The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

FRANCES MARY BUSS

Photo. by Russell and Sons.
Yours always [** Illegible]
Frances M. Buss

FRANCES MARY BUSS

AND HER WORK FOR EDUCATION

BY

ANNIE E. RIDLEY

“We work in hope”

The School Motto

WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

AND NEW YORK

1895

All rights reserved

PREFACE

In a life written by a friend for friends there must of necessity be more of the intimacy of private friendship than in a record written dispassionately for an unknown public. The world in general knows Frances Mary Buss as a public worker—capable, energetic, successful. By her friends she was loved as one of the most womanly of women—true, and tender, and loyal. Her work, to which all women of this generation owe so much, must assume prominence in the story of her life; but what is most desired is to show her as she was to her friends.

My warmest thanks are here offered to all who have so freely and so kindly helped me in this labour of love: first, to Miss Buss’ own family and personal friends, and to old pupils; to Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., and the members of the staff in both schools; and, for many valuable educational details, to Miss Emily Davies, Miss Beale, Mrs. William Grey, Miss Shirreff, Miss Mary Gurney, Miss Agnes J. Ward, Miss Hughes, and Dr. and Mrs. Fitch.

A. E. R.

CONTENTS

BOOK I.

EARLY LIFE.

BOOK II.

PUBLIC WORK.

BOOK III.

LATER YEARS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ERRATA.

Page 1, line 2, for “July 29” read “July 18.”

Page 29, line 12, for “lighted” read “lifted.”

Page 39, line 25, for “to play” read “for play.”

Page 111, line 27, for “lady on” read “lady in.”

• Transcriber’s Note:
  • These corrections have been applied to this electronic version of the book—Oct. 25, 2019.

INTRODUCTORY.
THEN AND NOW.

“Educate women, and you educate the teachers of men; if the child is father to the man, the woman forms the man in educating the child. The cause of female education is then, even in the most selfish sense, the cause of mankind at large.”—C. G. Nicolay.

Gracious speech can seldom have been more truthful than when the Prince of Wales said, on July 18, 1879, that few of their many public functions had afforded the Princess and himself more gratification than the opening of the great hall, given by the Clothworkers’ Company to the North London Collegiate School for Girls, a ceremony putting the final touch to the work of so many years.

It would not be easy to find a more attractive sight than this spacious building, filled with its five hundred happy young girls, either on “Founder’s Day,” when, decked in the school flower, we see them in that April mood in which

“The heart with rapture fills,

And dances with the daffodils;”

or when, on Prize-day, in the glory of summer roses, their jubilant young voices ring out in the favourite school-song, as, with fearless and confident eyes, they look “Forty years on!” while their elders, looking back down that long vista, think of the difference they can remember between Then and Now.

It was in this hall, on the prize-day of 1892, that the chairman, Mr. Fearon, drew a remarkable contrast between the present days of light for girls’ education, and the dark days of the first Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864, of which he had been a member. Then, it was still possible for the Commissioners to gravely ask if girls were capable of learning Latin and mathematics? Now, as he pointed out, this question might be answered by the results of this one year for this one school—eighteen passes, with two honours, on the University Examinations—to say nothing of the recent success at Cambridge, where a woman took a place above the Senior Wrangler.

As a member of the Commission of 1864, and, later, of the Endowed Schools Commission, Mr. Fearon was glad to claim some part in the making of this first public school for girls, of which he felt that “if ever there was an institution of which they might be proud, the success of which was calculated to stir the pulses, excite the emulation and enthusiasm of others, and give intense satisfaction to all who took part in it, either as founder, well-wishers, or friends, it was the North London Collegiate School for Girls.”

Then, from the brilliant hall, with its “rose-bud garden of girls,” the scene changed to the dark November day—November 30, 1865, a date to keep in mind—when, struggling through the November fog, Emily Davies and Frances Mary Buss made their way to the dull committee-room in Victoria Street, where the Commissioners awaited their coming.

The members of the Commission were Lord Taunton, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Stanley, Sir Stafford Northcote, the Dean of Chichester, the Rev. A. W. Thorold, Mr. Acland, Mr. Baines, Mr. Forster, Mr. Erle, and Dr. Storrar. To these, as Assistant-Commissioners, were added Messrs. D. B. Fearon, H. A. Giffard, C. H. Staunton, T. H. Green, J. L. Hammond, J. G. Fitch, J. Bryce, and H. M. Bompas.

The work of this Commission lasted from 1864 to 1869, and, later, many of the same gentlemen were appointed on the Endowed Schools Commission, and may be said to have carried on the same work, since they here applied the remedy to ills previously discovered by their researches. There are few of these names which will not be held in lasting honour by all thoughtful women who know how much is due for steady help in every cause most concerning their welfare.

It has, nevertheless, taken thirty years—since that same November 30, 1865—to give women a place side by side with men, on a Royal Commission, when, in 1894, Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., took the seat Miss Buss was no longer able to fill on the second Royal Commission of Inquiry into Secondary Education. It is not difficult to imagine the feeling of satisfaction with which Miss Buss saw her “brilliant young fellow-worker,” as she delighted to call her, taking this proud position.

Further to mark the contrast between 1865 and 1894, we may take a passage in a letter from Miss Buss to Miss Davies, dated December 5, 1865, whilst still waiting for the Commissioners’ Report, in which she says—

“When will the evidence come, I wonder? I am so curious to know what I said, and what you said too. It is very odd, but the mist which surrounds that interview does not clear.

“They were indeed kind, and more than kind, as you say. As for Mr. Acland, he is what the ‘Home and Colonial’ consider you to be!

“I can’t get over my astonishment at their civility; and it is such fun to be told to ‘take a chair,’ as if we were the ‘party’ whom servants are so fond of announcing.”

This is the one side. Wherever it was possible to see “fun” Miss Buss would see it. But there was another side too, revealed in a little remark made by Mr. Fearon to Mrs. Bryant, when the prize-giving was over at which he gave his reminiscences of that November day: “We were all so much struck by their perfect womanliness. Why, there were tears in Miss Buss’ eyes!”

And small wonder if this were so! In 1865—thirty years ago—it was an event to cause a heart-thrill when a woman was summoned, not to meekly receive information, but actually to give it; not to listen, but to speak, and before so important a body. It is quite conceivable that as they paused on the threshold these two ladies may have felt far more than a merely imaginative flash of sympathy with brave women of old, who had faced sterner tribunals to pay forfeit with life itself for the holding of new and strange doctrines.

To say that great events may hang on smallest incidents is a mere truism, trite as true. But we cannot doubt that a real turning point in the history of the English people was reached in the first official recognition of the equal share of women in the task of training the young. From this date what was before impossible became fact, and education takes rank as a true science.

It is of special interest in our own day, when the jarring note of antagonism between men and women is too often struck, to look back and remember the help given by men to the higher education of women. We note that the two most definite starting points of the new educational movement are to be found in the very innermost sanctum, in the strongest stronghold of masculine rights and privileges—the Universities and the House of Commons.

When, in 1863, the University of Cambridge opened its Local Examinations for girls, and when, in 1864, the House of Commons gave authority to a Royal Commission to extend its inquiry into the state of the education of girls, the new era was practically inaugurated. Henceforth women became free to do whatever they had power to do.

Nor was this the first help given by men to the better education of girls. In 1848—the great year of revolution—the professors of King’s College had opened the classes which speedily developed into Queen’s College, the forerunner of Bedford and Cheltenham Colleges. In 1850 the Rev. David Laing, who had been associated with the Queen’s College movement, gave his valuable help in the expansion of Miss Buss’ first small school on similar lines into the North London Collegiate School for Ladies. In 1865 this school stood so high that Miss Buss was asked by the Commissioners to give her views of education generally. This summons was doubtless the result of the report of the Assistant Commissioners who conducted the inquiry.

It was mainly due to the efforts of Miss Davies and Miss Bostock that girls’ schools were included in this inquiry. These ladies sent up a widely signed memorial from persons who had been interested in the extension to girls of the Local Examinations. Mr. Roby, the secretary, early in 1865, responded favourably to this appeal, pointing out that, as so many girls were privately educated, the limits of investigation in their case were much narrower than those for boys, and also pointing out that the numbers and value of endowments for girls were also restricted. But, “subject to these limitations,” he added, “the Commissioners were willing to embrace in their inquiry the education of both sexes alike.”

He stated also that the Commissioners expected to derive much important information from the evidence of persons of special experience and knowledge in the various matters connected with their inquiry. Among these witnesses they were ready to include such persons as may be recommended to them as best qualified to express opinions on the subject of this memorial.

In November, 1865, Miss Davies and Miss Buss were called to give their evidence. Miss Beale followed in April, 1866, and, during that same year, information on the education and the employment of women was given by six other ladies—Miss Wolstenholme, Miss Porter, Miss Kyberd, Miss Martin, Miss Smith, and Miss Gertrude King.

In 1870 a valuable summary of this evidence was compiled by Miss Beale from the twenty large volumes issued by the Commissioners. It is from this smaller blue-book that the following extracts are taken, the evidence of Miss Davies, Miss Buss, and Miss Beale being selected as characteristic of the views of the whole.

Read in the light of the recent University honours gained by women, many of the questions and answers of these examinations will have a curious interest for the “modern girl.”

When Lord Taunton put the question to Miss Buss:—

“‘Your girls come up to you extremely ignorant,’ there is evident conviction in her brief reply: ‘Extremely ignorant!’

“‘Do they seem to be very little taught at all?’—‘In all the essentials, hardly ever. They seldom know any arithmetic, for instance. We have a large number of girls, of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, come to us who can scarcely do the simplest sum in arithmetic.’

“‘Have you taken any interest in the movement which has been made to induce the University of Cambridge to institute examinations and confer honorary distinctions on girls?’—‘Yes; twenty-five of our pupils went up to the experimental examination.’

“‘Do you anticipate any beneficial results from the steps which the University of Cambridge has been induced to adopt?’—‘Yes; I am quite sure that great good has been done already. An immense stimulus has been given, especially to English and arithmetic. The girls have something to work for, some hope, something to aim at, and the teachers also.’

“‘As far as you are able to judge, do you think the class of school-mistresses is as good as it ought to be?’—‘The class of teachers generally is not.’

“‘In your opinion, should the education of a girl differ essentially from that of a boy in the same rank of life, with regard to the subjects which are to be taught?’—‘I think not, but it is rather difficult to ascertain what is the proper education for a boy.’

“‘You believe there is not such a distinction between the mental powers of the two classes as to require any wide distinction between the good education given to a girl and that to a boy?’—‘I am sure girls can learn anything they are taught in an interesting manner, and for which they have a motive to work.’”

Miss Beale, when asked her opinion as to the admission of girls to University degrees, replied in a slightly modified strain—

“‘It seems to me that our opinions are so divided at present as to the modifications that will be introduced into girls’ education, that I should regret to see anything done hastily to assimilate it to that which may perhaps be altered for boys; but at the same time I think it is good for boys and girls to have similar tastes that their minds may not be entirely bent in different ways, so that in their after life they should understand and be interested in the same things.’

“‘In using the word “similar,” do you mean identical?’—‘I have had some boys as pupils in mathematics, and, as far as I can judge from these and the public schools they attended, I do not think that the mathematical powers of women enable them generally (their physical strength I dare say has a great deal to do with it) to go so far in the higher mathematics as boys; and I think we should be straining the mind (which is of all things to be deprecated) if we were to try to force them to take up several examinations as are necessarily passed by those who are taking the higher branches at the Universities.’

“‘I therefore probably should not be wrong in inferring that, while you recognize the similarity of the male and female mind, you would not go the length of saying that they must necessarily move in the same channel?’—‘No, I should be sorry to see them take up classics at all exclusively, because I do not think that, as regards the education of boys, it has been the most desirable to limit it thus. That is my individual opinion.’”

But Miss Davies, after her two years’ experience as Hon. Sec. of the Cambridge Local Examinations, had no hesitation concerning identity of standard for boys and for girls, when Lord Lyttelton put the case to her—

“You have taken a very active part in persuading the two Universities to listen to facts which you had to lay before them in reference to the state of female education. Will you be so good as to tell us what difficulties you have encountered, and what objection you have met with on behalf of either gentlemen or ladies, and then make any remarks which you have to make upon these difficulties?”

Objections and difficulties equally disappear in Miss Davies’ concise answer—

“It is difficult to state objections fairly when one does not agree with them. I think it was chiefly a sort of general feeling that it was not in accordance with the fitness of things. The objections seem generally to resolve themselves into that.”

To the proposition of some special scheme of examination which might be adopted for the special requirements of women, she said simply—

“I do not see what advantage it would have. It would be difficult to frame a curriculum specially suited to girls, because almost everybody has a separate theory about what it is good for girls to learn—about what is apposite to the female mind.”

The three ladies were agreed in accepting generally the verdict of the Commissioners on the existing state of girls’ schools, afterwards thus briefly summed up—

“It cannot be denied that our picture of middle-class education is, on the whole, unfavourable. The general deficiency in girls’ education is stated with the utmost confidence, and with entire agreement, with whatever difference of statement, by many witnesses of competent authority. Want of thoroughness and foundation; slovenliness and showy superficiality; inattention to rudiments; undue time given to accomplishments, and these not taught intelligently or in any scientific manner; want of organization;—these may sufficiently indicate the character of the complaints received.”

There is also complete agreement as regards not only the need of better schools, but of better systems of training for teachers. Although thankful to accept concessions on the existing lines of boys’ education, faute de mieux, they are by no means persuaded that this education is even for boys all that could be desired. Even at that date they could venture to intimate the opinion that the mere fact of a University course did not, per se, make a good teacher.

Miss Davies called special attention to the fact, that while no endowments were applied to girls above the Elementary schools, many of these must have been intended for girls as well as boys, since they form part of bequests made “to the children” of certain parishes or districts.

Dr. Fitch has pointed out[^[1]] that at this period, whilst 1192 boys were receiving at Christ’s Hospital an education fitting them for the Universities, there were eighteen girls only, and these trained as domestic servants. Elsewhere he goes into the question, showing that while charity schools were open to girls, they were entirely excluded from the grammar schools, where boys were being trained “to serve God and the State.” There is scarcely a record, he says, of any school whose founder deliberately intended a liberal education for girls.

[1]. “Woman and the Universities,” Contemporary Review, August, 1890.

“A girl was not expected ‘to serve God or State,’ and was, therefore, not invited to the University or grammar school; but she might, if poor, be needed to contribute to the comfort of her ‘betters’ as an apprentice or a servant, and therefore the charity schools were open to her.”

And Dr. Fitch’s own experience confirms this fact. Mr. George Moore, wishing to devote £10,000 to scholarships, sent in a scheme for the consideration of some of the leading educationalists, when, finding mention only of boys, Dr. Fitch ventured to suggest the fact that boys have sisters, receiving the explanation from Mr. Moore that it was from no intention of excluding them that they had been omitted, but simply that it had never occurred to him to think of girls in such a connection.

With the Endowed Schools Commission this state of things came to an end. We cannot tell how far the influence of the evidence given by women to the Schools Inquiry Commission may have extended, but it was then decided that “in any enactment or constitution that may be brought into operation on this question the full participation of girls in endowments should be broadly laid down.”

Among Miss Buss’ most able supporters in obtaining the endowment for her new schools she counted five members of the Schools Inquiry Commission—Lord Lyttelton, the Rev. A. W. Thorold (Bishop of Rochester and of Winchester), Dr. Storrar, Mr. Fearon, and Mr. Fitch. In 1866, while the Commission were still at work, Miss Davies thus speaks of it in her “Higher Education of Women”—

“Specific schemes adapted to circumstances will be devised as occasions arise. In the meantime, any kind of recognition of the fact that the education of women is a matter worth thinking about is of the utmost practical value. In this point of view, as indicating and expressing a growing sense of the importance of the subject, the extension to girls of the Local Examinations of the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, and the steps taken by the Schools Inquiry Commission in their pending investigations, have an indirect inference quite out of proportion to the immediate and calculable results obtained, affording a moral support and encouragement the effect of which it is not easy to estimate.”

The direct influence of the Commission may be gauged by the fact that within ten years of this date Miss Buss was able to make a list of forty-five new endowed schools for girls, to contain severally from fifty to four hundred pupils, with salaries for the head-mistresses varying from £100 a year to £200 (exclusive of capitation fees). Of this list she remarks—

“It is not complete, but will be useful in establishing my point, viz. that there are some good positions for properly qualified women-teachers.

“St. Paul’s is the greatest prize in the profession, or rather would be if the scheme had become law. Do you see, the salary might be £2000 a year. Ours is second, with a hundred more pupils, and therefore more work and less pay than St. Paul’s. My object in drawing up the list was to show the importance of training and high education for women-teachers. Such prizes are not to be had elsewhere. Look at Scotch girls’ schools, at German also. We women owe a deep debt to the Endowed School Commission.”

The verdict given as the result of the Schools Inquiry Commission does not, of course, exclude the fact that there were then, and had always been, some good private schools where a good education had been given. The true teacher, like the poet, “is born and not made,” the power to teach being as much a Divine gift as that of song or of painting. It is true that the perception of every gift must depend on its full culture, the extent of success being determined by the amount of genius; but there have always been born teachers, some self-educated and some developed by exceptional home surroundings. Women of this kind have always existed as the loved and honoured centres of exceptional influence, sending out pupils formed on their own model.

Doubtless, there could have been found, at any period in the world’s history, a sufficient justification for the attitude condemned in one of the early papers in Fraser on the then quite new Queen’s College:—

‘Educate the women!’ exclaimed an accomplished and excellent man in our hearing, and with marked surprise. ‘Where is the necessity? A college for ladies! Nonsense! Women are admirably educated! I see none but well-educated women around me!’ in the tone of a man who, when told of those who hunger for bread, should reply, ‘Want bread? Nonsense! Hunger! There is no such thing! I see a good dinner before me every day.’”

But, granting that there was education, and of a real kind, we must agree that this, as a rule, was accessible only in the form of a very highly paid private governess, or in select and very expensive private schools. That even so much was not common, and not to be secured by the very highest payments, may be inferred from the account given by Miss Cobbe, in her “Autobiography,” of a typical fashionable school, where a two years’ course cost £1000, of which she says that “if the object had been to produce the minimum of result at the maximum of cost, nothing could have been better designed for the purpose.” In this school, she adds, “everything was taught in the inverse ratio of its true importance. At the bottom of the scale were morals and religion, and at the top music and dancing.”

The point to be kept before us, in considering the special work of this past half-century, is that for the middle-classes, including professional persons of moderate means, good education was practically out of reach, the cheaper schools which were open to them being, for the most part, of the order condemned by the Commissioners. It follows, therefore, that the opening of the new schools—with the best teaching on moderate terms—was a change of which the importance can scarcely yet be justly estimated, especially when, side by side with this preparatory movement, the advantages of University training were added. Before this time no girls’ schools, however advanced, had gone beyond the subjects considered suitable for women, and any women with knowledge of classics or mathematics were either exceptionally gifted, or had accidentally been taught with their brothers.

When we go back to November 30, 1865, the fog outside that committee-room is a true symbol of the gloom that prevailed regarding the higher education of women. Darkness still held rule, even though a few of the topmost peaks had already caught the first rays of the coming dawn.

At that date the future was still so veiled that it could by no possibility have occurred to Miss Davies or Miss Buss, standing there before the Commissioners, even to dream of themselves as what we now know them to have been—the representatives, one of University Education for Women, and the other of Public Schools for Girls, that is to say, of the two most powerful agencies in the greatest revolution of modern times.

But in those days Miss Buss’ school was still her own private property, and, as yet, no glimpse had crossed her mental vision of its future as the model of the great public girls’ schools now spread throughout the land. So, too, with Miss Davies. Girton was not, and even Hitchin had not come into view, though possibly some vague ideal of a true college for women may have been taking shape in Miss Davies’ mind. But if so, it must still have been as baseless as the poet’s dream, for no “sweet girl-graduate” existed as yet out of the domain of the “Princess Ida.” On this lower earth at that time, and for many a day after, she could serve only as matter for a flying jest.

There were indeed three “Colleges” for girls—Queen’s, Bedford, and Cheltenham, as well as the North London Collegiate School for Ladies—all in full work, and even then ready for the rapid expansion which followed the opening of the Universities to women. But, at that date, these could not rank as more than collegiate schools; nor was more desired, for Professor Maurice is very careful, in his inaugural address, to deprecate all intention of emulating the poet’s creation, thus guarding himself:—

“We should indeed rejoice to profit in this or any undertaking by the deep wisdom which the author of the ‘Princess’ has concealed under a veil of exquisite grace and lightness; we should not wish to think less nobly than his royal heroine does of the rights and powers of her sex, but we should be more inclined to acquiesce in the conclusions of her matured experience, than to revive—upon a miserably feeble and reduced scale, with some fatal deviations from its original statutes—her splendid but transitory foundation.”

Only the first step to the great changes of the present day had then been taken, when, in 1863, the University of Cambridge had allowed girls, as an experiment, to join the Local Examinations. Miss Buss always dated the later superiority of the teaching in her school to her experiences on that occasion. Out of eighty-four girls who went in, she sent twenty-five, of whom fifteen passed. The failure of ten in arithmetic pulled her up short, with the result that the teaching was so far changed that none failed in the next year, when girls were finally admitted on the same terms with boys, and the London Centre was formed under Miss Davies. But, even in 1866, success was so far limited, that Miss Beale could reply as follows to Lord Lyttelton’s query, “If she had heard of these new examinations?”—

“There seems to be some difficulty in applying them to the higher middle classes. I think of our own case. The brothers of our pupils go to the Universities. Now, generally speaking, those who go in for the Local Examinations occupy a much lower place in the social scale, and our pupils would not like to be classed with them, but regarded as equal in rank to those who pass at the University. These feelings are stronger in small places.”

The far-reaching effect of these examinations is indicated by Miss Buss’ opinion that “until the Local Cambridge Examinations were organized, there was no sort of recognition on the part of men that the feminine mind could under any circumstances rank with the masculine.”

We see from this fact that, before the middle of this century, the “woman’s movement” could not be said to exist at all. The question of equality—so much to the front at present—could not then even have been formulated. It is not till 1869 that we find it taken at all seriously, in a paper in the Macmillan for March of that year, by a writer who remarks that—

“Two alternatives are open to the would-be reformers of woman. The first of these is the line of Miss Lydia Becker, the second of Miss Emily Davies.”

And he adds that—

“Without wishing to disparage unduly the efforts of any earnest woman for what she believes to be the improvement of her sex, a thoughtful man must feel that the second is of the two the wiser course; the one which is most practical, most sensible, least dangerous, and most likely to secure the sympathy of the mass of Englishmen and Englishwomen.”

It is true that, in 1864, Dr. W. B. Hodgson, one of the first and best friends to the higher education of women, recognizes the fact that there might “rise up before the affrighted fancy” visions of what are derisively called “strong-minded women,” disputations, brow-beating, troubled with “a determination of words to the mouth,” loud and harsh in voice, arrogant in temper, dogmatic, self-willed, unconventional, undomestic, impatient of the matrimonial yoke as a badge of slavery, and with, perhaps, a leaning to waistcoats, and collars turned down, cigars, and hair parted on the side—such, in short, as a recent Italian dramatist, Castelvecchio, has so amusingly delineated in his “Donna Romantica.” But of this type, Dr. Hodgson adds—

“I know not whether the experience of my hearers is like mine; but assuredly of the very few women in whom it has been my lot to meet with any resemblance to this offensive type, not one has been distinguished by superior breadth or depth of culture. Very much the reverse. They have been remarkable for nothing more than the want of a truly liberal education, of which it is the high office to impart a large sympathy, a tolerant appreciation of various opinions, respect for others, and a modest distrust of self. It is not assuredly among the Mrs. Jamesons, the Mrs. Somervilles, the Mrs. Brownings, the Miss Swanwicks, that such portents are found. Dogmatism and presumption ever attend ignorance, not knowledge; shallowness, not depth.”[^[2]]

[2]. “The Education of Girls,” etc., by W. B. Hodgson, LL.D.

There were, indeed, indications of the two distinct lines of action in the work for higher education, and in the work for political reforms. But as yet they were not distinctly divided. The sympathies of the most thoughtful women went out in both directions, even whilst they might follow the one or the other more definitely. It was no more possible then than it would be possible now to draw a hard and fast line; placing on the one side the Educationalists, and on the other the workers for Suffrage and other reforms affecting women. Then, as now, women could be divided into two classes only—the wise and the foolish. Then, as now, the wise worked wisely in whatever line they followed, while the foolish worked also after their own kind.

The educational reform attracted the larger following, content to work in preparing women for the best use of extended power when the time of possession might arrive. In the mean time, the object sought was merely the preparation for actual duties, either in home-life, or in employments rendered necessary by the pressure of circumstances.

In looking back over the great educational movement, which has so changed the aspect of society, two points stand out most sharply: (1) that the work was done in the true natural order by men and women side by side; and (2) that it was done in the true spiritual order, in that quietness which is the appointed avenue to higher inspiration, that stillness which leads to vital knowledge; and also that it was done in the obedience which is the link that binds man to God—practical religion.

It is impossible to judge as yet what may be the final outcome of the intellectual freedom now opened to all women. There are signs of what was the most probable immediate effect—the exaggeration of recoil from all ancient bonds, including those of religion and duty. Whilst it would be very short-sighted to suppose that such a state of things could ever be permanent, so long as women retain any remnant of the intuitional quality which is their special dower, it may still be seasonable to call special attention to the fact that the pioneers in the educational movement are, without exception, deeply religious women. This circumstance may or may not be an accident of no particular moment. The point is that it is historic fact, and as such has its own significance. In a quite special degree, we may point to Miss Davies and to Miss Beale, as well as to Miss Buss and Miss Clough, as quite typically law-abiding and obedient women.

Quietness, in its most literal sense, is most curiously characteristic of all the educational leaders. The very thought of Emily Davies, reticent and self-controlled, gives a sense of calm and stillness. For long years we see Frances Mary Buss curbing her magnificent energies to the “daily round, the common task.” Anne Clough works in silence for a lifetime, between the first little day school in Liverpool and the success of Newnham. Dorothea Beale, though she can rise to all poetic heights, is observant of all the small sweet courtesies of lowly service, and, if “learned” in all school-lore, is also notably “learned in all gracious household ways.” And the same must be said of Frances Martin, who, in her College for Working Women, has so extended the range of the new education that none now need be left out.

Nor are these qualities less conspicuous in the group of what may be termed the “amateurs” of the movement—true “lovers” of their kind, who, having all that heart could desire of this world’s good, have made it their business to share it with those less favoured: Lady Stanley of Alderley, Lady Augusta Stanley, Lady Frederick Cavendish, Mrs. Manning and her daughter Miss E. A. Manning, Mrs. Reed, Miss Bostock, Mrs. Wedgwood, Madame Bodichon, Miss Ewart, and Miss L. M. Hubbard, all more lavish of time and thought and wealth than of words. And then all the active workers: sweet Mrs. Grey, with the touch of old-world stateliness adding strength to her sweetness; Miss Shirreff and Miss Mary Gurney, of few words, but these straight to the point; Mrs. Burbury, true to her University traditions, and Mrs. Garrett-Anderson, with the professional reticence learned in her fight through the medical schools; Miss Davenport-Hill, known to the School Board as the woman who can hold her tongue, and her sister Florence, “wisest of wise women,” as her friends call her, also with a great gift of silence; Miss Laura Soames, too early taken from us; and the many more like-minded, whose works rather than their tongues still speak for them.

It is not, indeed, that any one of these lacks the power to speak, for on some occasion most have been known to speak even from the platform, and to speak well. But not to women like these could those famous words of Mrs. Browning’s ever be held appropriate—

“A woman cannot do the thing she ought,—

Which means whatever perfect thing she can,

In life, in art, in science,—but she fears

To let the perfect action take her part,

And rest there: she must prove what she can do

Before she does it, prate of woman’s rights,

Of woman’s mission, woman’s function, till

The men (who are prating too on their side) cry,

‘A woman’s function plainly is—to talk!’”

And these quiet women are the true pioneers—the women who have actually done the work. They did not call on the world to listen to what women might, could, would, or should do under quite different conditions; they simply did—under the actually existing conditions—just the thing that needed to be done, then and there.

There was not in those days the need of perpetual discussions about “rights” or “wrongs.” The easiest way to cure the wrong seemed to lie in doing the nearest right. It was not that they were indifferent either to existing abuses, or to past wrongs, or blind to the need of necessary reforms. There was not one of them who was not stirred to the depths of her being by the wrong of past ages, or by the present anguish under which women agonize. It was because these deepest depths were so stirred that there they found themselves at one with the Divine love, which has not only suffered, but has conquered suffering—in this love finding strength for work and patience for waiting; and, as they worked and as they waited, there came forgiveness for the past, healing for the present, and hope for the future. All work that is done in the spirit of Christ is thereby lifted above anger, bitterness, or despair. In these moods no great or lasting work has been done or can be done. Not for selfish ends, not even for self-development, do the greatest workers leave the quiet of home, but only and always for freedom to do the highest duty, for the glorious liberty of love. Therefore the secret is not in revolt, but in obedience to the higher law which may indeed at times seem to be a breaking of the laws of men. By this test we may measure all our greatest women leaders. In turn we may find that each has defied to the uttermost the public opinion of her time in daring to prove her right to free action. But just in proportion to the height to which she rose we find her true womanliness strong to withstand any strain. The only real stepping out of woman’s proper sphere is when she descends to measure her strength with man on the lower level of self-love and self-seeking.

But weary as we grow of the present phase of empty “sound and fury, signifying nothing”—the language of revolt and invective—we need not fear for the future, or doubt that a true progress is taking us through all this jarring and wrangling and strife to a safe goal—

“Where beyond these voices there is peace.”

“When, at the last, a woman set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words;

And so these twain upon the skirts of Time

Sit side by side, full-summ’d in all their powers,

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,

Self reverent each, and reverencing each,

Distinct in individualities,

But like each other even as those who love.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;

Then reign the worlds great bridals, chaste and calm;

Then springs the crowning race of humankind.

May these things be!”

BOOK I.

EARLY LIFE.

CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD.

“The very pulse of the machine

• • • • • •

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;

A perfect woman, nobly plann’d

To warn, to comfort, and command.”

The record of the life of Frances Mary Buss includes within it, in brief, the story of the modern educational movement, in which she took so leading a part. It is not the less a story of perfect womanliness, in a career that is one of natural and steady growth, from seed to full fruitage. The woman simply fulfils the promise of the child.

It is a life most remarkable in this completeness. To very few of the greatest even is it given to see their life-work crowned with complete success. Frances Mary Buss was one of the few who begin life with a fixed aim, and who live to see self-devotion end in triumph. And the end left her, as the beginning had found her, as humble as she was loving.

In an age of incessant movement it is very restful to find a life of constant action which is yet so quiet and orderly, with continuity of place as marked as its continuity of purpose. All her work, widely as its influence extended beyond these limits, was carried on within the parish of St. Pancras—fifty years of ceaseless energy, from eighteen years of age to sixty-eight.

In holiday-time she used her freedom for as much change as could be compressed within holiday limits, thus seeing much of Europe as well as of her native land. But, excepting for one term of absence from illness, she might always, in working time, have been found at her post.

“Not for her name only, but because of her love and good works do I love to connect her with St. Francis!” writes an old pupil;[^[3]] and though at the first shock there may seem a touch of incongruity in thus linking the great ascetic saint of the past and this essentially modern worker, there is, nevertheless, much suggestiveness in the association.

[3]. In a bright little sketch in the Woman’s Penny Paper, of June 8, 1889.

Are they not, after all, of the very same order? What is the greatest saint but that child of God who is most aware of his Divine sonship, and therefore most intent on doing his “Father’s business”? Fashions of service may change, but this fact remains changeless. The fashion of the past was to mortify the flesh, and to serve the world by prayer rather than by work. The fashion of the present sees that “laborare est orare,” and serves the world by self-devotion instead of self-denial. The past was ruled by negations, and the stern “Thou shalt not!” rose as a barrier between man and man. The “saint” was not merely, as the word signifies, one “set apart” to do the will of God “on earth as it is [done] in heaven,” but he became instead one cut off, or separated, from the life of ordinary humanity. In our day we have risen to the power of the affirmation, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and we go on to the inevitable sequence, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Not the denial or the evasion of human duties, but their fulfilment utterly, is our test of sainthood in the present. It may be less easy to trace our saints by the quiet fireside or in the busy street; in the senate house or on the market-place; but none the less saintly are these in their modern garb than those who went their way apart, as stately abbot or humble anchorite, as hooded friar or cloistered nun.

The form may change, but the fact is the same. With the fact of a great love filling his soul, St. Francis, vowed to poverty, is still richer than the richest; and our modern saint, with all life’s gifts consecrated to service, may safely make the most of life, having thus the more to share. Having love, riches and poverty alike fall into their true place, as accidents, and not essentials of being.

We go back to far Assisi, and, looking across the Umbrian plain, see the quaint quiet little hill-town—unchanged in seven centuries—still looking like a white dove fluttering down the dark slope of Monte Subiaco. Here we find the boy Francis, gay and careless, dreaming his boyish dreams of royal courts and of knightly fame; till, falling as a dark shadow across the glittering pageant, comes the vision of the world’s poverty and pain, and the dreamer wakes to take his chosen place among the poor and sorrowing. To spend and be spent for love’s sake is henceforth the aim and the achievement of this perfect life.

Then we turn to commonplace St. Pancras, within sound of the crowding, hurrying, tumultuous life of the great modern city. Here we find the girl, Frances, dreaming over her books, with who can tell what ambitious dreams of her own future, as her heart burns with the sense of conscious power? But to her, too, comes the vision of struggle and of hard toil, and to her ear the cry of pain. And she awakes from her dream, to spend and be spent, that in the future every woman may rise to her full stature, set free for ever from the trammels of ignorance and of fear.

It is the very same story, only read in the light of a different age. The key-note to these harmonious lives is the same—love. Love, simplicity, humility, poverty of self, and devotion to others, form the common chord of this heavenly music, vary the movements as we may.

With merely technical or dogmatic theology neither the mediæval nor the modern saint has much to do. Religion forms an integral part of daily life. Love to God—accepted in His appointed channels, and for His appointed ends—is the sum and substance of this creed. The life of our modern worker had its roots deep down in the love and life eternal, as is seen by its fruits. One who knew her best—her eldest brother—says of her, “All through her life she acted on the highest principle—as a loving Christian. Out of this came, as the natural fruit, her large-hearted charity, her help she gave ever willingly to all who needed assistance.” This love interpenetrated all her being and expressed itself in service, in deeds, not words. “Don’t preach, but be; your actions will do more than your words!” she was wont to say to her pupils.

It must all come back again to the key-note—love. And we notice as the special quality of the modern, as opposed to the mediæval saint, a certain humanness which stoops to the smallest things, and, so stooping, lifts them to highest uses. We read of one of the typical saints of the olden days how she pressed into the seclusion of her convent, stepping over the prostrate body of her old father, whose prayers had failed to move her. “Heaven is the price,” she would have said, in the favourite words of another such saint of our own century, the Mère Angélique, who, lying pillowless on the bare ground, spent her last dying breath in sending from her the one human creature for whom she had a human love, a young novice, who obeyed her, broken-hearted. The inevitable outcome of the ascetic ideal—of pain for pain’s sake—has always been and must be inhumanity. The distinctive outcome of the wider grasp of God’s love which in our day says instead, pain for love’s sake only, is the exact opposite—an ever deepening humanity, in which human love is lifted up into the Divine, gathering into its embrace not only every race of mankind, but the brute creation too.

That this was characteristic in a most remarkable degree of her whom we are glad to recognize as one of our foremost teachers, remarkable especially in her power of loving and of inspiring love, we see most clearly in the word which seems by common consent to be that chosen to describe her—motherly, the most human as it is the most Divine word of mortal speech.

Few things are more delightful than the effort to trace the process by which a great personality is fitted for a great work. We may rejoice that we possess sufficient indications of her childhood to show how this child grew up to make life different for the children of after times.

Frances Mary Buss, born August 16, 1827, was the eldest child—and only daughter who survived infancy—of parents who were both persons of exceptional force of character. Her father was not only an artist of skill far beyond the average, but was a man of cultivated literary and scientific tastes. His influence was a powerful factor in the training of the child who was his joy and pride in her public career, as well as the most obedient and devoted of daughters.

The mother, almost adored by her children, was one of those strong loving souls whose silent lives are eloquent beyond all speech, who are enshrined in the hearts of all within their sphere as very ideals of love and loyalty.

Mrs. Septimus Buss thus writes of—

“the large-hearted loving Mother, whose motherliness was not only for her own, but for all children. It was a family joke that she came home from her walks penniless, as she could never see a poor child looking longingly into a cake-shop without sending it happily away in possession of a ‘goody.’ Many of us remember how we naturally went to her for comfort, and always felt the trouble lightened by some brave or kind word, or personal help, if possible. What merry, cheerful, little impromptu parties there were in her ever hospitable house, among her own children and others who, having finished their work, remained to play!

“Her watchword, like Miss Buss’, was Duty. I once answered, in real fright, ‘Oh, aunt, I am sure I cannot!’ She replied, ‘Child, never say I cannot, when called to any duty, but do the best you can!’ The devoted love that her children bore her was only the due return for her unwearied care of, and tenderness to, them in every detail of their life.”

Her family regard it only as traditional that their mother was descended from Mrs. Fleetwood, the daughter of Oliver Cromwell; but I had it as an accepted fact from one of the undoubted members of that family, who was proud to claim even so remote a connection with one whom she had so much admired. Miss Andrews must have been educated at Mrs. Wyand’s school, in the generation preceding Miss Buss, and she probably spoke with authority on the matter. She also had remarkable power as a teacher, with quite original views on education, a fact interesting as throwing a sidelight on the school in which Miss Buss was educated, the best in the neighbourhood of Mornington Crescent.

In a book of “Memories,” compiled for the family circle of Dr. Henry Buss—the “Uncle Henry” to whom, as a girl, “Fanny” owed some of her first holiday trips abroad—we find it recorded that “in 1689, William and Mary brought in their train from Holland a Mrs. Buss, who held the post of nurse to the Princess Anne, afterwards queen.”

The descendants of Mrs. Buss settled chiefly in the county of Kent. At Bromley, in 1775, we find one of them, Robert Buss, holding a post in the Excise. He afterwards became a schoolmaster at Tunbridge. His son, William Church Buss, became known as “a skilled engraver,” and, marrying “pretty Mary Anne Starling,” made his home, in 1803, in Jewin Street, Aldersgate.

We must dismiss entirely all our present associations with Aldersgate, and go back to the beginning of the century, to the description given by Dr. Buss of the city at the time when his parents made their home there—

“At this time the city itself was separated by fields from the village of Islington. It was the custom for pedestrians, especially after dark, to collect at Aldersgate-bars in sufficient force to protect each other from footpads, while crossing the fields to this village.

“The site of the existing City Road Basin was a market garden, thus utilized when the Grand Junction Canal Company extended their waterway through the city to the Thames. From the village of Islington to Highgate and Hampstead it was nearly all fields. Copenhagen House stood in the midst of cornfields. This spot is now the centre of New Smithfield Cattle Market.... The river Fleet was then as wide as the New River, and was supplied with boats for rowing. Excepting the Thames, it was the nearest river, and also a favourite bathing-place for the youth of London.”

There was probably no great change, as it was still before the days of steam and rail, when the little granddaughter of William Church Buss was sent to visit her grandparents, who had then removed to Newgate Street. Her maternal grandparents still lived in Clerkenwell, near the market gardens there.

William Church Buss was a very skilful engraver, and his son, Robert William Buss, was trained by him, and was a clever engraver before he became a painter, and subsequently a well-known etcher on copper and steel, and draughtsman for wood-engravers. Working in this way, he illustrated the novels of Mrs. Trollope and Captain Marryat, and other writers, and two of the first etchings for “Pickwick” were his doing. For Charles Knight he illustrated “Chaucer,” helping also in the “Shakespeare,” “London,” and “Old England,” issued by that publisher. Many of his own original pictures were engraved and had wide sale, such as “Soliciting a Vote,” “The Musical Bore,” “Satisfaction,” “Time and Tide,” etc. And, with all this, he still found time for lectures on “The Beautiful and Picturesque,” on “Fresco,” and on “Comic Art”—this last re-written at the close of his life, and dedicated to his daughter, under the title of “Graphic Satire.”

It was when on a visit to her paternal grandparents, in Newgate Street, that the future Educationalist made her first acquaintance with school-life, after a very quaint fashion, as she thus tells us—

“To get me out of the way, my grandparents sent me to a little school in the city, on a first floor, with a few forms, and, as far as I remember, with no other appurtenances for a school at all.

“The second school to which I went was kept by a Miss Cook—a mixed school of boys and girls. In Miss Cook’s school we sat on forms, and learned lessons which it never occurred to her to explain. I remember learning a good deal of ‘Murray’s Grammar.’”

In Frances Power Cobbe’s “Autobiography” she tells us that the first practical result of her attainment of the arts of reading and writing—throwing a lurid light on the agonies of the process—was to inscribe on the gravel walk, in large letters, “Lessons, thou tyrant of the mind!” A similar inscription might have been engraven for the benefit of Miss Cook by Frances Mary Buss, after this prolonged course of Lindley Murray without explanation. But she seems to have found other solace. The tyranny of lessons was powerless to crush this independent young mind, or to repress an independence of action more suitable to the age of “Revolting Daughters,” than to that of “Mrs. Trimmer” or of “Evenings at Home.” Her next story tells how she invited a little companion to a juvenile party, which existed only in her own active imagination, until the kind mother gave it objective reality, on hearing of the small boy’s bitter disappointment. It might be at this school that Miss Buss acquired that ideal of “mixed schools” which she kept before her to the end, though she knew it was not to become fact in her day.

She was very far from spending her young life only in sitting on a form, learning lessons by rote. “Children,” says Mr. Ruskin, “should have times of being off duty, like soldiers;” or, as Dr. Abbott puts the same truth very clearly, “Children should have time to think their own thoughts.” These privileges certainly did belong to the children of the past, and, like many another clever child, the little Fanny made full use of her liberty, for she continues—

“As soon as I could begin to read I revelled in books, and especially fairy tales. I devoured every fairy tale that was to be had. In those days the books available for children were ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ‘Miss Edgeworth’s Tales,’ ‘The Arabian Nights,’ and the old nursery stories. Of these I had single copies, which I managed to buy out of the money given to me. I had, in addition, translations of the Countess D’Aulnoy’s tales. As my father had a very fair library for the date, and as I had access to all his books, I had a wide course of reading. I knew Milton’s introduction to ‘The History of England,’ with the legends of Bladud, Lear, etc.; ‘Hume’s History,’ in every part, except the political, which I invariably skipped; the novels of the eighteenth century—‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Pamela,’ ‘The Man of Feeling,’ ‘Joseph Andrews,’ ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ etc. ‘Pamela’ was in four large volumes, the first of which I could never get because my mother hid it. At about ten years of age I became acquainted with Scott’s novels, and knew all the stories by heart, except ‘Rob Roy,’ for which I did not care. My father had the ‘Abbotsford Edition,’ with the poems, in twelve volumes. I never, however, read the poetry. In consequence of my father being engaged to illustrate books for Charles Knight, and for Bentley and Colburn, the publishers, I used to have the opportunity of reading the proofs, by going down, at six o’clock on summer mornings, to his room before any one was there. I remember my chief difficulty, however, with the proofs was paging them correctly; this I never learned to do, and therefore I read the pages as they came, fitting them into my mind properly afterwards. In that way I read Mrs. Trollope’s ‘Widow Married,’ Marryat’s ‘Peter Simple,’ etc.... During this early period of my life I must have become acquainted with the contents of about forty volumes of plays, published by Cumberland. There were also many volumes of plays of the previous century, which I knew almost by heart. Amongst these were volumes of Peruvian, Persian, and Turkish tales, belonging to a young aunt, my mother’s sister, who lent them to me. In these tales there was no attempt at connection, every person introduced merely telling his or her own story.

“I remember that, as my brother Alfred grew up, I used to find it necessary, in order to enjoy my book, to hide myself under a sofa, in a room on the second floor, which was occupied by a Government clerk. This gentleman was out all day, and therefore his room was available. My mother must have known this, because we children—the boys at any rate—were not allowed to go to this room.”

At about the same time we find the insatiable child reading Miss Strickland’s “Queens of England,” of which she says “each volume came out by itself, and I remember I used to save up all my pence to hire a volume to read, and even at that early age I made many notes.”

History remained her favourite study, and her mode of teaching it must have made it fascinating to her pupils. One of these, afterwards a member of the staff, remarks of it—

“I was at school from 1864–67, and the pleasantest part of the time was the lessons I had in history, French, geography, and literature from Miss Buss. How thorough her teaching was! It seems to me that I have never forgotten what she taught, while most of the lessons from others (except Dr. Hodgson and Miss Chessar) seem to have passed away without leaving any definite trace in my memory. Her lessons were alive; the historical characters and scenes she described seemed as familiar as if one had known them personally, and she made everything interesting because she herself had such interest in what she taught.”

Another of the old pupils says also—

“But for picturesqueness and interest her history lessons excelled all others. It was then she gave us ‘the cream of her life’s reading,’ as I have heard her say. Two lectures specially remain in my mind on ‘The Rise of the Hydes.’ There were many in the class who lost not a point from beginning to end, so graphically was the story presented to us.”

And at any time, to the last, to hear her sum up the characteristics of any special period, or describe any great event, with her instinctively picturesque presentation of the scene, was a treat of no common order.

To this graphic power of description, her early artistic surroundings must in no small degree have contributed. At one time she taught drawing in her class, but she never had the time for any artistic work of her own. She had, however, keen and cultivated artistic tastes, and her feeling for colour was especially marked. Her visits to Italy intensified this delight in colour, and she indulged it in ways sometimes regarded as hazardous by eyes accustomed only to sober British tints. But they were in the end obliged to admire these innovations. She was among the first to appreciate the new developments of decorative art, and Myra Lodge and the Cottage at Epping revealed her taste at every turn.

In the account of the next stage of her school-life, we get glimpses of her social surroundings which show that there must have been much to stimulate the child’s eager and inquiring mind—

“At ten years of age I was sent to a much higher school, kept by Mrs. Wyand, at the corner of Rutland Street, Hampstead Road. Here I met with the daughters of David Roberts, Clarkson Stanfield, and other artists. Mr. Wyand had a boys’ school, largely attended by the sons of artists. A few doors lower down lived George Cruickshank. Clarkson Stanfield also lived in Mornington Place; and, still nearer the school, Frederick Bacon, the engraver, with whose niece and adopted daughter I was on the most intimate terms. At a later date the daughters of Goodall entered the school, and also Isabella Irving, the daughter of Edward Irving, a tall, fine dark girl, very like her father. Her brother, Martin Irving, was in the boys’ school.”

We have to bear in mind that at this date Mornington Crescent occupied much the same position, as a literary and artistic centre, which is held by Hampstead at the present day. Even as late as 1850, the westward migrations had not begun, for market gardens filled the space between Kensington High Street and Chelsea proper, and Notting Hill Square was on the verge of the country. In 1850, University and King’s Colleges made a centre in the west central district; and the establishment even of a Collegiate School for Ladies was regarded as a slight infringement of the dignity of Camden Street, which could boast at that date of so choice an intellectual cotérie as Professor De Morgan, Professor Key, Professor Hoppus, and Dr. Kitto. It was near enough to town life, and yet near the country, long stretches of green fields and flowery hedges leading to the heights of Hampstead and Highgate. Regent’s Park was the nearest of the parks, and the New Road had not then outgrown the freshness of its name.

In these records of Miss Buss’ childhood we seem taken back to another world, as we read of the “long coast journey to the Docks,” on the way to Margate, when the child sees “the remains of the illuminations of the day before for the celebration of the Princess Victoria’s birthday.” In the next year also there are, again at Margate, “triumphal arches in honour of the Queen’s coronation.” And then there is the first sight of the young Queen—

“I had been taken to the park by my grandmother, and an open carriage passed with three ladies in deep mourning—one was the Queen, the other the Duchess of Kent, and the third a lady in waiting. The following year I also saw the Queen in an open carriage going to the Academy. She then wore a white dress, and a very large bonnet lined with pink. I think she had a green parasol.”

On another occasion there is “a vision of scarlet and of a mass of white drapery” as “the young couple are returning from St. James’ Chapel on the Queen’s birthday.”

Very pleasant, in its old-fashioned simplicity, must have been the life of this artistic circle, united in tastes and occupations, and living, as it were, between town and country, with the advantages of both. It was no wonder that, under such influences, this child early developed intellectual tastes. But her growth was equal on all sides, love of books being only one of her varied “talents.” She tells us—

“At that date it was considered necessary that every girl should work; and before I was ten years of age I had made a shirt for my father, all the parts being cut out and arranged by my mother, sewing machines not being then invented. So, too, as it was long before the days of Peak and Frean, or Huntley and Palmer, for our childish parties, I used to help my mother make all the biscuits, as well as the cakes and tarts. I remember one large grown-up party which my parents gave, on which occasion the door was smoothed in some way, and a very handsome border painted round it by my father (an elaborate design about two feet wide). This was my first appearance among grown-up people, and I quite well remember the delight I felt at the idea of being asked to dance by a very tall man, an engraver, whose name I forget, whom I met in after years and found to be very insignificant. The belles of that evening were the Miss Cumberlands, daughters of the publisher, for whom at that time my father was painting a series of theatrical portraits.”

Among the celebrated actors forming this series were Charles Matthews, Reeve, Harley, Mrs. Nesbit, Buckstone, Ellen Tree, Vandenhof, Macready, and Dowton. At an early age “Fanny” had been taken to the theatre, of which we learn that “at that date the Sadler’s Wells Theatre was held in high repute. The stage was very large, and being situated near the New River was able to utilize a great deal of water.” We may imagine the excitement of the children over the arrival of these wonderful personages; how they peered silently over the banisters, and how, when the sittings were over, they stole into the studio to examine the costumes which were left for the artist’s use, with what glee to discover, for instance, that Vandenhof’s cap, in some great character, was “made of a large blue sugar-bag covered with some coloured material.”

Amateur theatricals were a favourite amusement at the young parties—at first, when the kind father was the chief performer, in “a series of dancing card figures, exhibited on a sheet as shadows, he writing and reading the text;” afterwards, the performances were of more ambitious character, at Mr. Wyand’s school, when the boys were allowed to invite their sisters and friends, and “where the plays were written by the boys, and the women’s parts taken by boys, to our great delight, as they invariably tumbled over their skirts.”

In one play, the king’s part is taken by John Blockley, son of the author of the then favourite song “Love Not,” in a play in which the chief characters are “King Edward” and the “Sultan of Turkey,” Edward being a “tall, thin, shy lad, who in the meekest possible way announced that while he lived no Turkish prince should wield Edward’s sceptre” (a folded sheet of exercise paper). “My brother Alfred contributed a large cloak, lined with red, which continued to be a famous piece of stage property. The swords, shields, etc., were made by my father.”

The pupils who knew the school when Miss Buss was in full vigour will read with interest these early developments of the dramatic power which played such part in the tableaux vivants, plays, charades, or costume dances of that period. These entertainments, involving parties counted by hundreds where ordinary folk have units, were a great feature of school-life. They must have formed a delightful break in that excessive study so condemned by the world outside, which assuredly in no wise prevented the most hilarious enjoyment of these revels, shared by all, from the dignified head down to the most frolicsome of the “little ones.”

And for all readers it is pleasant to have these glimpses of the happy home-life in which this loving nature had such free room for growth. So much is implied as we see the busy father making time for play with his children, as well as for “writing letters on grammar,” which the studious little daughter “used to find on the stairs;” or again, as we note the good mother, not less busy, kindly shutting her eyes to those surreptitious studies under the sofa, instead of calling on her only girl to take her part in amusing the younger children, of whom, in course of time, one sister and eight brothers made their appearance in the active household. Of these, however, only four brothers attained manhood.

In later years the elder sister needed no bidding to stand by the mother to whom she was devoted, and whose comfort and stay she became in the long struggle with the many claims on a narrow income. In those days life was a struggle to even the most distinguished artists, and fame was by no means synonymous with fortune.

In the natural course of things more than one opportunity came to the girl to change this home struggle for a life of her own under easier auspices. And once she had felt the force of the temptation; but duty had early become the watchword of her life; and as she looked at the mother burdened with her weight of cares, the good daughter, at a cost none but herself could measure, turned from the dreams of her girlhood, from the hopes of womanhood, and kept her place by her mother’s side.

Years afterwards in a few words she tells us all the story—

“I have had real heart-ache, such as at intervals in earlier life I had to bear: when I put aside marriage; when Mr. Laing died; and again when my dearest mother, the brave, loving, strong, tender woman, left all her children. I quite believe in heart-ache! God’s ways are not our ways!”

CHAPTER II.
GIRLHOOD.

“O’er wayward childhood would’st thou hold firm rule

And sun thee in the light of happy faces,

Love, hope, and patience, these must be thy graces,

And in thine own heart let them first keep school.”

Coleridge.

Of Miss Buss as a girl we have a very telling little sketch in her own words, showing how this happy childhood merged only too quickly into a girlhood early fitting her for the strenuous life-work towards which she was moving on through long silent years of training.

“I may as well take this opportunity of saying that within a month after I had reached my fourteenth birthday I began to teach, and that never since, with the exception of holidays and two occasions of serious illness, have I spent my days out of a schoolroom. I was in sole charge of a large school for a week at a time when I was sixteen. When I was twenty-three I was mistress of a large private school, containing nearly a hundred pupils; that hundred was turned into two hundred by the time I was twenty-five.

“I mention these facts just to show you how intensely active my life has been, for it is always to be borne in mind that in addition to spending my days in the schoolroom, I had to gain the whole of my education, such as it is, in the evening or in the holidays, and that for some years in my early life there was a great burden of money anxieties.

“You will see that I have never, therefore, known leisure. Of late years, since the work has developed so much, I have done less teaching, but until the last four or five years, and for some years after the opening of the Cambridge Examinations, I was the sole mistress of the highest class, teaching every subject in it—English, French, German, and some Latin.

“After the Cambridge Examinations began it was necessary to be free one hour in the morning, in order to see what was going on in other classes.

“As a matter of fact, I have had to teach almost everything at different times. For some years I assisted in the teaching of model and freehand drawing.

“Circumstances never seemed favourable for my having time to do anything, so to speak, but live inside the schoolroom, and there carry into practice such theories as crossed my mind. I think it would have been much better for me if I had been able to have had a greater knowledge of the theory of the profession by private study, but hard practice has taught me something.”

In one of this girl’s early sayings—“Why are women so little thought of? I would have girls trained to match their brothers!”—we have the key-note of her harmonious life. It was experience transmuted into sympathy. In the stress of her own girlish efforts she gained her life-long feeling for the half-educated, on whom is too early laid the burden of money getting. Then, when occasion demanded, she was ready to give up her own ease, and to undertake the heavy work which has secured to thousands of wage-earning girls the practical training of a thorough education.

Not less plainly, also, do we see, in her desire to fit herself for her own work, the first impetus to secure for all teachers the training needed for their special calling; an object ever close to her heart, and one in which her success will be her strongest claim to the gratitude of future generations.

The claim of an increasing family was no doubt in this, as in so many cases, the reason why the mother and daughter opened the first school in Clarence Road. And then, like so many other sisters, this girl would watch her brothers going off to school or college for the studies in which she—being a girl—could have no share. But, like many a good sister before and since, she would contentedly put aside her own dreams or desires, doing her best to help her brothers. Such sacrifice was taken simply as the highest duty, and thus turned to deepest delight; but we can see how this loving obedience was in reality a storing up of energy for the great revolution of which she had caught the earliest intimations.

It is a pleasant thought to take in passing that this good sister—happier than many—had brothers equally good. If she was all that a sister could be she found in them good brothers, who were friends and fellow-workers, helping her in all the great aims of her life. Her eldest brother, the Rev. Alfred J. Buss, as clerk to the governing body of the schools, quite relieved her mind from all anxiety concerning business arrangements; whilst the religious instruction given by the Rev. Septimus Buss carried on the early tradition of the school. There was a wide gap between the eldest of the family and number seven, so that her relation with this brother, after the mother’s death, was half maternal as well as half sisterly. When he early became engaged to her pupil, cousin, and friend, and thus gave her the truest and most tender of sisters, the bond was doubled, and the children of this beloved pair—her namesake Francis, especially—became as her very own. Her letters are full of allusion to “my boy,” who was her joy from his peculiarly engaging babyhood till he fulfilled her heart’s desire by taking Holy Orders. His next brother followed in this example, first set by the son of the Rev. A. J. Buss, now Minor Canon of Lincoln.

This clerical bent was very strong in the family. As a boy, Alfred Joseph Buss shared his sister’s enthusiasm for teaching, and for any hope of head-mastership Holy Orders were essential. Before he was out of his teens he became the first assistant-master in the then newly opened North London Collegiate School for Boys. He was also English tutor at one time to the young Orleans princes. But later in life he found himself drawn most strongly to the work of the parish priest. Septimus Buss inherited so much of his father’s genius, that he seemed destined for art, having a picture in the Royal Academy whilst only nineteen years of age. But, though in obedience to his father he worked hard at painting, he still had his own intentions, and worked harder at Greek and Latin. Knowing, however, that there was at that time an extra strain upon the family finances, he bravely kept his own wishes to himself till he had earned the means of carrying them out. The story of these two brothers is among the helpful and instructive tales that ought some day to be written, to show what can be done by high aims and resolute will. Of both it may be said that they are all the stronger as fighters in their splendid battle against East End misery, because, in their own boyhood, they knew how “to endure hardness as good soldiers.”

This attraction to the clerical profession was a natural sequence to early associations. The most powerful influence of Miss Buss’ girlish life was undoubtedly that of her revered friend of whom Mrs. Septimus Buss writes, when alluding to—

“the earnest spiritual influence of the Rev. David Laing, who built the church and schools of Holy Trinity, Kentish Town, giving his whole fortune and his life to found the parish. His teaching by precept and practice was self-sacrifice, and the large-hearted charity that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, coupled with the wide culture that welcomed new thought, and proved all things. His hospitable home was constantly open to his parishioners, where he received them among his cultured circle of literary, scientific, and artistic friends. He at once took his stand by the North London Collegiate School, while others waited till its success was sure. We, oldest of old pupils, still thrill with somewhat of the past enthusiasm when we recall his inspiring teaching. The band of devoted workers he gathered round him in his parish—which was then almost unique for the number of works of charity carried on in it, and for the weekly lectures by Mr. S. C. Hall and others—testified to his personal influence, the motive power of which was not what he saw, but what he was.”

In memory of her lamented friend, Miss Buss, after his death, established six “Laing Scholarships,” by which so many girls who needed this help received a free education in her school. Thus for ten years Mr. Laing’s memory was kept in mind. With the changes of 1870 these Scholarships ceased, but Miss Buss’ devotion to Mrs. Laing knew no intermission till her old friend’s death in 1876; and Miss Fawcett has an interesting little comment on this unfailing thoughtfulness—

“All associated with our dear friend must have been struck with her loyalty and faithfulness to her old friends. I am thinking especially of her treatment of Mrs. Laing, for so many years. Sunday by Sunday she went to see her after morning service as regularly as the day came round; flowers were sent to her very frequently, also nice books to read. On her birthday Miss Buss never failed to see her before the school-work began.”

Among the school records there is a letter which is of interest as showing the close relations which existed between Mr. and Mrs. Laing and the school. It is addressed to the chairman presiding at the first prize-day after the double loss which made so sad a change for the young head-mistress—the death within a year of her mother and of Mr. Laing—

“Rev. and dear Sir,

“May I beg you to express my great regret at the impossibility of my being at your meeting to-day? I do not say that it would not have been very painful to attend, when two so loved and honoured are missing since we last assembled for the same purpose; but it is still more painful to stay away. I wished to show my true interest in the cause Mr. Laing had so much at heart; my warm regard for the friends he so much valued; my deep sense of the respect and affection shown to his memory in the establishment of the Laing Scholarships.

“Many to-day will remember how in much pain and weakness he filled his place last year, but a few days before he took to the bed whence he was to rise no more. It was the last evidence he was permitted to give of his feeling with regard to the work carried on here; and I feel I can do nothing better than adopt that which in various ways he has so often said to me, ‘Miss Buss is doing a great and good work. Hundreds will rise up and call her blessed.’

“I am, yours faithfully,

“Mary E. Laing.”

To the influence of Mr. Laing, and of his no less admirable wife, Miss Buss owed much of the mental and moral breadth for which she was afterwards so distinguished. In their home she was always welcome, finding a never-failing sympathy and encouragement. Often in our quiet talks she delighted to refer to these early memories, speaking of the advantage such a friendship had been to her in her young life; and to this grateful memory it is probable that many of her own young assistants, especially those least fortunate in their social surroundings, may have owed much of the thoughtful kindness so valuable to girls beginning their career as teachers.

With the knowledge of the satisfaction she would have felt in fuller recognition of Mr. Laing’s services to education in general, as well as in particular to her own school, it will not be out of place here to give some notes supplied by the Rev. A. J. Buss, with his own comment on them—

“There is much that I would say about the connection with Mr. Laing—about himself as a great leader (almost unacknowledged) in the educational movement of the latter half of this century. To me the question is an interesting one, for I loved Mr. Laing as a young man, and cherish his memory as most precious now that I am advanced in life. It is at least remarkable that he who, as honorary secretary and a member of the Board of Management of the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution, took some part in the foundation of Queen’s, should have been a prime mover in the foundation of that school which has become the North London Collegiate School for Girls, and has rendered possible, and given such impetus to, the higher education of girls and women.”

The story of the rise of Queen’s College is of interest from many points of view, beyond that concerning our present purpose of showing the influences that inspired Frances Mary Buss with her special zeal for education. In knowing Mr. Laing she came into direct touch with the newest educational effort, and must have heard the whole question discussed from all sides.

Mr. Laing, in 1843, rescued the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution from decay, remaining its active honorary secretary till his death in 1860. This society was formed—

“with the idea of benefiting governesses in every possible way; to help in temporary difficulty; to provide annuities for aged governesses; to help the younger to help themselves; to provide a home for governesses during engagements, and an asylum for the aged; also a system of registration, free of expense, to those seeking engagements.”

The whole of these objects were contemplated in 1843, and, in 1844, were a matter of negotiation with the National Society, with the Committee of Council, and with the heads of the Church.

In giving an account of the early work—as a reply to an article in Fraser’s Magazine (July, 1849), commenting unfavourably on the efforts that were then made—Mr. Laing shows that with the foundation of the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution the first principles of all future movements were really incorporated. He says—

“In undertaking an institution for the benefit of governesses, it was felt to be absurd and short-sighted to remedy existing evils without an attempt at their removal.... To do this the character of the whole class must be raised, and there was the bright thought that to raise the character of governesses as a class was to raise the whole tone of Christian society throughout the country.”

But it was easier to plan such a college than to carry out these plans, and several years passed without practical results. Reference is made, year by year, on the subject, in the annual reports of the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution.

In that for 1845, we find that “difficulties which the committee had not anticipated, have arisen with the several authorities, from whom Boards of Examiners, with power to grant a diploma of qualification, might originate.”

In the report for 1846, “an act of incorporation and arrangements for a diploma” are still “subjects of consideration, upon which the committee are prepared to enter into communication with all parties friendly to the cause. Unexpected difficulties still intervene.”

It was in 1848 that the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution received a royal charter of incorporation, thus worded—

“We have been graciously pleased to permit the name of Queen’s College, in which certificates of qualification are granted to governesses, and in which arrangements have been made with professors of high talent and standing in society to open classes in all branches of female education.”

Queen’s College was governed by a council of gentlemen, and its first principal, Professor Maurice, was followed by Professor Plumptre. A committee of lady-visitors was formed, but the duties of these ladies was merely to be present while the teaching was done by men. Among them we find the familiar names of Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mrs. Marcet, Miss Maurice, Mrs. Kay Shuttleworth, and Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood.

It would appear, from the report of 1849, that while the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution was thus working for better education for women and girls, other schemes had been proposed, first by Miss Murray, one of her Majesty’s ladies in waiting, and then by the professors of King’s College. Eventually, the formation of a Committee of Education, of which Mr. Laing and Professors Maurice and Nicolay were active members, brought things to a practical point, as Professor Nicolay states[^[4]] that the “Committee of Education,” thus formed, did its work in connection with, if not actually for, the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution.

[4]. In the English Education Journal, 1849.

In his inaugural lecture at Hanover Square, in 1848, Professor Maurice shows how this institution, beginning with a provision for distress among governesses, came to associate distress with incompetency, and hence to provide better instruction. In like manner, beginning as examiners, the professors soon found that before they could examine they must first teach, and for this purpose organized the classes that grew into Queen’s College.

In Fraser’s Magazine, early in the fifties, are to be found several papers concerning the foundation of Queen’s College, thus finally summed up by the editor—

“With reference to the article on Queen’s College in our last number, Mr. Laing, as Hon. Sec. to the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution, desires us to state that the society was in communication with the Government and other parties respecting the establishment of the college as early as 1844, whilst there was no communication with the present professors until 1847; and that her Majesty granted to the society the permission to use the Royal name for the college before any connection was formed with the present professors.

“Whilst, therefore, the success of the college is wholly attributable to the character and talents of its teachers, the college would have existed under any circumstances.”

In the same year, six months later, Bedford College was founded, mainly by Mrs. Reid and Miss Bostock, and among the ladies interested we find many names afterwards prominent in the movement for opening the Universities to women, as those of Lady Romilly, Lady Belcher, Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Crompton, Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Goldsmid, Mrs. Jameson, Mrs. Bryan Walter Procter, Lady Pollock, Miss Julia Smith, Mrs. Strutt (afterwards Lady Belper), Miss Emily Davies, Miss Anna Swanwick, and Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood.

One distinct difference between Queen’s College and Bedford College is that the first was managed by men, with a man as the principal and women only as lady-visitors. Bedford College had from the first a mixed committee, and the visitor who represented the head might be of either sex. Latterly Miss Anna Swanwick has held this post. Results seem to indicate the advantage of giving women an equal share in the education of girls.

It was by Mr. Laing’s introduction that Miss Buss became one of the first pupils of the evening classes at Queen’s College. The Queen’s College of that day (1848) bore little resemblance to the colleges of a quarter of a century later, but there was an enormous stride onwards in the curriculum offered to its first pupils.

In her “History of Cheltenham College,” Miss Beale gives us a glimpse of these classes—

“Queen’s College offered to grant certificates to governesses.... My sisters and I were amongst some of the first to offer ourselves for examination. For Holy Scripture the examiner was the Rev. E. H. Plumptre, afterwards Dean of Wells, so well known for his Biblical Commentaries, his great learning, and his translations of the Greek dramatists and Dante. He also examined in classics. In modern history and literature we had the pleasure of being examined by Professor Maurice. The viva voce was a delightful conversation; he led us on by his sympathetic manner and kindly appreciation so that we hardly remembered he was an examiner. For French and German our examiners were Professors Brasseur and Bernays; for mathematics, Professor Hall and Mr. Cock; for music, Sterndale Bennett; and for pedagogy, the head of the Battersea Training College.”

The names of the Rev. Charles Kingsley, for English literature and composition; of Professor Nicolay, for history and geography; and of Professor Hullah, for vocal music, also appear on the list.

It was of classes like these that, as a girl of twenty-one, Frances Mary Buss became a happy pupil. Her father’s interest in art and science had prepared her to enter into the spirit of such teaching, and to profit by the influence of the great men who threw their whole souls into their work. What this meant to the girls thus privileged is shown in lives like those of Miss Buss, Miss Beale, Miss Frances Martin, or Miss Julia Wedgwood, and many more perhaps less known to fame.

A memory comes back to me of an evening in 1881, spent at Myra Lodge, where the difference between the old and the new order of things was emphasized in a marked degree. Standing out from the far past, as precursors of the new era, were Miss Buss herself, Miss Beale, and Miss Frances Martin; midway, as a Schools Inquiry Commissioner, was Mr. J. G. Fitch; while the moderns bloomed out in Dr. Sophie Bryant, one of the earliest Cambridge Local candidates, and the very first woman-Doctor of Science; Miss Rose Aitkin, B.A., stood for the arts; and, I think, Miss Sara A. Burstall (since B.A.) as the first girl who had, like her brothers, educated herself by her brains, passing, largely by scholarships, up from the Camden School, through the Upper School, and on to Girton.

It was a thing to remember to hear how the three elder women spoke of the old and new days, and then to see what had been done for the girls through their efforts. Miss Buss told us many things of her girlhood, and her difficulties in fitting herself for her work; and especially of the stimulus and delight of the new world of thought and feeling opened by those first lectures. Miss Beale and Miss Martin, coming later, had enjoyed all the advantages of Queen’s College, but they did not the less appreciate those first lectures. As they spoke in glowing terms of Professor Maurice, one could not but wish that he might have been there to see the three grand women who have done so much for womanhood—pupils worthy of even such a master.

The picture fixed itself in my mind of Frances Mary Buss, in the first ardour of this new intellectual awakening. She was teaching all day in her own school, so that she could take only the evening classes. There were at that time no omnibuses, and night after night, her day’s work done, the enthusiastic girl walked from Camden Town to Queen’s College and back. Night after night she sat up into the small hours, entranced by her new studies, preparing thus not only for the papers which won for her the desired certificates, but for that greater future of which she did not then even dream.

In her Autobiography, Miss Cobbe gives a very telling summary of the education of the earlier part of this century, in her account of the particular school in which her own education had been, as it was called, “finished,” at a cost, for two years, of £1000. How she began it for herself afterwards she also tells, but of this finished portion she thus writes—

“Nobody dreamed that any one of us could, in later life, be more or less than an ornament to Society. That a pupil in that school should become an artist or authoress would have been regarded as a deplorable dereliction. Not that which was good or useful to the community, or even that which would be delightful to ourselves, but that which would make us admired in society was the raison d’être of such requirement.

“The education of women was probably at its lowest ebb about half a century ago. It was at that period more pretentious than it had ever been before, and infinitely more costly; and it was likewise more shallow and senseless than can easily be believed. To inspire young women with due gratitude for their present privileges, won for them by my contemporaries, I can think of nothing better than to acquaint them with some of the features of school-life in England in the days of their mothers. I say advisedly in those of their mothers, for in those of their grandmothers things were by no means equally bad. There was much less pretence, and more genuine instruction, so far as it extended.”

We are justified in the conclusion that Mrs. Wyand’s school, in which Frances Mary Buss received her training, as pupil and then as assistant, was one of the survivals from this olden time. From one of the pupils, who was there as a child while Miss Buss was assistant-mistress, we have a sketch of Mrs. Wyand as a slight, erect little lady, with very dark eyes, and with black hair, in the ringlets of that era, confined on each side by tortoiseshell side-combs. She always wore long rustling silk gowns, and altogether was an impressive personage, before whom the most volatile schoolgirl at once grew staid and sober. Mention of Miss Buss herself seems limited to a certain satisfaction in having carried provocation to so great an extent as to make the young teacher cry. But we may easily imagine that before the end of that encounter the tables were turned, and that then may have begun the treatment of “naughty girls” so successful in later life.

Thanks to the good training received under Mrs. Wyand, Miss Buss was able, at the age of eighteen, to take an active part in the school opened by Mrs. Buss in Clarence Road. Before she was twenty-three she had gained the Queen’s College Diploma, and she then became the head of the new school in Camden Street, which was the outcome of this first venture.

The course of instruction included most of the subjects now taught, and Miss Eleanor Begbie—who claims to have been the first pupil in Camden Street, and who has been superintendent of the Sandall Road School, familiar, therefore, with all new methods—affirms confidently that the Science and Art classes taken by Mr. Buss were “as good, and quite as interesting, as anything given now.”

This is confirmed by Mrs. Pierson, who says of these very happy school-days—

“Her dear father greatly added to the enjoyment of school life by giving us courses of lectures illustrated by diagrams on geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, and chemistry, quite equal to those given by highly paid professors of the present day, and he gave them for love, and nothing extra was put down in the bills, although each course was an education by itself, given in his lucid and most interesting way.”

These lectures, as Mrs. S. Buss says in her reminiscences—

“awakened in many a pupil the thirst for reading and study. His artistic talent, and the pleasant excursions for sketching from Nature, were novel inspirations in the days when the ordinary girlish specimens of copied drawings resembled nothing in Nature. A good elocutionist himself, he taught us to read and recite with expression.”