In the novel "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," what exactly is Jean Brodie's prime and what does it symbolize?

Miss Brodie believes she is in her prime as she enters her 40s in the 1930s. She is a middle-aged spinster who lost her love, as so many women did, on the battlefield during World War I. As a teacher, the middle-aged Miss Brodie feels she is at the point to offer strong leadership to the chosen few: the girls she gathers around her and constantly calls "the creme de la creme" as she molds them in her own image. Her "prime" symbolizes her fascism, her desire for power and control over her students, and her willingness to manipulate them. She admires Mussolini and then, after a visit to Germany, Hitler's Nazi state. Like these leaders, she wants not just to educate her "Brodie set," but to indoctrinate them entirely into her way of thinking.