Chapter XII: Training Colleges for Teachers

“The science of education, so little thought of, so
contemptuously ignored, is the crowning science of all, for it
is the application of all the sciences to the production of the
highest result—the perfect man.”—From a paper read by Mrs. Grey
at the meeting of the British Association, 1874.

In 1873, the theory and practice of education were still so far apart that, in the March number of _The Journal of the Women’s Education Union_ of that year, we find the following very definite statement:—

“Training colleges do not exist; the expense of founding them
would place them almost hopelessly out of reach, though
something might have been done by following up the example of
the Home and Colonial in their private department. Mrs. Wm. Grey
proposed a plan for a class of student teachers to form part of
every large school, which was adopted by the Public Day-school
Company, who are, however, not yet in a position to try it. It
has also been approved by Miss Buss and Miss Beale, and is
already in operation in Camden Town.”

In October, 1872, Miss Buss and Miss Doreck, the two ladies on the council of the College of Preceptors, had brought forward a scheme for establishing a “Training class of lectures and lessons for teachers;” and as a consequence of this effort the office of “Professor of the Science and Art of Education” was offered to Mr. Joseph Payne, whose inaugural address was given on January 30, 1873. Miss Buss and Miss Doreck took an active part in bringing together the seventy students (chiefly women) who attended these lectures. At Norwich, Dr. Hodgson spoke with strong approval of the step taken by the College of Preceptors in founding a professorship of the theory and art of education, and of their choice of Mr. Payne to fill this post. He spoke of the success of Mr. Payne’s lectures in London and in Edinburgh, and expressed a hope that such professorships would ere long be established “in one or more of the chief Scottish Universities also,” and added that “they were strongly to be desired for the English Universities also.”

Of Mr. Payne’s lectures there is a notice in the March _Education Journal_ of the same year—

“The object of the whole course is to show that there are
principles of education on which, in order to be efficient,
practice must be founded; or, in other words, that there is a
science of education, in reference to which the art must be
conducted, and the value of its processes tested.”

Miss Buss’ feeling about these lectures is shown in a letter written in 1876, soon after the death of her much-valued friend—

“Because I have not enough to do, I am working up an attempt to
raise a little memorial to Mr. Payne, the ablest teacher I have
ever known—except Dr. Hodgson—and the man who has raised the
noblest ideal before the profession. It cuts me to the heart to
see his name lost to posterity, and after several fruitless
attempts, it seems I must set the ball rolling. Will you or your
father give something? I want the memorial to be a prize or
scholarship in the new Teachers’ Training Society.”

Many a successful head-mistress must thank Miss Buss for her recommendation to these lectures. Mrs. Bryant and Miss Cooper, of Edgbaston, were among the students, and both became Fellows of the College. A letter from Miss Frances Lord says, in 1873—

“I am attending Mr. Payne’s lectures, as you told me to do. My
sister Emily goes too, and, as a teacher, makes remarks that Mr.
Payne thinks well of. If she ever takes up Kindergarten work (as
I want her to do), she will, I am sure, be greatly helped by
these lectures. My friends, the Wards, find, as we do, that the
questions Mr. Payne asks draw largely on common observation such
as we have been practising and have been wanting to know the
value of.”

Mr. Payne called attention to the principles of Kindergarten work, a subject brought to the front by Miss Shirreff, who wrote a series of articles in 1874, in the _Journal_, leading to the formation of the Frœbel Society, of which Miss Doreck was the first president, and Miss E. A. Manning the honorary secretary. Miss Manning read a paper on the subject at the meeting of the Social Science Congress, in the same year.

Miss Doreck had been elected—at Miss Buss’ suggestion—on the council of the College of Preceptors, and the two worked very heartily together.[18] On April 16, 1874, the two ladies formed part of a deputation by appointment to urge on the Duke of Richmond the formation of a Training College for Teachers.

Footnote 18:

Miss Doreck’s special work was Kindergarten teaching, then quite a
novelty in England. Miss Buss once said, “We shall not have thorough
education till we have the Kindergarten;” but she could only help this
movement on by helping others to do it.

The design of the deputation was—

“to have the scholastic professors placed on a similar footing
to that of law and physics, and, in order to assist the
Government in effecting that end, the College of Preceptors was
ready to undertake the requisite corresponding functions of the
Law Institution, the College of Surgeons, or a Pharmaceutical
Society.”

The principle at stake may be considered the central thought of the whole life of Frances Mary Buss. To raise the ideal of teaching, and, with this, the status of the teacher, was the most definite purpose of this life; and, as means to an end, she recognized from the very first the supreme importance of training for the work. In her youth, the elementary school teacher was the only person happy enough to receive this preparation for his duties. All the rest—as was candidly avowed by one of the foremost schoolmasters of the day—had to gain their experience at the cost of their first pupils.

To her own mother Miss Buss was largely indebted for the insight which made her a leader in the training-college movements. When Mrs. Buss decided on opening her school in Clarence Road, she had the bold thought of preparing herself for the venture by going through the course offered at the Home and Colonial Institute to elementary teachers. At this distance of time, it is difficult to estimate duly the originality and the strength of mind implied in such a step. In the “forties,” the beaten track on which ladies were expected to walk securely was very straight and very narrow. But this bold step was taken, and it resulted in a permanent broadening of the way for all who came after, since the class for the training of secondary teachers was a direct result of Mrs. Buss’ own action. In this class, all the teachers of Miss Buss’ schools received their training, and it is of interest to note among the earliest students the names of Anne Clough, the founder of Newnham College, and of Jane Agnes Chessar, a teacher of very remarkable power, who was one of the first ladies elected on the School Board.

It might possibly have been due to the influence of the Rev. David Laing that Mrs. Buss originated her plan, but the credit remains with her of being the first in the field of action. The idea of training governesses was suggested as early as 1843, on the council of the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution, but no action was taken before 1848, even to form classes.

We have seen that, as early as 1872, Miss Buss had the dream of a training college attached to her own school. This she gave up later in favour of the Maria Grey Training College. In November, 1872, Miss Beale writes to her—

“I did think much of our conversation about training
governesses, and we have arranged to receive about six on the
same terms as the ‘Home and Colonial.’ They can for this not
only attend here but go to certain lessons on Method at the
Normal Training College.”

The Training Department of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College is now one of the distinct branches of work there, including Kindergarten training, with the novel feature of a small Kindergarten for children of the elementary class, serving as a training school.

It was not till 1877 that Mrs. Grey succeeded in opening the college which now bears her name, up to which she and Miss Shirreff had been working in the Teachers’ Training and Registration Society, one of the offshoots of the Women’s Education Union.

For details of this work I am indebted to Miss Shirreff, and also to Miss Agnes J. Ward, one of the first principals of the college.

The council, in addition to Mrs. Grey and Miss Shirreff, consisted of Miss Chessar, Dr. E. A. Abbott, Mr. J. H. Rigg, Mr. R. N. Shore, Mr. C. H. Lake, and Mr. Douglas Galton. The articles of association were drafted by Mr. William Shaen, who, till his death, in 1886, was a generous and true friend to the college.

Miss Louisa Brough became secretary, under Mrs. Grey, as organizing secretary. Unhappily, after working for a year or so, Mrs. Grey’s health broke down, and she was ordered abroad. It was then that Miss Buss came to the front, though she had been quietly helpful from the beginning. Some letters to her from Rome show Mrs. Grey’s estimate of this help—

“23, Piazza de Spagna, Roma,
“Feb. 11, 1879.

“It is really too good of you, in the midst of your hard-worked
life, to make time for writing me such a charming long letter as
I received a few days ago.... We have left the hotel, and have
very sunny rooms just at the foot of the great stairs. How I
wish you were over the way, where I used to pick you up two
years ago.

“Except from yourself, we hear hardly anything from the college.
Your hopeful report is a great joy to us, because you know the
difficulties so well that you will never be over sanguine. How
kind it is of you and Miss Chessar to work for it as you do, and
Dr. Abbott deserves more thanks than I can express. I would like
to write to him only I feel it would be imposing on him a letter
to write, and that would be no kindness. Will you tell him this
when you meet, and something of what we both feel about his
generous gift of time and thought to the institution that we
have cared for so earnestly and are driven to forsake.... We
must, as you say, make our scheme as we go along, and large
numbers would be an embarrassment. As to funds, you make no
complaint, and that is comforting.... Once the college is in
settled good work, and the Cambridge scheme is published, I
cannot doubt that many will be found to help.”

Mrs. Grey was never strong enough to return to the work so near her heart, and her great comfort was in the thought that with Miss Buss’ oversight it must go on successfully. On the occasion of a presentation to Mrs. Grey of a beautiful casket, with an address from the Girls’ Public Day-school Company, Miss Shirreff writes thus to Miss Buss—

“We are both of us touched to the heart’s core by your letter.
Such words from one who has herself been so brave and so
successful a pioneer in the cause of woman’s education are the
highest testimonial we could receive, and we value them as such.
And a large debt we owe to you also, for all the practical
organizations of our schools we learnt from you....

“I may honestly say that the receipt of that address, and the
additional gratification of seeing yours and Miss Beale’s name
attached to it, gave my sister the only real pleasure she has
felt during the weary months of this year. The less she hopes
ever to regain her power of work the more she values that
testimony to the worth of her past work.

“We have had, of course, much passing enjoyment in the beautiful
scenery we have dwelt amongst, but there is a dark shadow over
all. It is not perhaps reasonable, when sixty is long passed, to
mourn that an active career is stopped short, but you know
better than any one how, in dealing with education, one must
still feel that no one worker can be spared—do we not know how
all the best are over-worked?”

Miss Ward gives us an interesting sketch of the growth of the work from the first.

“The aims of the society were mainly to provide for the
professional training of teachers above the elementary. This
training included both theoretical knowledge and practical
skill. Unendowed as the society was, it was necessary to create
a guarantee fund, and this was done by a few friends, while Miss
Buss, sparing no pains to induce teachers to avail themselves of
the advantages offered, contributed also from the first in
money. At length, after the tentative stage of providing
lectures for teachers, the council of the society were fortunate
enough to secure from the Rev. Wm. Rogers the use of some rooms
in Skinner Street, Bishopsgate, which served as a college for
students, and leave for their students to practise teaching in
the large and interesting girls’ school which now, thanks to the
Dulwich Endowment Fund, lately available, is handsomely housed
in Spital Square, E. In 1878, however, when the Training College
opened, the school was in other and less convenient buildings.
These have now disappeared, to make way for the Great Eastern
Railway’s vast extension.

“Miss Alice Lushington was, in 1878, appointed principal of the
college, and held the post till 1880, when Miss Agnes J. Ward
became principal. Miss Buss lost no opportunity of urging the
development of the work. She was indefatigable in her attendance
at council meetings, and eager to show her strong appreciation
of professional training by appointing as mistresses in her
school those who had gone through a course partly theoretical
and partly practical. Towards the end of 1880, owing to her
strong feeling that the society should possess its own
practising school, the council acquired the lease of No. 1,
Fitzroy Square, and there, in January, 1881, under the
headmistress-ship of Miss Lawford (now of the Camden School for
Girls), a day school was opened and named after Mrs. Wm. Grey.
In 1885, it became the chief practising school of the society
which in that year transferred the Training College to Fitzroy
Street from Bishopsgate. From that year, also, the college was
called “The Maria Grey Training College.” Miss Buss was at that
time desirous of affiliating the college to her schools; but
after mature consideration the council held that it was better
to pursue a more independent course, and wait until they could
establish their work on a permanent foundation. This they
accomplished in 1892, when their large College for Teachers, Day
School for Girls, and Kindergarten were all transferred to
Brondesbury, where they are finally located in a building which
cost £13,000. This sum was collected by the energy and devotion
of the council, and in this heavy task of collecting a fund for
a work the value of which only experts could be expected fully
to appreciate, Miss Buss took for years an active part. Her name
on the council was of signal use in certain directions, notably
in the matter of the Pfeiffer bequest. The sum of £4000 finally
obtained by the college from the trustees enabled the council to
complete their building and start their important work under
Miss Alice Woods as principal. The council thus provided for
pupils from three years old upwards, in surroundings at once
adequate and suitable. Miss Buss’ strong faith in the importance
of the council’s work, to education at large, her strenuous
support in its early years of trial, her generous recognition
and appraisement of the efforts of the staff, were as helpful as
they were unflagging.”

The feeling of the council at the great loss which they sustained in the removal of one who had done so much for the college, is given in the minute which recorded that loss—

“It was moved by the Rev. T. W. Sharpe, chairman, seconded by J.
G. Fitch, Esq., and carried unanimously: That the council of the
Maria Grey Training College, in tendering an expression of their
deepest sympathy with the family of the late Frances Mary Buss,
desire to place on record their sense of the irreparable loss
which the cause of education in general, and of women’s
education in particular, has sustained by her lamented death;
the council have also to deplore, on their own account, the loss
of a highly valued colleague, whose long and active co-operation
in their work of training women-teachers for secondary schools
contributed largely to the success already attained, and to
whose practical experience and wide-minded aims the council
looked for still further support in the future.”

Nothing could show more distinctly the rapid growth of interest among women in higher education than a comparison of the help given to Mrs. Grey for the Training College with that given to Miss Davies and to Miss Buss for Girton and for the North London Collegiate School. Only a single decade had elapsed. In 1871, it was so hard to get even £10 donations, that the gift of £1000 to Girton from Madame Bodichon and from Miss E. A. Manning, and Miss Ewart’s £1000 for the Camden School, shine out like beacon-lights. In 1881, for the Training College, we are dazzled by the general blaze: Lady Farrer, Mrs. Pennington, and Mrs. Winckworth give each £1000, and Miss Ewart and Miss Soames each £500. Mr. Tomlinson also adds £1000, which, with £4000 from the Emily Pfeiffer Bequest, gives the college its start free from debt.

I have no record of Miss Buss’ gifts, but there is no doubt about her having done a fair share in this movement so specially interesting to her. When the Maria Grey College was safe, and pursuing its successful course, a fresh departure was originated by Miss Buss. It was hardly to be expected that graduates of Girton and Newnham would come to London to be trained, and it therefore seemed desirable to offer training at Cambridge.

On April 6, 1885, Miss Buss writes to me—

“I am begging for help towards starting an experiment at
Cambridge for a class for training the Girton and Newnham
students as teachers before they enter their profession. They
will not go to Bishopsgate, but we (herself and Mrs. Bryant)
think they may be induced to stay in Cambridge for a time.

“Cambridge is willing, and a suitable lady is ready. A house for
seven students can be had. Mrs. Bryant is to harangue the Tripos
students on the duty of fitting themselves for their work, and I
am promised help to the extent of £50, but we must raise £200,
and Cambridge cannot do this. I think, if we can induce the
students to be trained, their fees will cover expenses, but we
must guarantee at least £100 to Miss Hughes, the mistress.

“Will you (or can you, rather, with your other claims) help? Can
you tell me where to apply for more? I have these promises: F.
M. B. £10 (for three years), Miss Soames £10, Mrs. Bryant £10,
Mr. Brooke Lambert £5, Mr. T. W. Sharpe £5, Mrs. Micholls £5,
and Miss Behrens £5.”

My name was added to this list, and I find another letter dated April 1, 1891, when Miss Buss writes again—

“Do you know any one who, for the sake of education, would buy a
house in Cambridge, and let it at once to the committee of the
Teachers’ Training College? It would be a safe investment, and
the committee could certainly pay four per cent. A splendid
opportunity of getting three adjoining and connected houses
offers. The college is successful, but the Cambridge people are
poor, in one sense, as they are given to plain living and high
thinking rather than to money making! Of course it would be
easier if the three houses, each at £1200, could be got, but the
committee would probably take one, and the others might be got
by leaving a mortgage on them.

“I hardly think it right to take one myself, as I have No. 202
on me till the end of the year; and the leases of 87 and 89, in
King Henry’s Road, and the house 85 next door, and this will
probably be on my hands till the end of my life.”

In October of the same year, she sent out a letter to her friends bringing forward a scheme to secure a suitable building by starting a company to raise the necessary capital in £10 shares, to pay four per cent. She mentions that she and Mrs. Bryant are ready to put down their names for £750 between them, and asks for more names, before the first meeting of the committee, with an earnestness which could not be refused. In the end, however, illness prevented further effort on her part, and the work was done by others. Mrs. Bryant gives some interesting details—

“My personal knowledge of her work in this field has to do with
the history of the Cambridge Training College. We were much
exercised in mind by the fact that the women educated at the
Universities persisted in neglecting professional training.
Either they despised it, or they could not afford it, or they
did not like it, and could get entrance into the schools without
it. Miss Buss, in her straightforward practical way, wondered
that they did not see their own need of it; she thought it so
obvious that a person undertaking a delicate task ought to learn
as much as possible about the ways in which it is and can be
done. I also wondered at the absence of desire in well-trained
minds to get at a theory of their art founded on a knowledge of
its bottom sciences. There, however, was the fact, and there was
serious danger that the credit of training as a practical
success would be impaired by the flow into the Training College
of the less, and the avoidance of it by the more educated women.
Of course we could convert and persuade the able North London
girls, but these were only a handful comparatively, and after
three years at college they were naturally not so docile to our
ideas. Could anything be done to avert this growing danger that
the teaching profession should fall into the two classes of
those who were highly educated and not trained, and of those who
were trained but not highly educated.

“We used to discuss the fact and its causes. _Vis inertia_
certainly had much to do with it. The Head-masters’ Conference
had passed resolutions in favour of training, but they had not
raised a finger to support the Training College intended to
supply them with masters. The head-mistresses, in larger
numbers, believed, but it was not always convenient to insist on
training as a necessary qualification in their intending
mistresses. How was this inertia to be overcome, unless an
enthusiastic belief could be awakened in the young intending
teachers?

“Such a belief was far from forthcoming. Indeed, our chief
stumbling-block lay in the distrust with which the ordinary
academic mind was apt to look on the ideal of training. At the
bottom of it lay, no doubt, a prejudice against the methods of
the elementary training colleges, and an unexamined fear that
all training must be more or less of that type. Otherwise it
seemed to be for the most part a vague distrust inarticulate,
unargumentative, but strong. On the other hand, there were
leaders of thought in the universities who believed that there
was a great work to be done in the development of educational
theory and practice. In witness of their faith, Cambridge had
not only instituted a teachers’ examination, but had established
courses of lectures on teaching which were at that time barely
attended.

“So the idea naturally shaped itself that training should be
carried out under University influences, that this would insure
for it the influence of the soundest theoretic ideas, and also
that it might benefit by subjection to the criticism of the
academic mind. A closer contact between the Training College and
the Women’s Colleges at Cambridge would tend certainly, we
thought, to better understanding and mutual adaptation. The
practical thing, then, to be done was to establish a Training
College for Women at Cambridge.

“Miss Clough, Mrs. Verrall, and Dr. James Ward were heartily in
favour of the establishment of such a college, and several other
Cambridge friends, including the present Bishop of Stepney, so
well known at Cambridge as Canon Browne, and Miss Welsh of
Girton, approved the proposal from the first. We held
preliminary consultations, Mrs. Verrall acting as secretary,
while Miss Buss representing the school-mistresses, and Dr. Ward
the University, formed a powerful combination of enthusiasm and
conviction in favour of the attempt. There were many
difficulties; we were not rich in money-bags, and everything
depended on finding the right person to act as principal. But
there was a student at Newnham who took the first place in the
Moral Science Tripos, known to Miss Clough as an able woman, to
Miss Beale as a gifted teacher, and to Dr. Ward as a talented
pupil, and the matter was settled by the acceptance of the
principalship by Miss E. P. Hughes in June, 1885. In the
September of that year, the college was opened in a few small
cottages near Newnham. A guarantee fund was formed, and Miss
Buss guaranteed £100. Students came, though of University
students but a few, and by the zealous economy and good
management of Miss Hughes the college paid its way. In 1887, it
was moved into better houses in Queen Anne’s Terrace, and this
year it has at last, after ten years, moved into suitable
college buildings. Miss Buss never ceased to take the keenest
interest in its success, though of late years she was not able
to take an active part. It will always be a matter of deep
regret to those of us who knew how dear its progress was to her
that she never even saw the new building. From time to time she
had hoped to pay another visit to Cambridge when she was
stronger in health.

“Referring to ‘Miss Buss’ earliest attempts to start the
training college,’ Dr. Ward writes saying how he remembers the
regularity of her attendance at the earlier meetings of the
committee, and ‘her anxiety to get Newnham and Girton
interested.’ She brought the scheme for the college before the
Head-mistress’ Association, secured their interest and an
arrangement by which a representative on the college council was
to be appointed by them. Miss Conolly for several years was the
representative.”

Miss Hughes adds some interesting memories of the help given by Miss Buss and Miss Clough, as she says—

“One of the most useful parts of my education at Cambridge was
the opportunity of talking over this educational experiment with
these pioneers. I shall never forget their patience under the
difficulties that were always springing up, their wise foresight
to prevent such difficulties, their earnest desire not to make
unnecessary enemies, and, at the same time, their persistent
intention to carry out the experiment. I remember the wonderful
insight into character which Miss Buss showed, and how quick she
was to note the strength and value of each additional member of
the committee. She had her own views, clear and definite, and
for some of them she was ready to fight; but she was quite
reasonable and ready to be persuaded that the special conditions
of Cambridge required special arrangements. When a beginning at
last seemed possible my heart so failed me that I felt unfit for
the post, and had almost decided not to apply for it. Miss Buss
came from London to talk it over, and I then realized how much
her heart was set on the scheme, and how much she had thought
about it.... When we began, Miss Buss came often to see us,
keenly interested in all our doings and in the many and great
difficulties that tried even my optimism. I should certainly
have given up in despair but for her help and advice....

“I have found few persons, few women especially, who are capable
of seeing a subject in its right perspective, grasping its
fundamental points and being full of enthusiasm, but without
spending time and energy in elaborating its details. Miss Buss
had this unusual power to an unusual extent, and, in addition to
this, she had a strong interest in details when they were
brought before her notice. I was struck with the marked
difference between her treatment of work for which she was
responsible and that in which she was interested but not finally
responsible. In her own school she was not only interested in
every detail, but felt herself responsible for it. Sometimes,
indeed, those who loved her wished that she could have realized
that her own strength and energy were far more valuable to the
school than were the details on which these were spent. On the
other hand, I think one of the best lessons she ever taught me
was the vast importance of looking after every detail one’s
self. Her attitude towards our own college was quite different;
and, interested as she was in every detail, however small, she
always seemed to realize the two or three important points which
must never be lost sight of, and to be perfectly willing to
allow others to settle the detail. I mention this because it was
suggested to me when she helped to start this college that she
was so accustomed to be responsible for every detail in her own
large institution that she would probably wish to exercise the
same management in our college. Nothing could be further from
the truth, for she always knew the line beyond which help and
suggestion ceased to be real help....

“The college, however poor in one sense, is rich in memories of
her interest in it. She made so many visits in early days,
chatted with the students, sent us books and pictures, and loved
us and believed in us with a love and faith which will go far to
make us what she hoped we might become!

“What I owe to her personally I cannot put into words. Her
belief in me was a constant inspiration, and her love for me a
constant comfort. My life is infinitely richer because I have
known and loved her, and I am hoping to pay interest on the
heavy debt I owe her by holding out occasionally a helping hand
to other teachers.

“I often think that we cannot yet realize the vast difference it
has made to our development of secondary education for girls
that our pioneers were large-hearted, unselfish women like Miss
Buss, Miss Clough, and Miss Davies. We are passing on to new
times and new difficulties, having lost many of the old leaders,
but the memory of their wise words and brave deeds is still with
us, and I do not think that English teachers will ever forget
the life of Frances Mary Buss.”

* * * * *

NOTE.—At the opening of the new buildings of the Cambridge
Teachers’ College, by the Marquis of Ripon, on October 19, 1895,
fullest recognition was given by all the speakers to Miss Buss’
share in the origination of this work. The ceremony began by the
planting of trees to the memory of Miss Buss and of Miss Clough,
by the Rev. S. Buss and Miss B. A. Clough; followed by the “Hymn
of Work,” which has for motto—

“We work not for school, but for life;
We toil not for time, but for eternity.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------