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
Miss Clough, in her interest in Miss Buss’ work, had proposed to the
National Education Union the formation of a company to supply
school-buildings in this and similar cases. But the council decided to
start its own schools, and nothing came of this proposition so far as
regarded the Camden School.
This new departure tended rather to hinder than to help on the endowment
of the Camden School, of which the very _raison d’être_ was a rate of
fees too low even to pay for buildings, a dividend being quite beside
the mark.
Money had come in, though slowly, for the furniture of the Upper School,
and this was now quite self-supporting, though very inadequately housed.
What would, in this school, have gone towards a dividend, went instead
to the salaries of the teachers, higher here than in any similar
institution.
But for the Lower School an endowment was absolutely necessary.
Hitherto, Miss Buss herself had provided all that had been needed beyond
the money subscribed. She had not the very faintest intention of
fulfilling Mrs. Grey’s desponding prognostications of the abandonment of
the scheme as a result of the public apathy. The precise manner in which
it was to be carried out still remained to be discovered, but she never
wavered in her intention that, somehow, it was to be done.
During the year 1872 the pressure on Miss Buss seemed to be a little
increased by this new departure. In June she writes of it—
“Several people have written to me about the £5 shares in the
Brompton School, and my ire was rising.
“Mrs. Grey’s handing over _all_ Mr. Morley’s £500 to purchase
shares in the new school shows pretty clearly—in addition to the
Goldsmid gift—what chance _we_ have of help in that quarter.
There can be no doubt that the new school movement is leaving us
_high and dry_.
“I do not feel aggrieved by the Union in the least. It only
makes me more determined to act. Miss Davies shuts herself into
one bit of work; Mrs. Grey into another; I into a third....
“Mr. Rogers’ suggestion about the Columbia Market (have you seen
it?) if acted upon, will prevent our getting any help from the
City. He says the market is useless—turn it into a splendid
school _for girls_! I hope the suggestion may be acted upon; if
he takes it up, he will soon get the money needed. _We_ shall
have no chance at all. The City Companies will vie with each
other in starting this magnificent scheme. City men like to
‘live in bricks and mortar’—not to say stone. To live in human
hearts is not durable enough.
“Between the two schemes, we shall be swamped entirely if we do
not take the bull by the horns and make a huge effort.”
There was no real antagonism between Miss Buss and the Girls’ Public Day
School Company. She was very glad of the work, and helped it in many
ways, as is shown in Mrs. Grey’s letters—
“18, Cadogan Place, June 18, 1873.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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