{{Short description|German educator}} '''Marie Musaeus Higgins''' (18 May 1855 – 10 July 1926) was a German educationist, best known as the founder and principal of Musaeus College in Colombo, Sri Lanka.<ref name="Gunawardena2005">{{cite book|author=Charles A. Gunawardena|title=Encyclopedia of Sri Lanka|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWLQSMPddikC&pg=PA178|year=2005|publisher=Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd|isbn=978-1-932705-48-5|page=178}}</ref> She also authored several publications based on Buddhist and Sinhala cultural themes, including ''Poya Days'' in 1924.<ref name="Briggs2015">{{cite book|author=Cherry Briggs|title=The Teardrop Island: Following Victorian Footsteps Across Sri Lanka|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sq8_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA280|date=1 January 2015|publisher=Summersdale Publishers Limited|isbn=978-0-85765-926-2|page=280}}</ref> She is recognised as an important figure in the pre-independence Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka and a pioneer in female education in the country.
== Biography == Marie Musaeus was born on 18 May 1855 in Wismar, which was part of the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Germany,<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url = http://www.dailymirror.lk/49514/marie-musaeus-higgins-her-footprints-on-the-sands-of-time|title = Marie Musaeus Higgins: Her Footprints on the Sands of Time|last = Munasinghe|first = Charnika Imbulana|date = 10 July 2014|work = Daily Mirror|access-date = 3 November 2015}}</ref> her father, Theodore Musaeus, was a High Court Judge. In Germany, she studied languages, art and music, after she completed her education, she became a "Frau Professor.<ref name=":0" /> In the 1880s, she went to the United States with her brother where she met her husband, Anton Higgins, who was a U.S. Army officer.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url = http://www.musaeus.lk/founders/|title = Founders|access-date = 3 November 2015|website = Musaeus College}}</ref> Anton was a Theosophist and Marie Higgins eventually founded the Blavatsky Theosophist Lodge.<ref>{{Cite news|url = http://archives.dailynews.lk/2012/11/19/fea04.asp|title = Musaeus, Mother and Mentor from America|date = 19 November 2012|work = Daily News|access-date = 3 November 2015}}</ref> Her husband died a few years after their marriage, and Higgins went to Ceylon to join Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.<ref name=":1" /> She arrived in Ceylon on 10 November 1889 onboard the ‘’Prussian’’.
Responding to the inaction of the Buddhist Theosophical Society, a group of women's organised the Buddhist Women's Educational Society and established four schools, amongst which was the Sangamitta Girls' School in Maradana, for which Higgins was invited to be the principal. Higgins later founded the Musaeus Girls' Boarding School in 1891 on {{ convert|0.20|ha|acre|abbr=on}} land in Cinnamon Gardens, donated by Peter de Abrew and his father William de Abrew. The first building was a simple small mud hut, but eventually was replaced with a brick building in 1895.<ref name=":1" /> She continued to serve as the school's principal until her death on 10 July 1926.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Higgins, Marie Musaeus}} Category:1855 births Category:People from Wismar Category:1926 deaths Category:Heads of schools in Sri Lanka Category:German Buddhists Category:Buddhist writers Category:German emigrants to Sri Lanka Category:19th-century German educators Category:School founders