ABSTRACT
The internal life of the girls' schools can conveniently be considered under three headings: curriculum; games and social life; health. The curriculum followed much the same lines as that of the boys' schools, though there was a better balance between the different subjects. There was nothing in the high schools like the traditional emphasis in boys' schools on the classics. Since girls soon began to take the same public examinations, they necessarily followed the same curriculum. They have often been criticized for doing so, yet it was very important in the early days that they should be seen to succeed in the same tests and at the same standards as the boys. There is a rather touching story about an excited Miss Buss announcing to the school that a woman, Philippa Garrett Fawcett, had been placed above the senior wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1890. Miss Buss told the school how, when she had been examined by the Schools Inquiry Commission, she had been asked whether she thought that girls would be able to learn mathematics. She had replied that they could, and would do so. Then, she almost shouted, “Today these gentlemen have their answer”, and more quietly, “I wonder how many of them are remembering, as I am remembering, their question to me twenty-five years ago, and my answer?”’ (Scrimgeour 1950:64).
