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“Educate women, and you educate the teachers of men; if the child is father to the man, the woman forms the man in educating the child. The cause of female education is then, even in the most selfish sense, the cause of mankind at large.”—C. G. Nicolay.

Gracious speech can seldom have been more truthful than when the Prince of Wales said, on July 18, 1879, that few of their many public functions had afforded the Princess and himself more gratification than the opening of the great hall, given by the Clothworkers’ Company to the North London Collegiate School for Girls, a ceremony putting the final touch to the work of so many years.

It would not be easy to find a more attractive sight than this spacious building, filled with its five hundred happy young girls, either on “Founder’s Day,” when, decked in the school flower, we see them in that April mood in which

“The heart with rapture fills,

And dances with the daffodils;”

or when, on Prize-day, in the glory of summer roses, their jubilant young voices ring out in the favourite school-song, as, with fearless and confident eyes, they look “Forty years on!” while their elders, looking back down that long vista, think of the difference they can remember between Then and Now.

It was in this hall, on the prize-day of 1892, that the chairman, Mr. Fearon, drew a remarkable contrast between the present days of light for girls’ education, and the dark days of the first Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864, of which he had been a member. Then, it was still possible for the Commissioners to gravely ask if girls were capable of learning Latin and mathematics? Now, as he pointed out, this question might be answered by the results of this one year for this one school—eighteen passes, with two honours, on the University Examinations—to say nothing of the recent success at Cambridge, where a woman took a place above the Senior Wrangler.

As a member of the Commission of 1864, and, later, of the Endowed Schools Commission, Mr. Fearon was glad to claim some part in the making of this first public school for girls, of which he felt that “if ever there was an institution of which they might be proud, the success of which was calculated to stir the pulses, excite the emulation and enthusiasm of others, and give intense satisfaction to all who took part in it, either as founder, well-wishers, or friends, it was the North London Collegiate School for Girls.”

Then, from the brilliant hall, with its “rose-bud garden of girls,” the scene changed to the dark November day—November 30, 1865, a date to keep in mind—when, struggling through the November fog, Emily Davies and Frances Mary Buss made their way to the dull committee-room in Victoria Street, where the Commissioners awaited their coming.

The members of the Commission were Lord Taunton, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Stanley, Sir Stafford Northcote, the Dean of Chichester, the Rev. A. W. Thorold, Mr. Acland, Mr. Baines, Mr. Forster, Mr. Erle, and Dr. Storrar. To these, as Assistant-Commissioners, were added Messrs. D. B. Fearon, H. A. Giffard, C. H. Staunton, T. H. Green, J. L. Hammond, J. G. Fitch, J. Bryce, and H. M. Bompas.

The work of this Commission lasted from 1864 to 1869, and, later, many of the same gentlemen were appointed on the Endowed Schools Commission, and may be said to have carried on the same work, since they here applied the remedy to ills previously discovered by their researches. There are few of these names which will not be held in lasting honour by all thoughtful women who know how much is due for steady help in every cause most concerning their welfare.

It has, nevertheless, taken thirty years—since that same November 30, 1865—to give women a place side by side with men, on a Royal Commission, when, in 1894, Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., took the seat Miss Buss was no longer able to fill on the second Royal Commission of Inquiry into Secondary Education. It is not difficult to imagine the feeling of satisfaction with which Miss Buss saw her “brilliant young fellow-worker,” as she delighted to call her, taking this proud position.

Further to mark the contrast between 1865 and 1894, we may take a passage in a letter from Miss Buss to Miss Davies, dated December 5, 1865, whilst still waiting for the Commissioners’ Report, in which she says—

“When will the evidence come, I wonder? I am so curious to know what I said, and what you said too. It is very odd, but the mist which surrounds that interview does not clear.

“They were indeed kind, and more than kind, as you say. As for Mr. Acland, he is what the ‘Home and Colonial’ consider you to be!

“I can’t get over my astonishment at their civility; and it is such fun to be told to ‘take a chair,’ as if we were the ‘party’ whom servants are so fond of announcing.”

This is the one side. Wherever it was possible to see “fun” Miss Buss would see it. But there was another side too, revealed in a little remark made by Mr. Fearon to Mrs. Bryant, when the prize-giving was over at which he gave his reminiscences of that November day: “We were all so much struck by their perfect womanliness. Why, there were tears in Miss Buss’ eyes!”

And small wonder if this were so! In 1865—thirty years ago—it was an event to cause a heart-thrill when a woman was summoned, not to meekly receive information, but actually to give it; not to listen, but to speak, and before so important a body. It is quite conceivable that as they paused on the threshold these two ladies may have felt far more than a merely imaginative flash of sympathy with brave women of old, who had faced sterner tribunals to pay forfeit with life itself for the holding of new and strange doctrines.

To say that great events may hang on smallest incidents is a mere truism, trite as true. But we cannot doubt that a real turning point in the history of the English people was reached in the first official recognition of the equal share of women in the task of training the young. From this date what was before impossible became fact, and education takes rank as a true science.

It is of special interest in our own day, when the jarring note of antagonism between men and women is too often struck, to look back and remember the help given by men to the higher education of women. We note that the two most definite starting points of the new educational movement are to be found in the very innermost sanctum, in the strongest stronghold of masculine rights and privileges—the Universities and the House of Commons.

When, in 1863, the University of Cambridge opened its Local Examinations for girls, and when, in 1864, the House of Commons gave authority to a Royal Commission to extend its inquiry into the state of the education of girls, the new era was practically inaugurated. Henceforth women became free to do whatever they had power to do.

Nor was this the first help given by men to the better education of girls. In 1848—the great year of revolution—the professors of King’s College had opened the classes which speedily developed into Queen’s College, the forerunner of Bedford and Cheltenham Colleges. In 1850 the Rev. David Laing, who had been associated with the Queen’s College movement, gave his valuable help in the expansion of Miss Buss’ first small school on similar lines into the North London Collegiate School for Ladies. In 1865 this school stood so high that Miss Buss was asked by the Commissioners to give her views of education generally. This summons was doubtless the result of the report of the Assistant Commissioners who conducted the inquiry.

It was mainly due to the efforts of Miss Davies and Miss Bostock that girls’ schools were included in this inquiry. These ladies sent up a widely signed memorial from persons who had been interested in the extension to girls of the Local Examinations. Mr. Roby, the secretary, early in 1865, responded favourably to this appeal, pointing out that, as so many girls were privately educated, the limits of investigation in their case were much narrower than those for boys, and also pointing out that the numbers and value of endowments for girls were also restricted. But, “subject to these limitations,” he added, “the Commissioners were willing to embrace in their inquiry the education of both sexes alike.”

He stated also that the Commissioners expected to derive much important information from the evidence of persons of special experience and knowledge in the various matters connected with their inquiry. Among these witnesses they were ready to include such persons as may be recommended to them as best qualified to express opinions on the subject of this memorial.

In November, 1865, Miss Davies and Miss Buss were called to give their evidence. Miss Beale followed in April, 1866, and, during that same year, information on the education and the employment of women was given by six other ladies—Miss Wolstenholme, Miss Porter, Miss Kyberd, Miss Martin, Miss Smith, and Miss Gertrude King.

In 1870 a valuable summary of this evidence was compiled by Miss Beale from the twenty large volumes issued by the Commissioners. It is from this smaller blue-book that the following extracts are taken, the evidence of Miss Davies, Miss Buss, and Miss Beale being selected as characteristic of the views of the whole.

Read in the light of the recent University honours gained by women, many of the questions and answers of these examinations will have a curious interest for the “modern girl.”

When Lord Taunton put the question to Miss Buss:—

“‘Your girls come up to you extremely ignorant,’ there is evident conviction in her brief reply: ‘Extremely ignorant!’

“‘Do they seem to be very little taught at all?’—‘In all the essentials, hardly ever. They seldom know any arithmetic, for instance. We have a large number of girls, of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, come to us who can scarcely do the simplest sum in arithmetic.’

“‘Have you taken any interest in the movement which has been made to induce the University of Cambridge to institute examinations and confer honorary distinctions on girls?’—‘Yes; twenty-five of our pupils went up to the experimental examination.’

“‘Do you anticipate any beneficial results from the steps which the University of Cambridge has been induced to adopt?’—‘Yes; I am quite sure that great good has been done already. An immense stimulus has been given, especially to English and arithmetic. The girls have something to work for, some hope, something to aim at, and the teachers also.’

“‘As far as you are able to judge, do you think the class of school-mistresses is as good as it ought to be?’—‘The class of teachers generally is not.’

“‘In your opinion, should the education of a girl differ essentially from that of a boy in the same rank of life, with regard to the subjects which are to be taught?’—‘I think not, but it is rather difficult to ascertain what is the proper education for a boy.’

“‘You believe there is not such a distinction between the mental powers of the two classes as to require any wide distinction between the good education given to a girl and that to a boy?’—‘I am sure girls can learn anything they are taught in an interesting manner, and for which they have a motive to work.’”

Miss Beale, when asked her opinion as to the admission of girls to University degrees, replied in a slightly modified strain—

“‘It seems to me that our opinions are so divided at present as to the modifications that will be introduced into girls’ education, that I should regret to see anything done hastily to assimilate it to that which may perhaps be altered for boys; but at the same time I think it is good for boys and girls to have similar tastes that their minds may not be entirely bent in different ways, so that in their after life they should understand and be interested in the same things.’

“‘In using the word “similar,” do you mean identical?’—‘I have had some boys as pupils in mathematics, and, as far as I can judge from these and the public schools they attended, I do not think that the mathematical powers of women enable them generally (their physical strength I dare say has a great deal to do with it) to go so far in the higher mathematics as boys; and I think we should be straining the mind (which is of all things to be deprecated) if we were to try to force them to take up several examinations as are necessarily passed by those who are taking the higher branches at the Universities.’

“‘I therefore probably should not be wrong in inferring that, while you recognize the similarity of the male and female mind, you would not go the length of saying that they must necessarily move in the same channel?’—‘No, I should be sorry to see them take up classics at all exclusively, because I do not think that, as regards the education of boys, it has been the most desirable to limit it thus. That is my individual opinion.’”

But Miss Davies, after her two years’ experience as Hon. Sec. of the Cambridge Local Examinations, had no hesitation concerning identity of standard for boys and for girls, when Lord Lyttelton put the case to her—

“You have taken a very active part in persuading the two Universities to listen to facts which you had to lay before them in reference to the state of female education. Will you be so good as to tell us what difficulties you have encountered, and what objection you have met with on behalf of either gentlemen or ladies, and then make any remarks which you have to make upon these difficulties?”

Objections and difficulties equally disappear in Miss Davies’ concise answer—

“It is difficult to state objections fairly when one does not agree with them. I think it was chiefly a sort of general feeling that it was not in accordance with the fitness of things. The objections seem generally to resolve themselves into that.”

To the proposition of some special scheme of examination which might be adopted for the special requirements of women, she said simply—

“I do not see what advantage it would have. It would be difficult to frame a curriculum specially suited to girls, because almost everybody has a separate theory about what it is good for girls to learn—about what is apposite to the female mind.”

The three ladies were agreed in accepting generally the verdict of the Commissioners on the existing state of girls’ schools, afterwards thus briefly summed up—

“It cannot be denied that our picture of middle-class education is, on the whole, unfavourable. The general deficiency in girls’ education is stated with the utmost confidence, and with entire agreement, with whatever difference of statement, by many witnesses of competent authority. Want of thoroughness and foundation; slovenliness and showy superficiality; inattention to rudiments; undue time given to accomplishments, and these not taught intelligently or in any scientific manner; want of organization;—these may sufficiently indicate the character of the complaints received.”

There is also complete agreement as regards not only the need of better schools, but of better systems of training for teachers. Although thankful to accept concessions on the existing lines of boys’ education, faute de mieux, they are by no means persuaded that this education is even for boys all that could be desired. Even at that date they could venture to intimate the opinion that the mere fact of a University course did not, per se, make a good teacher.

Miss Davies called special attention to the fact, that while no endowments were applied to girls above the Elementary schools, many of these must have been intended for girls as well as boys, since they form part of bequests made “to the children” of certain parishes or districts.

Dr. Fitch has pointed out^[1] that at this period, whilst 1192 boys were receiving at Christ’s Hospital an education fitting them for the Universities, there were eighteen girls only, and these trained as domestic servants. Elsewhere he goes into the question, showing that while charity schools were open to girls, they were entirely excluded from the grammar schools, where boys were being trained “to serve God and the State.” There is scarcely a record, he says, of any school whose founder deliberately intended a liberal education for girls.

1.“Woman and the Universities,” Contemporary Review, August, 1890.

“A girl was not expected ‘to serve God or State,’ and was, therefore, not invited to the University or grammar school; but she might, if poor, be needed to contribute to the comfort of her ‘betters’ as an apprentice or a servant, and therefore the charity schools were open to her.”

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.

“St. Paul’s is the greatest prize in the profession, or rather would be if the scheme had become law. Do you see, the salary might be £2000 a year. Ours is second, with a hundred more pupils, and therefore more work and less pay than St. Paul’s. My object in drawing up the list was to show the importance of training and high education for women-teachers. Such prizes are not to be had elsewhere. Look at Scotch girls’ schools, at German also. We women owe a deep debt to the Endowed School Commission.”

The verdict given as the result of the Schools Inquiry Commission does not, of course, exclude the fact that there were then, and had always been, some good private schools where a good education had been given. The true teacher, like the poet, “is born and not made,” the power to teach being as much a Divine gift as that of song or of painting. It is true that the perception of every gift must depend on its full culture, the extent of success being determined by the amount of genius; but there have always been born teachers, some self-educated and some developed by exceptional home surroundings. Women of this kind have always existed as the loved and honoured centres of exceptional influence, sending out pupils formed on their own model.

Doubtless, there could have been found, at any period in the world’s history, a sufficient justification for the attitude condemned in one of the early papers in Fraser on the then quite new Queen’s College:—

‘Educate the women!’ exclaimed an accomplished and excellent man in our hearing, and with marked surprise. ‘Where is the necessity? A college for ladies! Nonsense! Women are admirably educated! I see none but well-educated women around me!’ in the tone of a man who, when told of those who hunger for bread, should reply, ‘Want bread? Nonsense! Hunger! There is no such thing! I see a good dinner before me every day.’”

But, granting that there was education, and of a real kind, we must agree that this, as a rule, was accessible only in the form of a very highly paid private governess, or in select and very expensive private schools. That even so much was not common, and not to be secured by the very highest payments, may be inferred from the account given by Miss Cobbe, in her “Autobiography,” of a typical fashionable school, where a two years’ course cost £1000, of which she says that “if the object had been to produce the minimum of result at the maximum of cost, nothing could have been better designed for the purpose.” In this school, she adds, “everything was taught in the inverse ratio of its true importance. At the bottom of the scale were morals and religion, and at the top music and dancing.”

The point to be kept before us, in considering the special work of this past half-century, is that for the middle-classes, including professional persons of moderate means, good education was practically out of reach, the cheaper schools which were open to them being, for the most part, of the order condemned by the Commissioners. It follows, therefore, that the opening of the new schools—with the best teaching on moderate terms—was a change of which the importance can scarcely yet be justly estimated, especially when, side by side with this preparatory movement, the advantages of University training were added. Before this time no girls’ schools, however advanced, had gone beyond the subjects considered suitable for women, and any women with knowledge of classics or mathematics were either exceptionally gifted, or had accidentally been taught with their brothers.

When we go back to November 30, 1865, the fog outside that committee-room is a true symbol of the gloom that prevailed regarding the higher education of women. Darkness still held rule, even though a few of the topmost peaks had already caught the first rays of the coming dawn.

At that date the future was still so veiled that it could by no possibility have occurred to Miss Davies or Miss Buss, standing there before the Commissioners, even to dream of themselves as what we now know them to have been—the representatives, one of University Education for Women, and the other of Public Schools for Girls, that is to say, of the two most powerful agencies in the greatest revolution of modern times.

But in those days Miss Buss’ school was still her own private property, and, as yet, no glimpse had crossed her mental vision of its future as the model of the great public girls’ schools now spread throughout the land. So, too, with Miss Davies. Girton was not, and even Hitchin had not come into view, though possibly some vague ideal of a true college for women may have been taking shape in Miss Davies’ mind. But if so, it must still have been as baseless as the poet’s dream, for no “sweet girl-graduate” existed as yet out of the domain of the “Princess Ida.” On this lower earth at that time, and for many a day after, she could serve only as matter for a flying jest.

There were indeed three “Colleges” for girls—Queen’s, Bedford, and Cheltenham, as well as the North London Collegiate School for Ladies—all in full work, and even then ready for the rapid expansion which followed the opening of the Universities to women. But, at that date, these could not rank as more than collegiate schools; nor was more desired, for Professor Maurice is very careful, in his inaugural address, to deprecate all intention of emulating the poet’s creation, thus guarding himself:—

“We should indeed rejoice to profit in this or any undertaking by the deep wisdom which the author of the ‘Princess’ has concealed under a veil of exquisite grace and lightness; we should not wish to think less nobly than his royal heroine does of the rights and powers of her sex, but we should be more inclined to acquiesce in the conclusions of her matured experience, than to revive—upon a miserably feeble and reduced scale, with some fatal deviations from its original statutes—her splendid but transitory foundation.”

Only the first step to the great changes of the present day had then been taken, when, in 1863, the University of Cambridge had allowed girls, as an experiment, to join the Local Examinations. Miss Buss always dated the later superiority of the teaching in her school to her experiences on that occasion. Out of eighty-four girls who went in, she sent twenty-five, of whom fifteen passed. The failure of ten in arithmetic pulled her up short, with the result that the teaching was so far changed that none failed in the next year, when girls were finally admitted on the same terms with boys, and the London Centre was formed under Miss Davies. But, even in 1866, success was so far limited, that Miss Beale could reply as follows to Lord Lyttelton’s query, “If she had heard of these new examinations?”—

“There seems to be some difficulty in applying them to the higher middle classes. I think of our own case. The brothers of our pupils go to the Universities. Now, generally speaking, those who go in for the Local Examinations occupy a much lower place in the social scale, and our pupils would not like to be classed with them, but regarded as equal in rank to those who pass at the University. These feelings are stronger in small places.”

The far-reaching effect of these examinations is indicated by Miss Buss’ opinion that “until the Local Cambridge Examinations were organized, there was no sort of recognition on the part of men that the feminine mind could under any circumstances rank with the masculine.”

We see from this fact that, before the middle of this century, the “woman’s movement” could not be said to exist at all. The question of equality—so much to the front at present—could not then even have been formulated. It is not till 1869 that we find it taken at all seriously, in a paper in the Macmillan for March of that year, by a writer who remarks that—

“Two alternatives are open to the would-be reformers of woman. The first of these is the line of Miss Lydia Becker, the second of Miss Emily Davies.”

And he adds that—

“Without wishing to disparage unduly the efforts of any earnest woman for what she believes to be the improvement of her sex, a thoughtful man must feel that the second is of the two the wiser course; the one which is most practical, most sensible, least dangerous, and most likely to secure the sympathy of the mass of Englishmen and Englishwomen.”

It is true that, in 1864, Dr. W. B. Hodgson, one of the first and best friends to the higher education of women, recognizes the fact that there might “rise up before the affrighted fancy” visions of what are derisively called “strong-minded women,” disputations, brow-beating, troubled with “a determination of words to the mouth,” loud and harsh in voice, arrogant in temper, dogmatic, self-willed, unconventional, undomestic, impatient of the matrimonial yoke as a badge of slavery, and with, perhaps, a leaning to waistcoats, and collars turned down, cigars, and hair parted on the side—such, in short, as a recent Italian dramatist, Castelvecchio, has so amusingly delineated in his “Donna Romantica.” But of this type, Dr. Hodgson adds—

“I know not whether the experience of my hearers is like mine; but assuredly of the very few women in whom it has been my lot to meet with any resemblance to this offensive type, not one has been distinguished by superior breadth or depth of culture. Very much the reverse. They have been remarkable for nothing more than the want of a truly liberal education, of which it is the high office to impart a large sympathy, a tolerant appreciation of various opinions, respect for others, and a modest distrust of self. It is not assuredly among the Mrs. Jamesons, the Mrs. Somervilles, the Mrs. Brownings, the Miss Swanwicks, that such portents are found. Dogmatism and presumption ever attend ignorance, not knowledge; shallowness, not depth.”^[2]

2.“The Education of Girls,” etc., by W. B. Hodgson, LL.D.

There were, indeed, indications of the two distinct lines of action in the work for higher education, and in the work for political reforms. But as yet they were not distinctly divided. The sympathies of the most thoughtful women went out in both directions, even whilst they might follow the one or the other more definitely. It was no more possible then than it would be possible now to draw a hard and fast line; placing on the one side the Educationalists, and on the other the workers for Suffrage and other reforms affecting women. Then, as now, women could be divided into two classes only—the wise and the foolish. Then, as now, the wise worked wisely in whatever line they followed, while the foolish worked also after their own kind.

The educational reform attracted the larger following, content to work in preparing women for the best use of extended power when the time of possession might arrive. In the mean time, the object sought was merely the preparation for actual duties, either in home-life, or in employments rendered necessary by the pressure of circumstances.

In looking back over the great educational movement, which has so changed the aspect of society, two points stand out most sharply: (1) that the work was done in the true natural order by men and women side by side; and (2) that it was done in the true spiritual order, in that quietness which is the appointed avenue to higher inspiration, that stillness which leads to vital knowledge; and also that it was done in the obedience which is the link that binds man to God—practical religion.

It is impossible to judge as yet what may be the final outcome of the intellectual freedom now opened to all women. There are signs of what was the most probable immediate effect—the exaggeration of recoil from all ancient bonds, including those of religion and duty. Whilst it would be very short-sighted to suppose that such a state of things could ever be permanent, so long as women retain any remnant of the intuitional quality which is their special dower, it may still be seasonable to call special attention to the fact that the pioneers in the educational movement are, without exception, deeply religious women. This circumstance may or may not be an accident of no particular moment. The point is that it is historic fact, and as such has its own significance. In a quite special degree, we may point to Miss Davies and to Miss Beale, as well as to Miss Buss and Miss Clough, as quite typically law-abiding and obedient women.

Quietness, in its most literal sense, is most curiously characteristic of all the educational leaders. The very thought of Emily Davies, reticent and self-controlled, gives a sense of calm and stillness. For long years we see Frances Mary Buss curbing her magnificent energies to the “daily round, the common task.” Anne Clough works in silence for a lifetime, between the first little day school in Liverpool and the success of Newnham. Dorothea Beale, though she can rise to all poetic heights, is observant of all the small sweet courtesies of lowly service, and, if “learned” in all school-lore, is also notably “learned in all gracious household ways.” And the same must be said of Frances Martin, who, in her College for Working Women, has so extended the range of the new education that none now need be left out.

Nor are these qualities less conspicuous in the group of what may be termed the “amateurs” of the movement—true “lovers” of their kind, who, having all that heart could desire of this world’s good, have made it their business to share it with those less favoured: Lady Stanley of Alderley, Lady Augusta Stanley, Lady Frederick Cavendish, Mrs. Manning and her daughter Miss E. A. Manning, Mrs. Reed, Miss Bostock, Mrs. Wedgwood, Madame Bodichon, Miss Ewart, and Miss L. M. Hubbard, all more lavish of time and thought and wealth than of words. And then all the active workers: sweet Mrs. Grey, with the touch of old-world stateliness adding strength to her sweetness; Miss Shirreff and Miss Mary Gurney, of few words, but these straight to the point; Mrs. Burbury, true to her University traditions, and Mrs. Garrett-Anderson, with the professional reticence learned in her fight through the medical schools; Miss Davenport-Hill, known to the School Board as the woman who can hold her tongue, and her sister Florence, “wisest of wise women,” as her friends call her, also with a great gift of silence; Miss Laura Soames, too early taken from us; and the many more like-minded, whose works rather than their tongues still speak for them.

It is not, indeed, that any one of these lacks the power to speak, for on some occasion most have been known to speak even from the platform, and to speak well. But not to women like these could those famous words of Mrs. Browning’s ever be held appropriate—

“A woman cannot do the thing she ought,—

Which means whatever perfect thing she can,

In life, in art, in science,—but she fears

To let the perfect action take her part,

And rest there: she must prove what she can do

Before she does it, prate of woman’s rights,

Of woman’s mission, woman’s function, till

The men (who are prating too on their side) cry,

‘A woman’s function plainly is—to talk!’”

And these quiet women are the true pioneers—the women who have actually done the work. They did not call on the world to listen to what women might, could, would, or should do under quite different conditions; they simply did—under the actually existing conditions—just the thing that needed to be done, then and there.

There was not in those days the need of perpetual discussions about “rights” or “wrongs.” The easiest way to cure the wrong seemed to lie in doing the nearest right. It was not that they were indifferent either to existing abuses, or to past wrongs, or blind to the need of necessary reforms. There was not one of them who was not stirred to the depths of her being by the wrong of past ages, or by the present anguish under which women agonize. It was because these deepest depths were so stirred that there they found themselves at one with the Divine love, which has not only suffered, but has conquered suffering—in this love finding strength for work and patience for waiting; and, as they worked and as they waited, there came forgiveness for the past, healing for the present, and hope for the future. All work that is done in the spirit of Christ is thereby lifted above anger, bitterness, or despair. In these moods no great or lasting work has been done or can be done. Not for selfish ends, not even for self-development, do the greatest workers leave the quiet of home, but only and always for freedom to do the highest duty, for the glorious liberty of love. Therefore the secret is not in revolt, but in obedience to the higher law which may indeed at times seem to be a breaking of the laws of men. By this test we may measure all our greatest women leaders. In turn we may find that each has defied to the uttermost the public opinion of her time in daring to prove her right to free action. But just in proportion to the height to which she rose we find her true womanliness strong to withstand any strain. The only real stepping out of woman’s proper sphere is when she descends to measure her strength with man on the lower level of self-love and self-seeking.

But weary as we grow of the present phase of empty “sound and fury, signifying nothing”—the language of revolt and invective—we need not fear for the future, or doubt that a true progress is taking us through all this jarring and wrangling and strife to a safe goal—

“Where beyond these voices there is peace.”

“When, at the last, a woman set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words;

And so these twain upon the skirts of Time

Sit side by side, full-summ’d in all their powers,

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,

Self reverent each, and reverencing each,

Distinct in individualities,

But like each other even as those who love.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;

Then reign the worlds great bridals, chaste and calm;

Then springs the crowning race of humankind.

May these things be!”

BOOK I.

EARLY LIFE.