November 26, 1870 — Ladbroke Hall, Notting Hill, London, United Kingdom

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and gentlemen, —

I am very grateful to you for this kind reception. It is said that habit makes everything easy. I do not find it so in public speaking. I have not the same claim on your indulgence which I had when I first spoke to you a fortnight ago; and yet I feel that I want it as much, if not more; for the magnitude of the task I have undertaken grows upon me as I go on. It must seem to you a very daring thing for a woman like myself, scarcely known beyond a small circle of friends and readers, to come forward and compete for your suffrages, with such men as some of the candidates for this borough; — with a great administrator like Lord Lawrence; an able and practised educator like Canon Cromwell; a man of science and an active philanthropist like Dr. Gladstone; or a thorough man of business like your member on the Metropolitan Board of Works, Mr. Freeman.

What claims have I, you may ask, to put myself forward with such men as these? My first and strongest claim will seem to you, perhaps, a very strange one. It is this: that I am a woman. And yet it is not so strange if you look into it. What I am asking for is not a seat in Parliament to make or repeal laws affecting the general interests of the nation. It is a seat on a Board appointed to carry out the law; to deal with the education of children of tender years, one half of whom will be girls, who must be taught by women. Who is to see that these girls are taught the things so essential to their future usefulness at home and in service, that they are trained in the habits which will make them thrifty house-wives, good mothers, and good servants, if there are no women to do it? Could a Board, which has to direct schools for girls, be complete without women among its members? Parliament evidently thought it could not, for it made women eligible; not by any loop hole admission, any creeping in at side-doors, but deliberately and advisedly.

When Mr. FOSTER stated in the House of Commons that the clauses were expressly framed with a view to make women eligible, that statement was loudly cheered from all sides of the House, the same House which, only a little while before, had rejected with contumely the bill for giving women the suffrage. This, then, is my first plea that women are wanted to sit on the Board. But it is not my only one. The necessity of electing women being granted, I felt that I possessed some of the qualifications required for the post: time, strength, an independent position, and some knowledge of education. Years ago I wrote in conjunction with my sister, Miss [Emily] SHIRREFF, a work on education — the work which our chairman referred to so kindly just now. It was, indeed, written for the use of girls of my own class in life; but the general principles which form the ground-work of all real education are the same, for they rest on the facts of human nature, — that nature which is the same in the palace and the cottage, in the street Arab and the curled darling of the lordliest home.

Botanists will tell you that plants so change their characteristics under different circumstances of soil and climate, that it is only by examination of their inward structure that their true identity can be ascertained. There is, for instance, a species of willow which is found on the coasts of the Arctics seas, creeping along the surface of the barren soil, unable to rise a few inches above the ground; yet the botanist can trace it to the same family as the beautiful tree, whose luxuriant grace makes it the chosen ornament of our gardens; the same tree that grown for use, not ornament, yields the material which adds in a hundred ways to the comfort of our homes. So is it with our common humanity. Starved, distorted, degraded as it may be by all the neglect, by all the vices of what we call civilisation, it is still to the eye of him who knows how to look the same nature which was created in the image of God, which was endowed with the God-like privilege of choosing between good and evil, made capable of “battling for the true, the just” — the same nature which developed and cultivated justifies the magnificent words of Shakespeare, the poet of human nature:
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God!” It is on this common humanity that the educator must build. Let him find the true touch, that

“One touch of nature makes all the world of kin.”

and he will master the whole instrument and harmonise to the grand march of human progress all the discordant strings now “like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh.” I venture to think that I have some helps towards finding that true touch. I have lived much, read much, thought much, suffered much, and, through all these ways, have learnt something of human nature and human life, — have gained some of that power of sympathy which is as the eye of the heart and gives insight into other hearts. With regard to the mere business of the Board, I have also had some special preparation for it. I have been for upwards of a twelvemonth a member of the Council of the Charity Organisation Society, in which there is only one other lady besides myself with from 25 to 30 gentlemen. I can truly say that I have never felt myself in a false position or at a disadvantage there. I have been treated as an equal, and my opinion, when I have been called upon to give it, has been listened to with no less and no more respect than it could claim on its own merit. I have been told to-day that, at a meeting which was held last night at Fulham, in support of Lord Lawrence and Canon Cromwell, one rev. gentleman remarked that he thought it would be very trying to the ladies who might be elected to the School Board to see forty-six hats and only three bonnets, forty-six umbrellas  and only three parasols. It is a small minority, no doubt; but if you pour a few drops into a tumbler-full of another liquid, the effect will depend on the nature and strength of the drops. I think no majority of sensible and thoughtful men can fail to listen with respect to Miss [Elizabeth] GARRETT’s views on the physical training and sanitary arrangements necessary for girls, or to Miss [Emily] DAVIES’ views on the details of female education; and though I have no special claim like theirs, my long experience of life, my long study of the principles of education, may secure for my opinions a due share of attention and consideration.

With regard to m y views on the questions which the Board will have to decide, my first principle would be to carry out the Act fully and honestly. The Act declares that every child in England and Wales shall receive the elements of education, and to carry this out, must be the first and paramount object of the Board. It must provide schools and teachers for all at present unprovided, and use every means to bring the children to the schools; — first, every means of persuasion and attraction, but ultimately, if these fail, the powers of compulsion which are placed in their hands. It is said that we shall never be able to introduce compulsion in England. This will depend, I think, on the feeling of the country. I have a strong belief (it is, I fear, becoming an old-fashioned one) that when England chooses to do a thing, she always does it. Then when you have got the children, the next question is what to teach them. I say as much as you possibly can. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, the A B C of education must, of course, come first; but I hope we shall not stop there when it is possible to do more. A child should not leave school without some outfit for the voyage of life, some knowledge of the things amongst which he is to live, and of the laws which govern both him and them. Above all, we should give him the knowledge of God, not of dogmas about God, not of articles attempting to define the indefinable, but of God the ever-living, ever-present, ever-loving Father, whose voice he hears each time that his conscience tells him he ought to do this deed and leave that other undone, come what come may. W e should teach those young hearts and minds their duties to their neighbour and to their country, and that this is the true service God demands from them. I am told this is not religion, but were morality. I wish there were more such morality among those who call themselves religious. We should less often find a low moral tone combined with high professions of religion, and I should not be, at this moment, a sufferer from false reports deliberately spread to injure my candidature by the parties which profess themselves the special champions of the Church and of Scriptural Christianity.

Of my personal qualifications have already said enough, perhaps I have sounded my own trumpet too loudly as it is. I have nothing to gain, none of the candidates have anything to gain — in this election but hard, very hard work without pay; but I perhaps have most to lose, for, besides the sacrifice made by all equally of ease and leisure, I lose the privacy which is most precious to a woman; I must break through all the habits of my life. But I counted the cost before I entered on the contest. I am willing to do the work I have thought it my duty to seek, and will do it to the utmost of m y ability should I have the honour to be elected by you.

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. 15-19.