But at the first start how natural it seemed to expect the small amount of help which should do so much! “What we now want is funds!” And those very modest sums then formed the total of this requirement. She asked no more for the fulfilment of that early dream, “I want girls educated to match their brothers.” Everything was there except the funds. The educational system had been tested by experience and stamped by success; the teacher, fitted at all points, was ready for work. Friends were ready with time and thought to help in carrying out the work. Having thus all the important essentials, who could doubt that the rest must follow?
In our own enthusiasm for Miss Buss and her work it seemed to Miss Jones and to me that all that was needed was to make the case known. We were both accustomed to the use of our pens, and placed ourselves at Miss Buss’ service, beginning first by an appeal to our own personal friends, with enough of success at the outset to justify our going on. But we soon discovered that beyond this range things were of a different order.
I had seen so much of the kindness shown by Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall to all sorts of philanthropic effort that I fully counted on their help. In addition to the Art Journal, Mr. Hall was editor of Social Notes, and Mrs. Hall had not given up the St. James’ Magazine; so that we saw here our way to a wider public.
The reply to my appeal seems worth giving in extenso, as a measure of the public opinion of that day. If a woman who had made her own mark on the world in ways out of the beaten track, could so write, what must have been the feeling of the average woman, to say nothing of the narrowminded and ignorant? Mrs. Hall was, besides, amongst the foremost who showed interest in higher education in being one of the earliest of the lady-visitors at Queen’s College.
Here is the letter—
“15, Ashley Place, Oct. 31, 1870.
“My dear Annie,
“I dare say you learned a good deal at the Social Science meetings. But women have no business on platforms. They have enough, and more than they can accomplish, in performing the duties which God and Nature have assigned them....
“I too am most anxious to find employment for women, and would give every female, rich or poor, a trade—call it a profession if you like—so that she could help herself. But this is not to be done by sending her to College Examinations.
“There are not a greater set of ‘muffs’ and extravagant fellows in life than our College lads. It is not by them that the business of life is carried on. Do you want to educate girls in the ‘arts’ as practised in the Universities?