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
“It is not merely the thought of what, with her great abilities
and vast stores of experience, she might still have
accomplished, if she had been spared in health and strength till
old age overtook her, but the feeling that the world and her
friends are so much poorer by the loss of one of the best and
truest women that ever lived, that fills me with regret. As you
know, it has been my privilege to count her among my staunchest
friends, and I feel that to me, at least, one unfailing source
of sympathy and support is lost now that she is gone. There are
others who can tell better than I can what her help meant to the
college in early days. I know well how much it has owed to her
in later times, and in how many ways we shall miss her now.”
Miss Helen Gladstone gives another side of the work—
“I sincerely wish that I could show my respect and affection for
Miss Buss by attending either or both services to-morrow; but I
am too far off to make it possible. I most truly lament her
death, and I feel most grateful to her for her splendid work for
not merely education, but Church education. It was in connection
with such work that I knew her best, and gained the privilege of
forming a friendship with her.”
I have been favoured by Mr. Menzies with an interesting account of an
experiment of great importance in the early days of the University
movement, in which Miss Buss took an active part. When Miss Davies first
propounded her scheme to the School-Mistresses’ Association, it was
regarded by most of the members as a thing impossible. Mrs. Menzies, one
of the members, was known to have been educated by her father, Dr. King,
on the same lines as his boy-pupils. Her classmates, as men, won
University honours, while Mrs. Menzies went on with her studies at home
with so much success that in after life she was able to act as a
classical “coach” to young men preparing for the University.
Her opinion of the subject of the University career for girls was
naturally of weight; and she was asked to answer these two important
questions—
“(1) Could girls, beginning their classical studies at fourteen
or fifteen years of age, be able to hold their ground when
placed in competition with young men who had begun the same
studies in their eighth or ninth year? (2) Would it be necessary
to alter the entire system of teaching in girls’ schools, so as
to make classics the dominant study from the age at which boys
usually began?”
As Mrs. Menzies was unacquainted with everything connected with girls’
schools, she was unable to give any definite opinion. She had taught
Latin and Greek to a few ladies, but these had always been above the
schoolgirl age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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