Frances Mary Buss and her work for educationRidley, Annie E.
History
Frances Mary Buss and her work for education
Ridley, Annie E.
Buss, Frances Mary, 1827-1894
“I am very sorry to hear that you and X—— have failed to
get through the ‘Intermediate.’ I send you my love and sympathy.
Do not fret. You will succeed later on, when, as I hope, you
will try again; and your knowledge will be all the firmer for
having to work longer.
“You will, no doubt, carry out the proposed plan, viz. go to
Cambridge for a year, and leave the degree till after? You will
have a very happy time at Cambridge, I know.
“Have you heard how Y—— is getting on in Sweden? How well I
remember my delightful holiday there.”
And with an account of life at a German spa, and messages to other
members of the family, the letter ends, hopeful and cheery.
It was always delightful to watch Miss Buss with those of her former
“children” who had expanded into the dignity of B.A., or B.Sc., and were
entitled to wear the gown and “mortar-board” appertaining to this new
rank. No mother ever took more interest in her girls’ first party frock
or presentation robes than did Miss Buss in those early days in the then
quite novel attire of her “girl-graduates.” Mrs. Bryant had not been a
pupil in the school, but she was young enough to pass for one, and the
sight of her gorgeous gold-and-scarlet doctor’s gown was a supreme joy
to her older friend, to whom no such distinction had been possible in
her own young days. There was never a touch of envy or of selfish regret
in this sympathy with the winners of the honours for which she herself
had longed in vain—no, not in vain, since that longing had helped to
open the way to those who had since outstripped her in the race. Miss
Toplis, in her sketch of Miss Buss, in the _Educational Review_, calls
attention to—
“two characteristics which may perhaps be known only to those in
daily contact with her. One was that jealousy and selfishness
were impossible to her nature; the other, her power of living in
the lives of others. The success or distinction of friend or
colleague was one of her greatest pleasures. No one could share
such pleasures as Miss Buss did, and the loss of her ever-ready
sympathy in joy or sorrow is one of the realities we cannot yet
face.”
In such sympathy, Miss Buss certainly well earned the right to the
exaltation expressed in a postscript to a letter on “guild” work to Mr.
Garrod, when she says, apropos of the recent success of Miss Philippa
Fawcett at Cambridge, “Thank God, we have abolished sex in education!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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