1920: Introduction: Nénuphars’ Circle and Its Legacy
Viscountess Viola Vorpel
It has become something of a fashion, in these reflective years after the war, to speak of women’s education as though it began suddenly with the opening of Girton or the enfranchisement of thirty. The truth, naturally, is subtler and less spectacular. Long before women paraded in academic cap or political banner, there existed a number of modest workshops of intellect—places half concealed under the veil of gentility—where a handful of girls were taught to think not merely agreeably, but accurately. I was fortunate, or perhaps mischievous, enough to be one of them.
Anetis House, in Norfolk, was among the most eccentric and least documented of these experiments. It was founded in 1880 as “Nénuphars’ Circle for the Higher Instruction of Ladies,” though we always called it simply the School. Its atmosphere mingled the domestic and the discursive so thoroughly that one was never quite certain whether one was being educated or merely well attended. The pupils—never more than nine at a time—were drawn from the sort of families who trusted experiment so long as it remained invisible to the neighbours. Our Mistress of Studies, whom decorum forbids me to name, governed with a firmness enlivened by wit; her discipline consisted chiefly in expecting intelligence and rewarding its presence by conversation rather than commendation.
Much has been written, or guessed, about our curriculum, though few of the guesses have proved accurate. We had no examinations, only discussions, which were far more perilous. The day began with reading and ended with argument, often over tea. Philosophy, history, literature, manners—all intertwined like the hedgerows that imprisoned us. The official “rules of conduct,” preserved in the Charter, seem almost ornamental now, though they remain delightful for what they reveal of intention. One in particular has been reproduced by our more diligent chroniclers, and bears quotation here:
“Each student keeps a Common Book, recording her observations, and a Private Journal, wherein she may contradict them.”
This regulation was meant, I imagine, to formalise that admirable balance between prudence and candour which female intellect was thought to require. It amused us even then, for no one ever kept two books. How could we? Our contradictions were too numerous to catalogue separately. It was generally agreed that any entry worth writing was already common, and any doubt worth entertaining required witnesses. Private reflection seldom survived the afternoon, for each of us was anxious to test her discoveries on the salon floor, where they might be praised, spoiled, or borrowed with improvements. It was perhaps our first and most practical lesson in the economics of thought: ideas not circulated soon perish.
I recall once being admonished by our Mistress for reading my own journal aloud to a friend. “My dear,” she said, “if you persist in publication, at least remember to invite critics.” The advice has since served me well. Confidentiality at Anetis was always provisional; from girlhood we learned that intelligence expands by exposure, not concealment. The paradox was delicious—that a school founded upon discretion produced nothing but debate.
It would be false modesty to pretend the Circle changed England, yet it changed its daughters sufficiently that England had, in time, to catch up. The country which once assumed that learning disfigured femininity now applauds the very intonations we were scolded for practising. Our quiet disputations have ripened into whole movements; our small talk has become scholarship. Indeed, I often recognise in the modern feminist pamphlet the same tone of sober anarchy that characterised our breakfast discussions—though with rather less sugar.
Those who visit Anetis today find a respectable ruin of culture: lawns tentatively mathematical, the pond reflective as ever, the house itself pressed politely back into history. Yet its spirit continues like an inherited accent. I hear it whenever a woman asks a question not permitted and waits, not for permission, but for an answer. We were taught that knowledge needn’t belong to us to be ours—a fine paradox, still the saving grace of education.
To write of the School now is to risk sentimentality, for time has made it safer than it was. What appeared in 1880 as gentle eccentricity was, in hindsight, quiet revolution. We learned to argue without apology, to converse without vanity, to trust contradiction as an instrument rather than a fault. We were expected to keep both a common and a private mind—and succeeded, instead, in creating a shared consciousness, half serious, half satirical, entirely alive.
If, as some scholars insist, education is the transmission of civilisation, then Anetis was at least the faintly comic telegram that announced women’s arrival on the line. That the message was occasionally misheard, embroidered, or read aloud at tea only proves its authenticity.
In the chapters that follow, I shall attempt neither a history nor a tribute, but a recollection—how it felt to stand, improbably, at the threshold of independent thought while still under the comfortable tyranny of Norfolk hospitality. It is not an argument for the past, but a letter of thanks to it. And if, in writing, I contradict my own observations—well, it is what we were trained to do.
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