“At the same time, it was announced that the University would institute a diploma for teachers, and thus another much-desired end was also fulfilled. ‘I care for that almost as much,’ she said. But the prime interest centred in the grant of the degrees. How overjoyed she was! ‘What will you do?’ she said to me. ‘I will learn Latin,’ I said; ‘matriculate in January, and go on for the Doctor of Science degree in Philosophy.’
“In later years we did not sit in the gallery, however late we came, but in the front row. She never failed to come, not even last year, when, indeed, she found the effort trying. It was such a pleasure to her, year by year, to see the number of girl-graduates grow; and she rejoiced as much in the success of others as in that of her own flock. It was characteristic of her selflessness, her magnanimity, that, instead of presenting her distinguished pupils herself, she handed over to me from the first that honourable duty. ‘She liked it better so,’ she said. But thus it was in all things: wherever there was honour, she put me forward to share it. For herself she sought nothing.”
Photo. by Elliott and Fry.
MISS BUSS AND DR. SOPHIE BRYANT.
CHAPTER XII.
TRAINING COLLEGES FOR TEACHERS.
“The science of education, so little thought of, so contemptuously ignored, is the crowning science of all, for it is the application of all the sciences to the production of the highest result—the perfect man.”—From a paper read by Mrs. Grey at the meeting of the British Association, 1874.
In 1873, the theory and practice of education were still so far apart that, in the March number of The Journal of the Women’s Education Union of that year, we find the following very definite statement:—
“Training colleges do not exist; the expense of founding them would place them almost hopelessly out of reach, though something might have been done by following up the example of the Home and Colonial in their private department. Mrs. Wm. Grey proposed a plan for a class of student teachers to form part of every large school, which was adopted by the Public Day-school Company, who are, however, not yet in a position to try it. It has also been approved by Miss Buss and Miss Beale, and is already in operation in Camden Town.”