Frances Mary Buss and her work for education

by Annie E. Ridley

“No one knows how much of one’s health and energy is lost to the school by the anxieties of getting those who do not understand the complicated machinery not to interfere with things with which the head alone ought to deal.

“Governors have no idea of the worries head-mistresses have, when hysterical girls invent absurd stories; when parents and doctors attribute every illness, real or imaginary, to lessons; when teachers get wrong, or when they suddenly disappear, take head-mistress-ships elsewhere, and draw away their friends and pupils.

“Then, again, the governing body will blame for the inevitable, or a head will deal with ninety-nine intricate cases, and in the hundredth will make a mistake; they naturally know nothing of the former, but of the latter they hear, only to condemn.”

This is one very important side. The head clearly has very definite rights. But, there is also the other side, and the members of the council have also their rights. Even the “mere amateur” is not without rights, as a person who, in combining special interest in education, with wider and more varied experience than can be enjoyed by the professional educator, is therefore of use on the council in his power of seeing things from the outside, and thus bringing to bear on them a judgment not warped by mere professional bias. Even on the most haphazard council, the persons elected are at least supposed to have some power of help. These “amateurs” are consequently persons who are more used to lead than to follow, to take the active rather than the passive attitude, and to whom mere acquiescence is as uncongenial as it is unaccustomed. It is therefore easy to imagine such a council growing restive, even under the most competent leading, and asking, “Is it really our whole duty to sit here simply to register the decrees of the head-mistress?”

To strike the happy mean between tyranny and subjection is the duty alike of the governing body and of head-master or mistress. The governing body must not rule; nor, on the other hand, must its members be too passive, or acquiesce when they ought to oppose. If they are bound to follow competent leading, they are no less bound to dismiss the incompetent. The captain of a ship gives place to a duly accredited pilot, but he is none the less bound to judge whether the ship is making for the straight course or not. To give up his command into unskilful hands is, on the one side, as foolish as it would be to tie the pilot to the mast, and let the ship go down, whilst the crew dispute for the right to steer.

It is evident that, with the best intentions on both sides, great tact and forbearance are needed to prevent occasional friction. And we need not wonder that, as a matter of fact, there was on most governing bodies in those early days a considerable amount of friction.

Of this Miss Buss had, in her own experience, comparatively little; but what she had, arose entirely from this very point. She had arranged, when she gave up her private school, that it should be in the hands of a body of trustees, who would hold it for the public good, but who were not intended to interfere with her own development of the work which she had herself begun and carried on to success.

As the founder of the school, and as a life-member of a board on which the other members were elected for short periods, her position was unique. To this, also, must be added the fact that, for the first two years, the new schools were carried on by means of her own liberal donations and those of her personal friends. It was not to be expected that she could hold the same relation to her governing body as the ordinary head-mistress, who is appointed by them, and over whom they have the right of dismissal.

It was perhaps a little unfortunate that at the time of special difficulty, the chairmanship seemed to have become permanent in the appointment of a chairman, who, however fitted for the post, was yet only imperfectly acquainted with the early history of the school, and, therefore, not unnaturally gave undue weight to the help given by the Board, regarding the new scheme rather as an entirely fresh departure, than as what it actually was, merely the expansion of an existing organization, and still dependent on the skill to which it owed its rise. He had been accustomed to long-established foundations, where everything went by rule, and to committees where the word of the chairman was law. Miss Buss was used to supreme power over her own school, and she was, like most women of that day, unused to business routine. This was, moreover, one of the very first governing bodies on which women were elected on equal terms with men. Such an arrangement was too new as yet to go without hitch. It would follow, quite naturally, that men, out of mere force of habit, as well as in real kindness of heart, should adopt a paternal and authoritative attitude towards all women, even to those most competent to stand alone.

Miss Buss was by nature one of the least self-assertive of women. She had always been helped by some strong man, and had accepted all help with gratitude. First Mr. Laing, and then Dr. Hodgson (with her father and brothers, as a matter of course), had been recognized as friends and helpers.