for women’s labour. it was her view that, for the dignity and efficiency of teaching in this branch and for the good of women-workers generally, there should be many more prizes at least as great, and at all times she was much concerned that reasonably good salaries should be secured, especially for that class of assistant teachers who remain at work for the best part of their lives.
“but the central interest of that first conversation turned, to my mind, upon the expression of her views about the importance of teachers being trained for their work. it seemed to her so obvious that she who undertakes to carry out an undertaking so delicate and difficult as that of education should first make as careful a study as might be of the end to be attained and the means of attaining it, and should be trained as an artist is trained in the technique and spirit of his work. she was, above all things, practical, and her feeling in the matter was of practical origin, while my feeling, which coincided with it, sprang rather from a theoretical root. she was an artist’s daughter, and her method of judgment was largely the artistic method. she saw her problems whole, as concrete ends to be gained, and she found her way to them intuitively as she went on. she always saw truth in the concrete, and was so little doctrinaire herself that the doctrinaire character in other people did not rouse her antipathy and interfere with her perception of merit in their theories. it is the pure theorists who are most impatient of each other.
“the great artist zealous for his work, and intent on its perfection, is eager to learn all he can about it—to assimilate the wisdom of other workers in his field, to think about it in all its bearings, to learn to see, to practise, to be criticized, to be trained. this, i take it, was the attitude of mind in which frances mary buss some forty years ago, conceived the idea of training for teachers as a universal need from which secondary teachers should not be exempt. before the school in kentish town was opened, mrs. buss went to the home and colonial training college and put herself through the training of the elementary teacher. one may well wonder whether any other woman in the same rank about to 178open a small private school ever dreamed of such a preparation as needful. but to these two, mother and daughter, it seemed simply essential, and when the school developed, and they had a staff of teachers, they thought it necessary not to be content with the training they themselves could give in the school ways, but applied to have a department for secondary teachers opened at the home and colonial college. this was done solely for the benefit of ‘miss buss’ teachers’ at first, though others came in time. greatest among those others was miss clough.
“this little history of the idea of training, as miss buss held it first, is characteristic of her attitude on the subject throughout. she thought it essential, and at the same time so great and special a work, that it ought to be undertaken by those who made a special business of it, and not by the heads of schools whose special business was something else. she felt the need of it as an artist in her work, she sought to have it supplied in the spirit of the administrator by the foundation of institutions for it.
“to these lectures miss buss sent all the young teachers whom she could induce to go. very often, i suppose, they resisted the light, as, in the pride of youth and eagerness to be doing, they resist the light of the training college still. in eagerness and self-confidence i was probably equal to most, but i had been theorizing about education on my own account, and was very sensible of the darkness. so when she told me about the college of preceptors and mr. payne, she showed me what i was looking for, and i eagerly accepted the suggestion of attending the lectures. she told me afterwards how much she was pleased with my ready interest. it was indeed at this point that our minds first met. and perhaps this was partly why, when she brought me into the hall to let me out herself, she first held out her hand and then looking at me in the way her girls so well know, she suddenly took me in her arms and kissed me. but chiefly it was an impulse of motherly tenderness that prompted her. i was young and had suffered.
“this was in january, before school opened. in february, she sent for me to come twice a week and teach mathematics. the school was in 202, camden road, then, and there were 300 girls. miss armstead and miss lyndon were in the first class i ever taught. they were great friends, but had agreed not to sit together, so that they might escape the temptation of talking. i had never been inside a school before, and had no idea what girls other than i had been were like intellectually. i might well feel modest 179about the need of training in the technique of managing a class, the one thing in which the college of preceptors’ lectures did not specially help me. but the girls were very good, and did not ‘try it on,’ with one exception, and she used to be sorry, and apologize of her own accord. i remember being wonderfully impressed by the high tone of feeling that prevailed, the absence of petty jealousies, the trustworthiness of the girls, and the confidence placed in them about marks and conduct. over all the head-mistress was as a second conscience. nothing mean, petty, or egotistic could survive contact with the fresh bracing air of her personality. i was very new and very inexperienced in school ways; she had her little anxieties about me, and used to look after my classes a good deal at first. all young teachers know what this feels like, but it was a great help none the less, and we must all win our spurs before we get them. except those who remained of the original staff, i was the only teacher there who had not been a pupil.
“soon i came for all my time, and taught german. but the demand for mathematics grew as the teaching developed, and before long all my teaching time was absorbed in this stricter intellectual discipline of the north london girl. it is perhaps a digression, but i may mention that the first genius i found was sara annie burstall. with miss buss as a head-mistress, and such a pupil as that, and many more to love and help, i began to be happy in those days.
“as the school and its head became more and more to me, i grew into that position in relation to both which enables me to give some account of my dear friend’s mind and practice, first as shown in the inner work of the north london collegiate school during these later years, and secondly in relation to the various phases of the educational movement outside.
“in the head-mistress’ room at the north london collegiate school there was in leisure moments always likely to be going on discussion of many things other than the immediate business of education in the school. it was indeed a noteworthy fact that so much concentration of work and interest in such an effort as the creation of this great school out of the void that preceded it, should have gone with so wide an extension of interest in other fields, and these not educational fields only. one delightful bond of sympathy between miss buss and me was our common interest in public affairs, and the harmony of our political opinions. how eagerly she looked for news in stirring times! how heartily she threw herself 180into the questions of the day! and how she enjoyed a good political discussion! she was thoroughly imbued with the fine civic spirit, and for my part i believe this contact of her mind with the issues of life on a larger—even though rougher—scale, was invaluable for the health of the school-life, as a corrective to the narrow scholastic spirit which so easily banishes the fresh air from schools, and possibly sometimes even from universities. it is not the particular opinions that tell, it is the contact with genuine public spirit in any shape.
“but it is with the educational interests and the outer circles of her life in connection with them that we have here to do. in all her work she had her eye always on the larger issues. the north london collegiate school was never out of perspective in the mental picture of the educational field. no other educational leader has worked with more devotion to one special institution, but though it was the centre of her practical world it never usurped the place of centre in her vision. and for this very reason it was at the central source of many educational movements, because she was in it, and was also at the very heart of them.
“the first place among these may be given to the education of women in all its phases. but concern for the cultivation and spread of educational principles and the professional training of the teacher lay scarcely less near her heart. during the later years, this occupied even more of her attention, and she never had ‘women only’ in her mind. then it was in the very nature of her that she should be greatly exercised by the politico-educational problems before they rose at all above the horizon of the regular scholastic mind. i wonder how many schoolmasters in england came to look into the question of welsh intermediate education, its creation and organization, when the earliest welsh education bills came before the house of commons. but we used to discuss these things in those days over our midday meal, and debate on the analogy, or want of analogy, with the english problem. the last piece of public work she did was to answer the queries sent to educationalists by the royal commission on secondary education. she was too ill then to give evidence before the commission, too ill to have answered these queries if the ideas of them had been new to her, but she had known her mind about them clearly in the days of her strength, and it was easy to go over familiar ground once more. it was so familiar to her that it was familiar ground to me too; i knew her opinions as well as i knew my own (or better, in so far as they were more determinate).”
