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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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