THE LOWER SCHOOL.
CHAPTER IV.
TIMELY HELP.
“Having reaped and garnered, bring the plough,
And draw new furrows, ’neath the healthy morn,
And plant the great Hereafter in the Now.”
E. B. Browning.
But, however it might be borne, the disappointment was bitter, more especially in the proof given of the absolute indifference of the public to the whole question. Prejudice might have been overcome, opposition might have been met, but against indifference so invincible no means seemed available.
Mrs. Grey gave it up as hopeless. She frankly abandoned the old position, and opened out new ground in making her next appeal directly to the British commercial instinct. In starting the Girls’ Public Day School Company there was offered in addition to thorough education, a dividend of five per cent.
The success of Miss Buss had proved that schools like hers were wanted by numbers sufficient to make them pay. There was not the slightest difficulty in any case in raising the £2000 in shares needed to start one of the Company’s schools in any locality desiring to have it.[[7]]