“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.”