These results were most valuable. They proved that there must be many good schools in the country, and some teachers who could learn from the success and failure of their pupils. No time could have been more opportune for this experiment, for just then a Royal Commission was making an inquiry into all the schools that had not been included in the Popular Education Commission, or that which examined into the nine great public schools. This really meant a general survey of boys’ secondary education; and to boys it would have been confined, had it not been for those same energetic women who had inaugurated the reform of girls’ education. Here was an opportunity not to be missed. Once more signatures were collected for a memorial, this time to beg for the inclusion of girls’ schools in the scope of the inquiry. This was granted, and consent given to the admission of a few ladies to give evidence. Some trepidation was felt at so novel a proceeding. Thirty years later, when another such Commission was appointed, and women were included among the Commissioners, their appointment caused less remark than the invitation given in 1865 to a few ladies to give information on a subject on which none were better qualified to speak. So quickly has public opinion changed!
Nine ladies gave evidence before the Commission. The most valuable testimony came from Miss Buss, at that time head of a large private school, Miss Beale, Principal of Cheltenham College, and Miss Emily Davies, who was taking so active a part in all reforms that concerned girls. Eight Assistant Commissioners were requested to make special inquiries as to the girls’ schools in selected districts. Their task proved no easy one. The request to be allowed to inspect schools or procure information about them by other means was met sometimes by indignant refusal, at others by a silence as eloquent. However, in spite of difficulties, it proved possible to obtain returns from a good number and examine some more or less thoroughly. Since the assumption seems fair that it was the superior schools which were most ready for inspection, the reports must be read with the mental addition of an even worse state of things behind that remained unrevealed. At any rate, there was enough to make out a case for action.