“That human beings, whether male or female, come into the world not merely to ‘get a living,’ but to live; that the life they live depends largely on what they know and care about, upon the breadth of their intellectual sympathy, upon their love of truth, upon their power of influencing and inspiring other minds; and that, for these reasons, mental culture stands in just as close relation to the needs of a woman’s career in the world as to that of a man—all these are propositions which, if not self-evident, are at least seen in a clearer light by the people of our generation than by their predecessors.”—J. G. Fitch. “The thing that vexes me is the entirely ignoring Miss Emily Davies, to whose hard work it may fairly be said the whole movement is due. She memorialized the Endowed Schools Commission to include girls in their inquiries; she bore the brunt of the fight about getting the Cambridge Local Examinations open, and she called Girton into existence.”
So wrote Miss Buss to Dr. J. G. Fitch, in 1879, when roused to protest against some statements in a book entitled, “Girls and Colleges for Women,” which appeared at that date, and especially to protest against what invariably roused her deepest ire—the failure to give honour where honour was due. Of her it might always be said that she fulfilled the lovely law of Christian life, “In honour preferring one another.” As Miss Davies says, in reference to the passage just quoted, “It was like Miss Buss, so full as she was of 253generosity, to be eager in protest against what she regarded as a slight to another, not herself.”
Constantly recurrent, in speech and in writing, do we find testimony of the value attached by Miss Buss to the University Local Examinations, of which she was among the first to make use.
It was in consequence of the exertions of Miss Davies, assisted by Miss Bostock, of Bedford College, and a small band of steady supporters, that, in 1863, girls were, for the first time, and in an informal way, allowed to try the examination papers set for boys.[17]
17.  Extract from the first circular—
“A committee of ladies and gentlemen interested in female education have made arrangements for holding examinations of girls in connection with the University of Cambridge, commencing December 14. Prizes and certificates of proficiency will be awarded by the committee, following the recommendations of the examiners.
“The examinations will be conducted in accordance with the Regulations of the Cambridge Local Examination, but in a private manner and under the superintendence of the ladies of the committee.
“The committee included the names of Miss Bostock, Miss Isa Craig, Russell Gurney, Esq., G. W. Hastings, Esq., James Heywood, Esq., Dr. Hodgson, Mrs. Manning, Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood, Mr. H. R. Tomkinson, Esq., with Lady Goldsmid as treasurer, and Miss Emily Davies as hon. sec. The same committee worked for Girton College, with the addition of Lady Stanley of Alderley, Lady Augusta Stanley, Miss Shirreff, Mrs. Russell Gurney, Miss Ponsonby, Miss Rich, Miss F. Metcalfe, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Roby, and Mr. Gorst.”
It was not then known if they were even capable of the necessary mental effort. The result, however, proved so satisfactory that the next year saw the formation of a “London Centre for Girls,” of which Miss Davies was honorary secretary until Girton took up her time, when she was succeeded by Mrs. Wm. Burbury.
To the first irregular examination in 1863 Miss Buss sent in 25 girls out of the total of 80. Much to her surprise, ten of her pupils failed in arithmetic, with the result that she so reorganized her system of 254teaching that henceforth few of her girls failed in that subject.
Between the years 1871 and 1892 no less than 1496 pupils passed in the Cambridge Local Examinations, of whom 494 took honours.
There is an amusing letter to Miss Davies just before the examination of 1865, which shows how these things looked thirty years ago—
“12, Camden Street, Dec. 5, 1865.
“My dear Miss Davies,
“Pray excuse my not answering your note till now. I am literally ‘over head and ears’ in work. There is so much to look after just now.
“Those dreadful Cambridge examiners! Their digestion would certainly be impaired if they only knew how indignant I am with them. Why, the time hitherto allowed for an examination is an ‘insult’ to us; but now they have added ‘injury,’ by curtailing the time for English subjects—English, too! The subject in which a girl might hope to pass with credit! But we must endure it, as we can’t cure it.
“No doubt you are blissfully ignorant of the change. You are not an unfortunate school-mistress, with a reputation to maintain!
“And our girls! We sometimes think they have taken leave of their senses. Either we have taken up too much, or they are hopelessly stupid. I almost fear the former.
“Is the Cambridge Exam. to take place at that room in Conduit Street? And, please let the unhappy victims have plenty of paper before the bell rings. And I hope Miss Craig or Miss Bostock, or some one, will be there to help you in distributing the examination papers, wherever there is any English going on, for even one minute is worth something when the time is so limited.
“I hope this is not asking too much; it is for all, at any rate....
“Believe me,
“‘Genuinely and heartily’ yours,
“My dear Miss Davies,
“Frances M. Buss.
“I mean to worry, worry, worry for a carte de visite of you. If you do not give way, then I shall worry, worry, worry Mrs. Davies.”
255In the same letter Miss Buss says—
“I am half-inclined to think of trying inspection next year on our own account; the expense would, however, be one consideration, but the experiment would be worth trying.”
In 1864, Miss Buss had been inspected by Mr. Fearon, on behalf of the Schools Inquiry Commission, and her account of it to her sister is very characteristic. That the inspector did not share her own estimate of her girls is proved by the place given to her school, and by the invitation to appear before the Commissioners in 1865.
“Camden Street, June 24, 1864.
“Mr. Fearon is such a nice man! I like him much (as I said to Miss Begbie, I have taken to liking people lately: Economics, I suppose). He knows what he is about; is quick without being abrupt; and most certainly taught me a good deal. It was really wonderful to see how rapidly he arrived at an estimate. The morning was spent in getting information out of me about the history, birth, growth, management, income, etc., of the school.
“He went, however, to calisthenics, and also through all the rooms, counting those who were present, and comparing them with the registers. After lunch, he examined the upper third in arithmetic, dictation, reading, geography, requesting Miss —— to give a history lesson before him.
“The children did the wildest things! I could have annihilated them over and over again. One young monkey said the ‘Artic’ Ocean was in some ridiculous place. He said, ‘What?’ She answered, ‘Artic.’ He said, ‘Spell it!’ To which, with the most graceful complaisance, she said ‘a-r-t-i-c.’ Was she not a wretch? Miss ——’s lesson was horrible—she dropped a few h’s, and asked foolish questions, which produced equally absurd answers. For instance, she asked some question about the death of Rufus, to which the reply was, ‘Oh, they carried him away in a dustcart!’ ‘William the Conqueror left the Holy Land to Robert.’ When corrected, the children said, ‘Oh, well, it was Canaan.’
“They were restless and fidgety, did not obey orders; and, in fact, were as dreadful as they could be. If the first class do not acquit themselves relatively better, our report will be a queer one. I have made an appeal to them.
256“The inspection has produced the pleasing result that our children are not near the average of the same age in a National School. No grant under the revised code would be given to us. Charming, is it not? In spelling, for instance, the National School children are allowed only an average of one mistake in a class. Our little ones made eight and a half each instead of one each. In arithmetic, the standard is half a mistake, and ours made two and a half. The copy-books were reported as bad; everything was bad! But I do not mind, provided the elder girls come out well.”
The next experience does not seem to have been much happier, for on July 7 she says—
“I could not write yesterday. There were so many callers, and the fact is that, since the inspection of yesterday, I have collapsed, bodily and mentally!
“The heat, too, is dreadful, and I am quite overdone with it. The whole of last evening and this morning, except for an hour, I lay half unconscious on the bed or sofa, incapable of reading, thinking, or sleeping. I am in a state of tears whenever I think of Wednesday. I do not say the girls have not done well. In comparison, probably, with others, very well; but they did not do their best.
“In a really easy arithmetic paper, not one, or only one, touched the decimals. In history, they sat doing nothing for twenty minutes, although there was a question, ‘The dates of following battles.’ Actually, not one girl in my division attempted to give the least account of the battle, or result, or anything about it but the bare date, which, of course, in half the cases, would be wrong; because in our examinations, they said, it was of no use to do more than the absolute answer to the question. Is it not cruel to me, after my life has been given to the work?”
A letter dated 1869, five years later, shows how Miss Buss must have profited by the experience of this inspection, for she writes in very good spirits of the results of the Cambridge Local Examinations—
“All our girls have passed except one. Six of Miss Metcalfe’s have passed, one with second class, and one with third class honours. My list is good. Esther Greatbatch has first class, and 257two have third class. Of seniors, two have third class; so we have five honours. Three of the girls are distinguished in Religious Knowledge. On the whole we have done well.”
In 1876, after another inspection, the tone changes again, and we find, in comparing 1864 with 1876, that the times have changed also. Miss Buss thus writes to me, during the inspection, which seems to have been enlivened by suppers, in which the girls showed off their domestic accomplishments, everything, including bread, being made by their own hands—
“You cannot imagine how much the inspection puts on me. Luckily, we like our examiner very much indeed, and that lightens our work. Shall I say this, after seeing his report? He must find fault—that is the business of inspectors—their raison d’être. If he finds defects, the existence of which I do not suspect, I shall not mind so much, because that will be a case of living and learning. But I am conceited enough to think that I could be an inspector myself! We had a fine supper last night, cooked by the lady-cooks! They were so happy! Ella will tell you all about it some time.”
That particular report does not happen to be before me, but there is a letter from one of H.M. Inspectors of Schools, written to Miss Buss, in 1887, which may stand as representative—
“I had the pleasure of visiting the North London Collegiate School last week, under the able guidance of Miss Dillys Davies. I was very sorry not to see you, so that I might express to you how delighted I was with all I saw. I have seen no better appointed school. I have long considered your school—judged by results—as the best girls’ school in England, but I had never seen the admirable rooms and apparatus.
“I have often named the school to lady-friends, but I find that there is still, alas! a terrible blindness as to what constitutes true education, and the unfortunate girls are sent to be finished in the usual orthodox way in the usually indifferent establishments.
258“Permit me to add one more congratulation (to the thousands you must have already received) in appreciation of the noble work you are doing.”
The advance was strikingly rapid. In 1863, it was not even known whether girls were able to undertake the work required for the Cambridge Local Examinations. Even in 1876, Miss Buss writes thus of the results, which had not quite satisfied the honorary secretary of her centre, as compared with those of the year before—
“But please remember that last year the senior Cambridge girls formed the highest class; this year there are thirty-two girls in a higher division, studying for the London University Matriculation. Our girls have this year, in the greater number of cases, gone up at sixteen, instead of seventeen, and that makes a difference. We shall send up twelve or fourteen for the Matriculation in May. Sara Burstall, two terms only from Camden School, and my scholar, gets half the ￡12 prize offered to the best senior girls. Mr. Browne wrote to me to say so. I ought to be content.”
For some years Miss Buss sent her pupils to the first London centre at Burlington House, where Miss Davies was very much struck by the way in which she—who had done so much to forward the movement—took her place simply and quietly among the others, whose part had been merely to accept what had been done for them.
But when the school in Camden Road had acquired rooms large enough to meet the Cambridge requirements, Miss Buss considered it would be well to form a new centre, and asked me to undertake the correspondence involved. Miss Davies writes in reply to my first note—
“Your suggestion of a centre for North London strikes me as an admirable one. I should like to have a cordon of centres all round London, and we seem now to be making a beginning to it. 259Would it be possible to have also a St. John’s Wood Centre? We found last year that Bayswater was of no use to St. John’s Wood. Whether this district would produce enough candidates to support a centre of its own I do not know.... I am so glad you are taking up this matter so energetically and judiciously.”
In July, 1872, Miss Buss sent me a list of ladies who had agreed to act as the committee of the Regent’s Park Centre. When we remember that the duties included attendance for the honorary secretary from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m., for three or four days out of the six, and that two or more ladies of the committee must be present whenever an examination is going on, it will be seen that this meant work. This first list met with warm approval from the Rev. G. F. Browne, at Cambridge, as showing the interest taken in the then new movement by persons known in the educational world. We find here the names of Mrs. Charlton Bastian, Mrs. Fox Bourne, Miss Orme, Mrs. Percy Bunting, Mrs. J. G. Fitch, Mrs. Hales, Mrs. Henry Morley, and Mrs. Williamson. Mrs. Avery, Miss Sarah Ward Andrews, Miss Agnes Jones, Miss Swan, and myself completed the first list. My sister, Miss J. T. Ridley, was appointed honorary secretary, and remained in this post till 1894, when she was succeeded by Miss Hester Armstead, who had been a most successful candidate in both Junior and Senior Examinations, before distinguishing herself in the Cambridge Classical Tripos.
The number of candidates increased so rapidly that, in 1873, it was necessary to arrange an Islington Centre to take the North London pupils, and, in 1874, to open the St. John’s Wood and Hampstead Centre, of which Miss Swan became the able honorary secretary for over twenty years. If we could have foreseen such results, the name of Regent’s Park Centre would never have 260been given to the original centre, which would have been known, from the first—as what it so soon became—the centre for the pupils of Miss Buss’ schools only.
There is a letter from Miss Buss, in reference to the one difficulty which ever occurred at this centre, which has interest in showing her on both sides: the gracious and the severe. A girl had broken the rules, and was, therefore, condemned to forfeit her examination, the honorary secretary pleading in vain against this fiat—
“Just a line, dear Jeanie, to express to you, on my own part and that of the teachers in the Cambridge Forms, my and their hearty thanks for all the work you have done for us this week. Everything has gone admirably, and my share of the work was never less burdensome. Indeed, I have had nothing to do with the Cambridge work except look on!
“Do not think me a monster, but, of all the hard lessons I have had to learn, none has been so hard as the one which makes me, for the moment, not only refuse sympathy, but actually speak harshly—if there is a stronger word I would use it. In the years to come, I hope many a woman will thank me in her heart for behaving harshly to her in her girlhood, in all matters of tears or want of self-control, and so putting before her another ideal: that of the woman strong to bear, to endure, to suffer, rather than that of the weak woman always ready to give way at the least difficulty. Afterwards I always reason out the whole matter; but it is always afterwards; never at the time.
“My love to you, Annie, and your father.
“Always yours affectionately,
“Frances M. Buss.”
The following note to Miss Buss from one of the examiners of the Regent’s Park Centre shows how much she had to do with the decision to print the girls’ names, as the boys’ names had always been printed; a step then regarded as a rather alarming innovation:—
261“March 2, 1874.
“I have had some conversation with the other members of the Local Examinations Syndicate, and I think I am warranted in expressing an opinion that if the subject of the printing of the girls’ names in the published lists were again brought before the Syndicate by a representation signed by influential local secretaries and others who are interested in the question, it would meet with a different solution than it has done heretofore, thanks to the remarks you have made to me of your own experience.
“I told Mr. Browne in our last conversation that I thought the best way to bring the matter before us again would be for me to write to you, and give you an intimation of the present feeling, and you would know through whom to move.”
In the same spirit in which she had entered into the Cambridge Local Examinations did Miss Buss throw herself into the larger work which soon engrossed Miss Davies, viz. the development of Girton College. The members of the Kensington Society were the first supporters of this movement, one of the leaders being Mrs. Manning, who, with Miss Davies and Mr. Sedley Taylor, and Mr. Tomkinson, took part in the first meeting of a committee, on December 5, 1867, to consider “A Proposed College for Women.”
In 1869 a house was taken at Hitchin, where five students were received, Mrs. Manning acting for the first three months as Lady Principal. She was succeeded, for the next year, by Miss Emily Shirreff, who relates that a proposition to go as missionary to Fiji would at that time have caused less amazement to her friends than this venture into untried ways. Miss Davies herself was the first Head at Girton.
The effort to obtain the ￡13,000 required for the new buildings was, like all other early efforts of the kind, a work of courage and patience. The first ￡1000 was given by Madame Bodichon, and the same sum by Miss E. A. Manning, while ￡8000 had been collected by 262the committee. One of the things hard to bear by those who had made it possible to take such a step was the foundation of the new Holloway College, with magnificent buildings for which there were then no students, whilst Girton was still struggling for the merely necessary accommodation needed for its students actually in residence.
Occupied as she was with the same effort to obtain funds for her own schools, Miss Buss could not give much pecuniary help. But she did help very largely by her influence, being always and everywhere an able propagandist of the new ideas.
Side by side with the Girton movement went another which began with a set of lectures started by the Cambridge Ladies’ Association, in January, 1870, to enable women-students to take advantage of the instruction offered by Trinity College. For the accommodation of ladies attending these lectures a house in Cambridge was taken by Mr. Sidgwick, Miss Clough being placed at the head of it. This beginning, known as Merton Hall, developed rapidly into the present Newnham College, with its now fine building, possessing the advant............