“The routine of English has been considerably improved by the extension to girls’ schools of the Cambridge Local Examinations. It is impossible, I think, to overrate the good already done in girls’ schools by these examinations. A definite standard is given, there is no undue publicity, but schools are able to measure their teaching by the opinions of unknown and, therefore, impartial examiners.
“I cannot, of course, judge of the wants of a new colony, but my experience goes to show that it is better to include in the routine of study all the necessary branches, and I think a second language is one. It is almost impossible to teach English well unless another language is studied with it, and that other language should be Latin, or French, or German. Of course I do not say that this should be taught in the elementary stages, but I should not allow parents to have the power of stopping the teaching on the ground of extra expense.
“We teach French, really, I think, allowing no option. Latin also in the higher classes, with little or no option, except in the case of delicate girls.
“After my many years of work, if I were now to found a school for what might be called the middle section (and, indeed, the upper section also) of the middle-class, I should include all that I have mentioned, viz. English thoroughly, with Elementary Science in courses such as I have alluded to, French, Latin, bold outline drawing, careful part singing, plain needlework, and thorough arithmetic, with geometry and algebra in the higher classes. I would rigidly and entirely omit all arrangements for teaching instrumental music, which I believe to be the bane of girls’ schools, in the time wasted and the expense entailed. I have omitted, I see, harmony, by which I mean the laws of musical construction, an interesting, and, in an educational point of view, a most useful subject for mental training. Instrumental music—the piano chiefly—might fairly be left to a private teacher, as might dancing also. In Germany, I think, instrumental music is never taught in the Tochter Schule, but is always left to private teaching.
“No school ought to omit physical training—that is, Calisthenics, or something equivalent. This we have of late enforced among the elder girls. Our system, an American idea, called Musical Gymnastics, is excellent. Easy, graceful, and not too fatiguing, gently calling every part of the body into play by bright spirited music, which cultivates rhythm of movement, it has become popular, and has wonderfully improved the figure and carriage of the girls. Our exercises last from twenty minutes to half an hour almost daily—as much as we can manage, always four days out of five.”
[9]. A letter from an old Jewish pupil, in the Jewish Chronicle, is full of deepest regret for her loss, giving many instances of special kindnesses received by the writer. “She was so strictly just that she gave every consideration to the first Jewish pupil who wished to participate in the honours not then open to Jews, acknowledging to that same pupil in after years that she gave the consideration in justice only, for, if anything, she was slightly prejudiced against a race she had only read about and not known.”
Miss Buss then goes on to explain fully her ideal of what the education of girls should be, giving her preference for “large day schools, with all the life and discipline that numbers only can give; not to speak of the greater efficiency and cheapness of the teaching.” She thinks that “our young women are narrowed sadly by want of the sympathy, large experience, and right self-estimation which only mixing with numbers gives.” She sees that the head of the school should be a woman, “left free to work the school, on certain conditions, without a committee of management.” The buildings, of course, “should be vested in a body of trustees, of which some should be women.”
It has sometimes been urged as a reproach that Miss Buss employed women-teachers in preference to men. That she employed women wherever it was possible is certain, because she considered teaching a legitimate occupation for women, and set herself to fit them for the work. That women could teach, she knew from her own experience. That they should teach better in the future than they had ever done in the past was one of her steady aims, and one that she attained.
Here is a strong expression of her feeling when she first read the report of the Edinburgh Merchants’ Company’s Schools, in 1872—
“The report is interesting, but I absolutely burn with indignation (does not my atrocious handwriting bear witness to it?) at the bare notion of men teachers in the upper girls’ schools. It is shameful, costly (because some poor drudge of a woman must accept starvation pay, in order to maintain decorum by being present at every master’s lesson), and it is degrading to women’s education. How can girls value it, when they see that no amount of it will make a woman fit to teach them, except as infants.