November 14, 1870 — Public Meeting, Chelsea Vestry Hall, London, United Kingdom

I thank you very much for this kind reception of me. I want encouragement.

I feel that I stand here in such a very new position — one that may seem a very bold one, as a woman addressing a great public meeting; but it seems to me that it is not the thing itself, but the manner and spirit of doing it, which makes it womanly, or the reverse. I think it is possible to do the most womanly task in an unwomanly manner, that is, in a hard, [coarse,] and violent way; and I hope it is possible to do what I am doing now in such a way as to make it perfectly womanly. So much has been already said about women being members of this Board, and of the advantage they may bring to the cause of Education, that I will not dwell upon it. I will simply say that I think the Board will not be complete without them. Women should be there to represent the mothers of the children, as men will represent the fathers.
Mr. STUART MILL, in the speech he made last week at Greenwich, pointed out the advantages of electing women, in words so much better than any I could use, that you will perhaps allow me to read them to you.

Mr. Mill said — “Working men are indispensable if the School Board is to be thoroughly efficient and popular. Women are still more necessary. In the first place, we have girls to educate as well as boys, and a national education for girls directed solely by men would indeed be an absurdity on the face of it. Moreover, women as the principal domestic teachers have more experience, and have acquired more practical ability in the teaching, at least of children. Almost every mother of a family is a practiced teacher, and even beyond the family. For one man, not a teacher by profession, who has given much of his attention to teaching, or to the superintendence of teaching, there are many women who have done so. Were we not to elect any women we should go completely counter to the spirit of the Act. Parliament has shown what its opinion is by expressly making women eligible to the School Board. It will be most incomplete without them, and it is much to be regretted that so few women have yet offered themselves as candidates.”
I may add that I have also had a letter from a friend of mine, the mother of a large family, and an active and efficient worker in schools, in which she says: — “If England wishes to empty her workhouses, she must begin at the little dirty girl child, for until these children, the future wives and mothers of our labouring men, are taught the value of thrift and cleanliness, the men will never be raised above the public-house. Girls should be taught their duties as wives, mothers, and servants; they should be taught the properties of food, what is necessary to nourish the workman, and the value of much food which from ignorance and prejudice their mothers throwaway. If a man could get a clean hot meal at home, he would not go elsewhere to waste his money and his health. They should learn to cut out and make their clothing, and to make their homes healthy and comfortable.” But who is to see these things inculcated if no woman sits upon the School Board? I don’t think men could enter into these details.

It has been objected, in reference to what I said at the meeting at Notting Hill, that the members of the Board would have nothing to d o with the actual teaching of the girls; that would be left to the school mistresses. But who is to choose the mistresses, and to decide if they are competent to teach these things which are so essential? This is one great reason why women should be on the School Board; but I will detain you no longer upon this point. You wish, no doubt, to have some information as to m y views on education. I must begin by stating that I not only desire to see more schools, but better schools. I understand from the best authorities that the results of the present schools are very poor in comparison to what they ought to be.

It maybe that children who leave school at ten years old can scarcely learn more than to read and write and do a little cyphering, though perhaps more than this might be accomplished even with them, if the teaching were more efficient; but children who remain till thirteen or fourteen years of age to learn something more than these rudiments of knowledge. They ought to know something of the world they live in, and of the laws which govern it, — the laws on which depend the health of the  individual, the laws on which depend the health of society. They ought to learn something of the history and the constitution of their own country.

Our forefathers have handed down to us a grand history, a grand literature. Some knowledge of these should be given to all our children, and might be given if our school system were better and our staff more effective. With regard to compulsion, I can only say that itis a delicate question, and that whatever is done, must be done very carefully and cautiously  but in some way or other, I believe that problem must be solved. It is absurd to suppose the ratepayers will provide a large staff of teachers and large school accommodation, and allow the children to remain away.

Now, I am going to say something which may be unpopular, but I must state that I am not in favour of free education. I think the independent workman should scorn as much to get his children’s schooling from the rates, as their food or clothing. All the burden of education ought not to be thrown upon the ratepayers; but on the other hand, I wish to see all educational endowments thrown open to every class. I am told that there are considerable educational endowments that might be applied in the way of founding scholarships, and thus enabling poor scholars of real ability to pass from one stage of education to another, until they had reached the place nature had fitted them to occupy. I come now to the point which has roused the most controversy and awakened the keenest partisanship, the question of religious education; and I may take this opportunity of contradicting two reports which I hear are being circulated about me, — one that I am a Roman Catholic, and another that I am an infidel. I am neither the one nor the other. I believe in God the Creator and Father of us all; and I believe He is best revealed to uş by the life and teaching of Christ. That teaching I must follow, in the spirit of that life I must live, though it lead me, as it led Him, to the Cross.

This is the religion I wish to see taught in our schools, and I believe it is best taught from the Bible, and that it can be taught without one word of sectarian theology, the theology which leads men to hate each other instead of loving God. The secularist party says that religion is best taught at home and by the ministers of religion, and that schoolmasters should teach secular subjects only; but they forget that a great portion of the children who will have to be taught in these rate-provided schools will belong to that hapless class who are born and bred in the streets, who know no parents and no home, who will never hear one word of God or goodness, of truth or purity, but what they hear in school. And I ask if you think these children will be taught their duty to their God, to their country, and to their neighbour, by simply learning the three R’s with a little smattering of geography and history? The first thing to teach these children, and all children, is that there is a duty in life to be done, for which they are responsible to God, — a duty which they are bound to do, even as a soldier does his on the battlefield; and that they are traitors and cowards who leave it undone. I believe that this sense of duty has been at the bottom of all that is great and good in our national character, and that the relaxation or loss of it, the substitution for it of the love of pleasure, of what is called enlightened self-interest, has been one main cause of the ruin of a neighbouring country. If the next generation are to transmit to their children the glorious inheritance of our fathers, it must be by the maintenance of this sense of the paramount obligation of duty, as the allegiance due to God.

As to my personal qualifications for the post I ask for, so much has been already said by my kind friends, too much, perhaps, by Mr. Grove, that I will add only this: — Should you do me the honour to elect me, I will work hard and faithfully, and to the best of my ability to justify your trust.

Source: The School Board of London: Three Addresses of Mrs. William Grey, in the Borough of Chelsea, with a Speech by William Grove, Esq., Q.C., FRS (London: W. Ridgway, 1871), pp. 10-14.