His wife and daughter were absent, so we missed seeing his home-life, but he showed us all that was most worth seeing in his beloved city. To Miss Buss it was real holiday, and nothing seemed too much for her in that busy week which to me was something of severe mental strain, as well as unwonted physical exercise. We must have marched up and down miles of stone passages and stonier staircases; and I find more than once the record that I stayed at home to rest, while Miss Buss took in a few more schools. A “Home for Boys,” and another for “Aged Poor,” are “merely incidental” in a day which includes an Art School, and a School for the Blind, in addition to the ordinary schools. We saw all the Company’s new institutions, and Fettes College, as well as Heriot’s Hospital, and the older foundations.
The palatial structures and perfect appointments of all these schools made Miss Buss, as she said, “go raging wild with envy,” but this did not prevent her from carefully noting all there was to see. Nothing was overlooked that was in any way suggestive. She found a good system of girls’ cloak-rooms, afterwards adopted, with her own improvements, in her own new buildings. She noted that Scotch scones were more wholesome than English buns for the children’s lunch, and in the future secured a Scotch baker to supply them for her own girls. She discussed time-tables and all the intricacies of school management, while I listened and marvelled, and felt more and more like an eminent educational fraud.
Among the few things actually novel to her was the teaching of pianoforte playing in classes, eight girls being taught at eight pianos at the same time by one master. Perfect time was thus secured, as the discord otherwise would have been quite beyond endurance. Some modification of this system was afterwards introduced by Miss Buss into her Upper School.
One thing that roused her disapproval, amidst so much that she admired, was the position of the women-teachers, who, if employed at all, held only inferior and ill-paid posts. Whilst in Edinburgh, she lost no chance of putting in a word for them, and after her return to London, she wrote: “I am firing shells into the Edinburgh schools one by one—Mr. Knox, Mr. Pryde, etc.—to make them use the Local Examinations. Professor Masson has been here this morning, and he advises me to go on, as good may come of it.”
Wherever Miss Buss went she acquired new ideas; but she also scattered them broadcast. As I had an introduction to Miss Eliza Wigham, the well-known leader in all philanthropic movements, we found ourselves in the centre of work of all kinds, being well pleased to discover that though Edinburgh might be ahead in education, London could still hold its own as regarded the employment of women.
I find that we had an afternoon tea, to which leading workers and teachers were invited, of which I record: “At our party we have had a grand seed-sowing. Everywhere Miss Buss throws out hints and suggestions likely to bear good fruit. There are many persons who will remember the talk to-day.”
At Gateshead it was just the same. She secured several pupils for her friend Mr. C. H. Lake; and, although the sisters of these boys became pupils at Myra Lodge, she at that time set going the idea of the Girls’ High School, soon afterwards started, which took the younger members of these families from herself.
Before leaving Scotland we paid a visit to Dollar, where Miss Buss saw her ideal system at work, as she here found an old-established “mixed school.” Her theories were, on the whole, confirmed; but she found some drawbacks, which made her content to wait till all the perfect conditions could be secured.
After Dollar, we had a few days of quiet, with delightful drives in the scenery round the Bridge of Allan, where our friend Mr. Forster chanced to be staying at the Ochill Park Hydropathic Establishment.
The whole trip was full of interest, and not the least part of it was the delight of having that full mind pouring itself out on all possible subjects, and in scenes where the historic and poetic associations add a new charm to the beauty of nature.