“no one who has been brought into contact with miss buss, no one who has even seen her portrait, can have failed to be struck by her transparent integrity, her absolute sincerity, her single-mindedness of purpose. however much one might differ from her on a question of policy, one felt certain that the judgment was never warped by personal bias, that it was never prompted by ambition or jealousy, or any vulgar motive.... as an organizer she was unrivalled.”—journal of education, january, 1895.
the summary of miss buss’ practical work, for which i am so deeply indebted to mrs. bryant, is best given in her own words, with merely an interpolation illustrating that law of order on which these schools are so firmly based.
mrs. bryant begins with an important reminder—
“teachers are not inapt to forget that the most important factor in education is the personality of the learner. the next most important is the personality of the teacher. so far as others make our education for us, the mind of the educator is more important by far than his method. and this is the more true the greater the teacher.
“of frances mary buss this was specially true, so much was intuition and sympathy in the concrete inwoven with her thoughts on the educational ideal. the ideal of her action was an emanation of her nature 216as a whole, not a pure product of thought. she could have told many things about it, but she could not tell it all. her vision was wide, but her wisdom was wider. hence there never was any danger that her mind would harden into a net of secondary principles in the solution of any individual problem. practical questions were always unique, each one in itself, to her; and, rapid as she was in action, she could give time to deliberation and careful thought.
“to understand, therefore, the ideal of education under which so much good work has been done, we need to understand, not a theory true once for all, but the type of mind that is creative of right ideas as occasion requires. nor is a subtle delineation of character needed here. the leading features are well marked, and a brief sketch may give the clearest conception.
“breadth and elasticity of imagination, indomitable energy of will, boundless faith, unwearied sympathy—these are the great facts of character which lie behind her work and mark its ideals. they are all very obvious facts, but the first named, in the nature of the case, though the rarest and most remarkable, is the easiest to miss in its full significance. one clear mark of it is the memory she has left with each of her friends, of being interested specially in that phase of thought and work which she shared with them. the effect of it on her educational work was that extraordinary catholicity of view which distinguished her, and through her has influenced in many ways the theory of the girls’ school, and the tone of the educational question in the days which follow her.
“one phase of this catholic way of looking at things was her insistence, always very emphatic, on the idea that school and the teacher have to do in some way or other with the whole of life. she would not allow it to 217be supposed that any condition of the well-being and good growth of her pupils was no concern of hers. i do not mean that she at all denied the function of the home in education. on the contrary, she attached the greatest weight to it, but she held that whether the home did its duty or not it was the business of the school to aim at supplying conditions essential for the development of the pupil on all sides—to hold itself responsible for failure even when fathers and mothers had neglected their part. when parents were wrong-headed, or negligent, or mistaken, then it seemed natural to her to set about educating them. many mothers learned priceless lessons of wisdom from her in the pleasant audiences of her “blue room” at school; and few, i think, were ungrateful for them. she was full of ready resource in cases of difficulty, and she ever held that the moral was much more essentially her business than the intellectual salvation. when there was trouble with a girl, she gave herself to its cure with the most absolute self-devotion, and one great remedy was to send for the mother, to take counsel with her, and to give her counsel. in all matters of behaviour, such as foolish talk and unladylike—or shall i not rather say unwomanly—conduct she was strict and vigilant. such things never escaped her, and her manner of dealing with them individually has made an epoch in the life of many a girl, the transition from an irreverent to a reverent state of feeling for social relationships.
“we are of course all familiar with the view that education is threefold, that it concerns itself with moral, intellectual, and physical welfare. but there was a strength and elasticity in miss buss’ feeling about school education as all-embracing that marked it as more than the consequence of a view. each girl was a clearly imagined whole to her, with whose deficiencies 218and needs she had the mother’s no less than the teacher’s sympathy. she was wonderfully patient, and sympathetic, too, with foolish mothers, of whom there are some. she had a kind word and thought for ‘fads,’ strenuously as she resisted them. forty years—thirty years—ago, the ‘fads’ that had to be resisted were many indeed.
“so she taught us, her teachers, the duty of infinite pains, infinite hope in the training of character. she never gave a girl up as hopeless. if one way failed, then another must be found. she had great belief—a belief well justified by facts—in the salvation of character by way of the rousing of intellectual interests. it was curious to note how a naughty girl improved if she grew to like her lessons. naughtiness is often unsteadiness of will, and intellectual discipline is a steadying influence. irrationality, moreover, is the cause of much moral evil, and thoughtful study makes for rationality. it may be—i am much disposed to think it is—that intellectual training effects greater moral improvement in women than it does in men, because a woman’s faults of character, on an average, turn more on irrationality and lack of nerve control, while the man’s faults centre in his profounder self-absorption and slower sympathies.
“character as the prime aim of education soon became the key-note of the north london practice. it fell in with this that great attention should be paid to punctuality, accuracy, order, method, and the cultivation of the clerkly business abilities generally. nor should we forget that simple quality of respect for property, so despised of boys, on which the head-mistress laid much stress as essential for girls, and, indeed, a part of honesty. in very early days, girls spilt ink on their dresses, so ink ceased to be part of the regular school 219furniture, and is only given out when required, e.g. for examinations, by the mistress in charge of the form. it is part of the tradition of the place—a tradition that will now be a tender memory—that the giving out of the ink is a serious responsible act, the weight of which should never be thrown on a monitor or even a prefect. the spilling of the ink is an evil so great that its risk should be laid only on the shoulders of authority. but, seriously, this is symbolic of the leading idea that the duty of taking proper care of the furniture should be taught at school as well as at home.
“nobody but a school-mistress—except, indeed, a schoolmaster—knows to what depths of disorder the youthful mind may descend in writing out its lessons. i remember how it astonished me when, even at the north london collegiate school, the original sin of literary untidiness caused itself to be seen. well, from the beginning, serious war was made upon irregularities and disorder of this kind, a whole system of school routine growing up in consequence, much of which has become general in girls’ schools.”
“order, heaven’s first law,” was certainly the first law of school-life. the place was duly provided, and everything had to be in its place, an arrangement greatly helped by the swedish desks—one for each girl, of suitable size—which miss buss was the first to introduce into england.
wherever miss buss’ influence reached, order reigned. everything bore witness to her power of organization, and everything throughout the place, down to the work of the lowest servant, was arranged by the head who said of herself, “i spend my life in picking up pins!”
the highest illustration of this quality comes in the story of lord granville’s admiration of the perfect 220arrangements on the prize day when he was in the chair. he could not forget it, and spoke of it to dr. carpenter, in reference to the giving of degrees at burlington house. dr. carpenter wrote to miss buss to ask her secret, and in reply she went herself to burlington house and discussed with him all the arrangements, which consequently went off in perfect order.
no girl in either school, who had been long enough to enter into the spirit of the place, will ever during the longest life be able to look with indifference on an ink-spot, or to suppress a feeling of lofty superiority, if she ever has occasion to pass through a boys’ school, and cast a glance at desks or floors there. and few will be able to read without a sympathetic smile or sigh a little narrative of one of their number showing what came of inadvertence on this point—
“one of the direst days in the whole of my school experience was the day i spilt the ink.
“the accident happened on a friday, and, since the event, black friday has altered its position on the calendar, as far as i am concerned.
“the terrible meaning the words ‘spilt ink’ convey to the mind can only be understood by those who know how dearly miss buss cherished the bright appearance of our beautiful school, and how she strove to raise a similar feeling in us by occasionally comparing its appearance with that of other public schools (especially boys’), and by having every spot and stain forcibly eradicated as soon as incurred.
“this accident happened one friday morning just before prayers, and was not confined to a single spot, but included the contents of a large well-inkstand provokingly full.
“hurrying past the form-table on hearing the hall bell, a long protruding pen caught in a fold of my dress, the whole apparatus swung steadily round and fell on the floor with a hideous splash. there was only time to pick up the stand and pen, the ink, alas! was foolishly left to soak steadily into the stainless floor.
221“that morning our bright little service seemed interminably long, and several notices delayed the filing off of the classes as speedily as usual.
“i was the first to re-enter our room, in which fraülein stood alone gazing at the catastrophe.
“i told her i was the culprit, and mumbled out something about ‘telling miss buss.’
“her smile and quiet remark, ‘she vill not vant much telling,’ were hardly reassuring.
“fraülein was quite right; miss buss did not want any telling, the evidence in black and white was quite sufficient. she never scolded me for the accident, but was vexed at my not having informed the housekeeper immediately, instead of allowing the ink to soak comfortably in for twenty minutes.
“after a little chat about ‘presence of mind,’ i was told to repair the mischief, and attempt to get the stain out.
“there was no german for me that morning. the time was occupied in scrubbing the floor with lemons. during the day several helped, even teachers kindly lending a hand, but all our efforts were futile, and the ink obstinately refused to move.
“later on, oxalic acid came into play, miss buss personally superintending the performance, and being really anxious in case any of the poison should perchance cling to my fingers.
“all to no good! on monday the room was to be used by the cambridge examiners, and, as a last resource, the carpenter and his plane were imperatively summoned.
“so ended black friday!
“i had bought my experience in the ways of inkstands, a thorough knowledge of eradicating stains, and a life-long lesson to act more decisively, paying in return a bill, the items of which ran thus: the cost of lemons, oxalic acid, and the carpenter; lost marks, a signature in the defaulters’ book, and the most miserable day of my school experience.”
mrs. bryant continues—
“in the wholeness of the founders view of her work, not character and intellect only, but physical welfare no less belonged to the school aim. always, in some form or another, she had this in mind. the most punctilious care was taken from the first as regards 222sanitary conditions and precautions for wet days. shoes had always to be changed, and contrivances for keeping the rest of the clothing dry—by umbrellas, cloaks, and common sense—were part of the moral order of the place. in other words, it was treated as a breach of the regulations if a pupil came into school with her dress wet. the result was, and is, that the girls manage to keep astonishingly dry. like other sources of evil, this one has, in the course of years, tended naturally to decrease, because girls are more sensibly dressed than they were twenty, ten, or even five years ago. it is an amusing symptom of the hygienic influence of the north london school that, in my quest for properly shaped shoes, i find it best to fall back on the neighbourhood of camden road.
“the idea of regular physical education was early expressed in the institution of calisthenic exercises for a quarter of an hour after the light lunch in the middle of the morning. the idea grew and became more systematic as opportunity made its development possible. when the new buildings were opened, a splendid gymnasium had been provided for the purpose. every girl was to have a systematic course of physical training by means of two half-hour lessons in the week from a regularly trained teacher, besides the ordinary drill on the other three days. but there might be abnormal girls who required more or less a special treatment, and, reflecting on this fact, there arose in miss buss’ mind the idea that the physical education ought, as of course, to be under medical supervision. this implied that all the pupils should be medically inspected, and it goes without saying that, to her mind, the medical inspector should be a woman.
“for some years this post has been held by miss julia cock, m.d., who has carried out a system of 223observation, and record sufficient for the purpose, but not extending to anything like medical attendance.
“the first and essential object was to determine what kind of physical exercise was required in each case. the normal girl, and the majority of those even with defects, would be sent to go through the usual course. for defects, special treatment by exercise would be ordered, and this given in the afternoon. three afternoons in the week the gymnasium is occupied by these special gymnastic classes, and the record of physical improvement made is worthy perhaps of even more praise than the roll of examination honours won by the intellectually able. the girls who do best with much rest and little exercise are also found out and dealt with accordingly. the physical character of each is recorded in the medical book, and kept for reference.
“defects of eyesight are also discovered in many cases, and the parents informed that there is need to consult an oculist. other physical weaknesses, as they thus come to light, can be dealt with similarly if need be, and the knowledge of them is most valuable in dealing with the girls in their work. the experiment of medical inspection, as miss buss tried it in her school, has proved an immense benefit, and the idea lay very near her heart that all schools—especially all girls’ schools—should do likewise. it is one of my regrets that she never knew, she was too ill, that three memoranda on the subject were given in evidence to the royal commission on secondary education, one of the three being by our medical inspector, miss cock, founded on the experience of the north london collegiate school.
“as regards intellectual education, it was characteristic of her that she had not the slightest tendency to attach more importance to her own than to other 224subjects. this was not simply—it was partly—the consequence of an all-round logical view; it went with her elasticity of imagination and extraordinary power of entering into and sympathizing with things outside her experience in the ordinary sense. this is the ideal prime-minister quality, and it was hers. she was not a musician, she did not know mathematics; but i suppose she has not left the impression more strongly on any two people of understanding their ideals and supporting them with enthusiasm and sympathy than upon mr. john farmer, of balliol college, with reference to music, and upon myself in mathematics. and in itself it is a noteworthy fact that she struck from the very beginning on the idea that science should be an essential part of the school curriculum, and elaborated it to so high a pitch that her school was early described by others as par excellence ‘the science school.’ her own scholarship was great in history and in french—genuine fine scholarship, with the unrivalled power of graphic description and interesting memory of events which make history-teaching and is so rare, and with delightful freshness and power in handling a language with a class. on this side of her work she was herself the perfect artist. for the study of science there had been little opportunity in her girlhood, but just what had been denied her was just what she most energetically supplied. i think she would have been great in science: her mind was scientific in its ways of work, and she had the practical constructive talent that, added to thinking power, makes the physicist. the concrete sciences would have attracted her intellectually more than the abstract.
“but in her ideal of education she came quite naturally and easily outside her own intellectual tastes and acquirements. so natural was this to her that she 225has doubtless left the impression on many of the younger generation that she was mainly a great administrator rather than also a great teacher with special tastes and powers of her own.
“thus it was the more natural to her to realize instinctively, as she did consciously, the doctrine of the harmonious development of all the powers as the aim of the school education.
“even the casual observer could not fail to have been struck by the ever-growing, ever-assimilating nature of her mind. in this respect she never grew older; never grew as middle-aged as many people are mentally at twenty-five. like the athenians, she was always ready to hear some new thing. she was ready to give any reasonable theorist a hearing, though not necessarily to erect new altars to his ideals. whenever she heard of any idea that promised, she would, in later years, speak of it, and have it discussed at our teachers’ meeting. then, if it seemed well, we would hear the propagandist in a lecture, and afterwards discuss the subject again. the sequel depended on the opinion formed, but most new ideas, special and general, came our way. the harrow music school, the royal drawing society, and miss chreimann’s calisthenics may be mentioned in particular as having received her recognition very early.
“mr. farmer writes as follows—
“oxford.
“dear mrs. bryant,
“it is very difficult for me to write that which i feel about the loss of miss buss.
“miss mary gurney first introduced me to her.
“soon after that she asked me to examine the music in the north london collegiate school. i was afraid at first that she would not understand my point of view with respect to the study of music in high schools, but, instead of being misunderstood, 226she gave me her sympathy and help from the first in my endeavour to make music an earnest and educational part of school-work.
“miss buss was not a young head-mistress when i first knew her; but she was, like my greatest school-friend, dr. buller, miss mary gurney, and the dear old master of balliol, fearless in her belief in all that was for the good of schools, and especially in the redemption of music from being a time-wasting, emotional accomplishment.
“miss buss allowed me to introduce the harrow music school standard text, the purpose of which was to do away with the mere swagger of certificate-giving, and to make it more a test of the general work of the school in music. she was always so glad to find that the majority of girls who did well in music were just those who were doing well in other school-work.
“i shall always remember her patience and kindness in her presence during the long examinations. she was never shocked at my hopes, mostly very wildly expressed, for the future of music in the education of girls.
“music, above all studies, needs backing up with the advantage of a thoroughly good education. it has always been my endeavour to keep it from encroaching unfairly on the time and strength of the girls. miss buss understood this, and helped to make it understood.
“you have, my dear mrs. bryant, for so long been a witness to that which i have so clumsily described. please forgive me.
“yours very truly,
“john farmer.”
“to the same purpose is a letter from dr. ablett, head of the royal drawing society—
“so many evidences have come to me of the great part miss buss has played in the development of education, and she gave such willing and helpful support to the work of this society that i, personally, unfeignedly mourn her loss.
“our council will be sorry to lose one of its members who, by her world-wide reputation, added strength to, and won confidence for, it.
“miss chreimann also bears similar witness—
227“miss buss was amongst the first to introduce into her school the eclectic (and original) series of physical exercises which have been termed my ‘system,’ though my own feeling would always be—
‘for forms and systems let the fools contest:
whate’er is best administered is best!’
my aim is to secure equal balance in all the working organs of the body, with permanence of function and steady gain in beauty and order, rather than to teach any particular set or sets of exercises.
“miss buss had early been impressed by the vastness of waste consequent on the physical disabilities of girls, and still more by the need of the grace that goes with well managed strength. it was for these ends that she urged me to give my time to the training of teachers, and the subsequent inspection of their work, rather than to the endeavour after a physical culture, which she agreed was necessary, but which was years in advance of the sentiment, alike of the parents and of the majority of educationalists.
“miss buss probably did more than any other public school-mistress for the knowledge and adaptation of physical training to the requirements of girls.”
in conclusion, mrs. bryant adds—
“it was with the same eagerness to learn and get help and light wherever it could be found that miss buss welcomed the institution of the university examinations for schools and scholars. her gratitude to the university of cambridge for having been the first to come to the help of the girls was very beautiful and touching. it would have had to be a very good reason indeed that would make her substitute oxford for cambridge, and the loyalty of her affectionate preference for girton over all other colleges was tender and very deep. she loved cambridge as if it had been her own alma mater. it was the alma mater of so many of her girls in the early struggling days.
“i spoke of energy of will as one of her striking qualities, and her whole life illustrates this so well that 228it only remains to indicate its influence on the inner life of the school. she was not always quick to decide unless it was necessary, and then she decided instantly. otherwise she deliberated before decision with great care, weighing all sides of the matter, as she would say. but once decided, she acted at once, and kept on acting till the thing was done. that was where she economized force, and in it lay the secret of much of her power and her tradition. her own mind did not admit of pause between decision and act, and probably there was no quality in other people which tried her patience more than hesitancy after it was certain what ought to be done. how natural it is to some people is well known, but by effort and practice the tendency can of course be mitigated, if not cured. north-londoners, from association with her, got into the way of resembling her to some extent in this respect. it became the habit of the place—may it long continue—to get under way with one’s piece of work the instant one knew what it was. i am very inferior to many of my colleagues in this respect, and only disguise the fact by economy of another kind, which perhaps goes naturally with a more slowly moving will; the economy, namely, of doing my piece of work so that it has not to be done again. but for simpler things there is no call for this economy, and the comfort is great of being surrounded by persons whose instinct it is to translate the idea into the action at once.
“her energy was her most obvious quality in school. everybody saw that, and each felt that she individually had to live up to it. still obvious, but deeper, was her boundless faith in the possibility of achieving good ends. the choice of the school motto, ‘we work in hope,’ was characteristic. she pursued her ends without delay; she pursued them also with the confidence that in some 229way or other they would one day be gained. about her ends her will would be inflexible; about the means of accomplishing them her invention was elastic, and her mind open. and i suppose few persons in this world ever carried out their ends with so much or such well-deserved success. her secret was to be uncompromising about essentials only.
“her faith in the latent possibilities of character, even when most unpromising, amounted to a principle of educational action, which she wielded with marvellous effect, because its hold was even more strong on her heart than on her head. she seemed almost to believe—but this is an exaggeration—that any one could be made to do or become anything. she produced wonderful results in the way of training up efficient workers when others would have despaired; though sometimes she did it at immense cost to herself. she believed in every one, but she would let bad work pass with no one. she was at once the strictest of critics and the least despondent. thus she made what she would of many, especially of those who had very much to do with her in the earlier years. not that she was ignorant of their limitations either, but limitations did not trouble her. she had absolutely none of that restless critical spirit which requires that everybody should be made to order, all over again, and different. she took them as they were, loved them, and made the best of them in both senses.
“every girl was good for something to her eye and in her heart. it was her business—our business—to find out how the most could be made of her, and to make it. and just in proportion as good in people was the reality she saw, so was their evil, for the most part, a transitory unreality. young people at least are apt to be and do what you expect of them. she dwelt on 230the good, insisted on it to them, wrestled for it with them, established it in them, and straightway forgot the evil or remembered it only as a passing phase. and the sign of this large-hearted sympathy in an optimistic temperament is shown in the special devotion to miss buss of all the so-called naughty girls.
“it is needless to enlarge on her possession of the administrator’s gift of relying with generous trust upon her tried helpers. this, too, was in her a matter of the heart quite as much as of the head. she felt about them as one with her in a joint work of which in all its phases she spoke as ‘ours,’ not as ‘mine.’ it was pleasanter, more natural to her, to be the controlling centre of a plural will than to be a single will governing others with more or less allowance for their freedom. as regards the question of the relation of the head to her assistants, this might be described as the theory of her practice, elastic as all theories must be in a mind of truly practical genius. she believed thoroughly in the legal autocracy of the head as the best form of school government, but in her view of the autocrat’s standard for himself she expected him to exercise rule with due regard for ministers and parliaments.”
