A ROYAL COMMISSION
‘I learnt the royal genealogies
Of Oviedo, the internal laws
Of the Burmese Empire,—by how many feet
Mount Chimborazo outsoars Teneriffe,
What navigable river joins itself
To Lara, and what census of the year five
Was taken at Klagenfurt....
I learnt much music, ...
fine sleights of hand
And unimagined fingering.’
E. B. BROWNING, _Aurora Leigh_.
This volume, which memorialises one great name in one field of women’s
work, is not the place in which to dwell upon the details of that work in
other departments. But it may be remarked in passing that the educational
movement itself was but a part—an essential part—of a larger one. It
seemed, Miss Beale often said in speaking of this time, that women, like
the damsel of old, heard the Voice of the Master penetrating the slumber
of death, bidding them Arise. And they obeyed. They arose in many and
various ways to minister to Him.
The first sign of this awakening was publicly seen in 1844, when Dr.
Pusey engaged several leading laymen, among whom was Mr. Gladstone,
to help him in the foundation of an Anglican Sisterhood. Two or three
Orders date from before the opening of Queen’s College in 1848; those
at Clewer and Wantage followed soon after. The devotion of Florence
Nightingale and her little band in 1854 led many to follow her example,
and the reform of nursing steadily if slowly followed. In 1866, before
the reports of the Schools’ Inquiry were published, Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell took an M.D. degree in Switzerland, and Miss Garrett began to
study for one in London. The desire for better teaching and training was
widespread. The establishment of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College was a
part of a larger movement which was affecting the whole country. Sixteen
years had passed since the opening of Queen’s College had unsealed the
fountain of knowledge for women. Immediately after, in 1849, a college
had been established on undenominational lines. This was Bedford College,
which found a liberal donor in Mr. Reid, and among its first teachers
counted Francis Newman, De Morgan, and Dr. Carpenter. These led the way.
Then in 1850 the great school which will for ever be associated with the
name of Frances Mary Buss was opened in Camden Road, its enterprising
head-mistress having there removed the private school she had carried
on successfully for some years, to develop it on the lines of a public
school, under the enlightened supervision of Mr. Laing. Cheltenham
followed four years later, and these two, for many years the only public
schools for girls in the country, may be considered the direct offspring
of Queen’s College.
The general condition of girls’ education remained unimproved some years
longer. Yet amid the thousands of private schools where worthless or
poor teaching prevailed, there were a few which had come into the hands
of capable women who had been inspired by the noble ideals of those
who led the religious and intellectual thought of the day. The name of
Elizabeth Sewell is representative of these; but for the most part they
lived and died unknown, because their work was of less public moment
than that of the great leaders. Yet, in an account of women’s education
it seems ungracious to name only the well known, however great, and to
pass unnoticed the wise virgins, less prominent but not less faithful,
whose lamps shone and were replenished through the night. In her death,
as in her work on earth, Dorothea Beale was not alone. Miss Sewell, aged
ninety, passed but a few weeks before her, and very shortly after two
other unknown fellow-workers, who had not laboured in vain. The _Times_
of January 1907 told of Miss Piper, the founder and head of Laleham. Of
Miss Piper it could be said, that at a time when the instruction given
to girls was of a formal character, ‘she set herself to make her pupils
think, to stimulate interest, to enforce thoroughness.’ These were the
very points on which the Schools’ Commission found girls’ education
defective. A fortnight later died Emily Milner, who was for fifty years
head of St. Mary’s School at Brighton, to which she devoted all her small
income. She taught with marvellous energy and freshness, inspiring her
pupils themselves to be zealous and persevering, and keeping them in
touch with all that was best in the rapid advance and change of modern
education. But such head-mistresses were rare. The Commissioners seldom
found either thoroughness or freshness in the schools they inspected.
The Schools’ Inquiry Commission was instituted in 1864, a year in which
John Ruskin, in a lecture at Manchester, made a passionate appeal to rich
women to claim their right to serve—and reign. His cry did not reach
a larger public until, eight years later, the lecture was published
under the title ‘Of Queens’ Gardens’ in _Sesame and Lilies_. Like the
simultaneous discovery of some great star, by watchers strange to one
another and half a continent apart, the movement for enlarging the
scope of women’s work was furthered by men of divers ways and methods,
heralded by visionaries like Tennyson and Ruskin, marshalled into
deliberate order by high-hearted officials like the Secretary of the
Governesses’ Benevolent Society and the School Inspector Joshua Fitch.
Possibly no Assistant Commissioner, as he drew up his report, recalled
the ringing words of Ruskin. But though the medium varies to the stretch
of difference between the inspiration of a great poem and the deliberate
statements of a blue-book, we recognise the same force behind both, and
see both alike to be channels for one great stream of tendency. The
conclusions drawn from the report, the resulting effects seen in new
schools and organised public examinations, miss nothing of their special
value if regarded in connection with such words as these:—
‘Let a girl’s education be as serious as a boy’s. You bring up
your girls as if they were meant for side-board ornaments, and
then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages
that you give their brothers ... teach _them_, also, that
courage and truth are the pillars of their being.... There is
hardly a girl’s school in this Christian Kingdom where the
children’s courage and sincerity would be thought of half
so much importance as their way of coming in at a door....
And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings, but noble
teachers.’[40]
The Schools’ Inquiry Commission was instituted to examine into the
existing state of education above the elementary grade, and to report
on measures needed for its improvement, having special regard to all
endowments applicable, or which could rightly be made applicable,
thereto. By the instance of Miss Emily Davies, girls’ schools were
included in the inquiry. Among the Commissioners was Lord Lyttelton,
who was regarded by those who wished to improve women’s education as a
friend to girls. He had manfully asserted their right to a share of the
endowments, and of women to a share in the management of girls’ schools.
Sir Stafford Northcote, Dr. Temple, and Mr. Forster were also members of
the Commission. Among the Assistant Commissioners, whose business it was
to visit and report upon schools, were such well-known names as those of
T. H. Green, J. G. Fitch, and J. Bryce.
No schools outside the eight selected districts were visited, but the
Principals of some beyond their limit were requested to give evidence
before the Commissioners in London. In the year 1868-9 reports and
evidence were gradually issued in a series of twenty large blue-books. Of
these volumes about nineteen-twentieths related to the education of boys
and general questions, and about one-twentieth to the education of girls
alone.
Miss Beale hailed the Commission as a means of bringing the thousand
inefficiencies of girls’ education to the light. She took advantage
of it in an address she gave in 1865 at Bristol, at a meeting of that
now extinct body, the Social Science Congress, when she pleaded that,
for boys and girls alike, education should be planned with the view of
developing character. Her argument was none the less weighty because so
carefully guarded:—
‘Let me say at once that I desire to institute no comparison
between the mental abilities of boys and girls, but simply to
say what seems to be the right means of training girls, so that
they may best perform that subordinate part in the world to
which, I believe, they have been called.
‘First, then, I think that the education of girls has too
often been made showy, rather than real and useful; that
accomplishments have been made the main thing, because these
would, it was thought, enable a girl to shine and attract,
while those branches of study especially calculated to form the
judgment, to cultivate the understanding, and to discipline the
character (which would fit her to perform the duties of life)
have been neglected; and thus, while temporary pleasure and
profit have been sought, the great moral ends of education have
been too often lost sight of.
‘To the poorer classes the toil and struggle of their daily
life do, to some extent, afford an education which gives
earnestness, and strength, and reality; and if we would not
have the daughters of the higher classes idle and frivolous,
they too must be taught to appreciate the value of work. We
must endeavour to give them, while young, such habits, studies,
and occupations as will brace the mind, improve the taste, and
develop the moral character. They must learn, not for the sake
of display, but from motives of duty. They must not choose the
easy and agreeable, and neglect what is dull and uninviting.
They must not expect to speak languages without mastering the
rudiments; nor require to be finished in a year or two, but
impatiently refuse to labour at a foundation.’
These words were pioneers of the Commissioners’ reports, in which they
find a literal echo. The reports, with her own evidence and that of
other ladies interested in education, were by Miss Beale preserved for
posterity. She perceived instinctively that if they were not brought
into general circulation all would soon be forgotten, much never known
at all. With that stern sense of economy which caused her never to waste
an opportunity or a scrap of material, she took the task upon herself.
She obtained permission to republish the matter relating to girls’
schools in a single volume, for which she wrote a preface. In this she
dealt with the evidence of the Commissioners, discussing at some length
the questions of examinations and overwork. But she sought chiefly,
as she had already done a few years before in an article in _Fraser’s
Magazine_,[41] to show the need of real study for women, the advantage
to be gained for character and mind from such subjects as history and
literature.
The general report of the Commissioners on Girls’ Education forms the
first chapter of Miss Beale’s blue-book. It opened with a quotation
to the effect that an educated mother is of even more importance than
an educated father. Miss Beale may have thought this an exaggerated
statement; but she must have welcomed and republished it with some
satisfaction. She was for ever having it dinned into her ears, by those
who opposed all serious study for their daughters, that girls should be
educated to be wives and mothers. Mrs. Grey showed the real fallacy of
the statement, in a paper which was the direct result of the republished
reports, when she pointed out that girls were not being educated to _be_
wives, but to _get_ husbands. A happy marriage Mrs. Grey held to be ‘the
_summum bonum_ of a woman’s life ... not an object to be striven for,
but to be received as the supreme grace of fate when the right time and
the right person come.’[42] With Miss Beale and Miss Emily Davies she
deprecated the education which is designed from the first to fit and
prepare for a special position in life. She would have women and men
alike, working men, tradesmen, men of fortune educated as human beings,
not technically instructed for some special walk in life. In eloquent
words she pictured the ideal for which she and others like-minded
were striving, and were seeking to attain by the practical method
of enlightening public opinion, founding schools, asking for public
examinations. She wrote:—
‘The true meaning of the word education is not instruction....
It is intellectual, moral, and physical development, the
development of a sound mind in a sound body, the training of
reason to form just judgments, the disciplining of the will and
affections to obey the supreme law of duty, the kindling and
strengthening of the love of knowledge, of beauty, of goodness,
till they become governing motives of action.’
Mrs. Grey’s conclusions were the same as those of the Commissioners,
who complained that there was no demand for the education of girls, the
cause of the indifference being that low idea which regards only the
money value of education, and estimates it solely as a means of getting
on. Girls were taught with a view to increasing their attractiveness
before marriage, rather than with that of increasing their happiness and
usefulness after. This was the general cause of dissatisfaction, but
there were many details.
One and all complained that, with the exception of quite a few schools,
the education of girls in the middle classes was much worse than that
existing in the elementary schools of the day. This was of course
specially the case in subjects like arithmetic, and arose greatly from
the mistaken notion that they were of no use to girls. The Commissioners
were unanimous in condemning the prevailing method of instruction by
means of such books as _Mangnall’s Questions_ and the like, termed by
Mr. Bryce ‘the noxious brood of catechisms.’ Of this, be it said, Miss
Mangnall’s famous work, which bears witness to its author’s well-stored
mind, and which reached nearly a hundred editions, was the best. The
‘Questions’ demanded indeed the knowledge of such useless facts as the
number of houses burned in the Great Fire of London; but there were in
use, in the numerous small private schools of the period, cheaper and
more stupid books, in which the information was not merely useless,
but even defied common sense. A small catechism on ‘Science,’ entitled
‘Why and Because,’ concluded a long list of inept questions with:
‘Why do pensioners and aged cottagers put their teapots on the hob to
draw?’ In some books, facts of varying nature—of history, geography,
grammar, etc.—were all jumbled together. It is not surprising that girls
instructed by the parrot-like, inconsequent methods of such lesson-books,
passed from school with no love of reading.
The Commissioners complained further, that though French and music were
held to be the most important subjects to which a girl should devote
herself, they were nearly always very badly taught. They spoke of time
wasted at the piano; they calculated the thousands of hours given to
music which was not worth hearing at the last. They gave instances of
ludicrous mistakes in French, which no effort of visiting masters could
improve into anything like a real knowledge of the language, because
rudimentary grammar had never been mastered. They spoke of drawing taught
with an equal disregard of thoroughness, and with still more disastrous
result. ‘The common practice of masters touching up their pupils’
performances for exhibition at home fosters a habit of dishonesty,
and that too prevalent tendency running through the whole of female
education, the tendency to care more for appearance than reality, to seem
rather than to be.’[43]
Some spoke of the absence of healthy interests, of the need for games,
a need which appealed but little to Miss Beale, in whose own youth play
was marked by its absence only. Many urged the necessity for founding in
every town public schools similar to boys’ grammar schools, where girls
could obtain a sound education, without accomplishments, at a low cost.
These reports embody a number of facts concerning a state of things
now happily passed away. Hundreds of small private schools might have
read their doom in them, for the establishment of many public schools,
endowed and otherwise, soon followed the inquiry. We see the poor sham
education, with its wrong notions of the beautiful and the best, vanish
without a regret. Yet, since all human effort has its worth and place,
is it possible and fair to say one word above its grave? Was there no
genuine wish to give pleasure pleading in the miserable pieces of the
boarding-school young lady, and even in the painful drawings which
the master’s touch failed to make tolerable? They testify at least to
something out of the work-a-day sphere, to the desire for the ‘something
afar,’ often the first step to a truer vision. Precious years of girlhood
spent on the vain effort to attain accomplishments speak of some dim
perception of the refinement and uplifting which men look for in women.
Ill-devised, badly attempted, poorly carried out, the thought of giving
delight was not only mercenary in aim; behind it was some consciousness
of a real human need. The educators of women to-day should know better
than to despise its pleading, however imperfectly expressed. ‘May I not
have _one_ ornamental one?’ said a brother when a third sister was about
to devote herself to obtaining certificates for mathematics.
Nine ladies, including Miss Emily Davies, Miss Buss, and Miss Beale,
were asked to give evidence before the Commission. Miss Beale’s, which
was taken in 1865, is of double interest, at once touching the state of
girls’ education in general, and the advance being made in the Ladies’
College, Cheltenham. She took with her a hundred entrance examination
papers arranged in order for inspection. Actuated perhaps by the
marvellous carefulness which lost nothing, and seeing a use even in what
would often be considered waste papers, as well as by the definite aim of
preserving a record of progress, she had kept all the answers written by
her pupils to entrance examination questions. With the College papers,
she showed also some written by children in one of the national schools
at Cheltenham, in order that the Commissioners might make a comparison
for themselves.
On being questioned, Miss Beale explained in detail the whole system of
the College, interesting the Commissioners in the method of teaching
Euclid, one which at some points antedated by many years the present
teaching of geometry in the public schools, and which has lately been
adopted by the universities. At a time when schoolboys were learning
Euclid by heart, Miss Beale was teaching it to girls by a method of
explanation which they had to follow and finally reproduce without any
learning by rote.
With regard to the teaching of Holy Scripture she said, ‘Each class
teacher takes her own class, and that, I think, very important’; but on
this subject little was said.
On the question of discipline and moral difficulties she explained that
the government of the College was chiefly by personal influence, and that
her plan was to make use of very simple means, such as changing the seat
of a child who was suspected of being dishonest in her work. ‘It is a
small thing, but it indicates want of trust, and it is by small things we
govern.’ Such discipline obviously appeared slight to Dr. Storrar, who
asked on hearing it, ‘Perhaps girls are more sensitive than boys in such
matters?’ ‘I will not attempt to decide,’ replied Miss Beale, ‘but my
opinion is that they are not.’
Asked her opinion on a system of examination, Miss Beale recommended
a general Board for the examination of teachers, to be founded with
national sanction, and an inspection of the schools under the management
of those who had passed the examination. ‘There is one other point,’ she
added: ‘the cause might be helped on by the establishment of a model
school for the training of teachers; I hardly know how such would work.’
The evidence of the Commission, published in 1868, produced a great
impression on Mrs. William Grey and her sister, Miss Shireff. Under
their able leadership there was formed, in 1871, ‘The National Union
for Improving the Education of Women,’ for the purpose of organising
effort and helping to create a sounder public opinion with regard to
education itself. The work of this society led two years later to the
foundation of the Girls’ Public Day-School Company. By this agency, which
was commercial as well as educational, High Schools were established
in most of the important towns of England. There followed the numerous
independent efforts and companies which have covered the country with
a network of secondary schools for girls. In 1872, Miss Buss giving
up her private property in her very successful school, by an act of
self-sacrifice and generosity made it a public school by placing it in
trust. A lower school was also established in Camden Town under the same
management.
Miss Emily Davies also found her work aided by the Commission. She was
largely instrumental in the opening of Local Examinations to girls. The
foundation of the first women’s college at a university was laid by her
when, in 1873, the college she had opened at Hitchin four years earlier
was removed to Cambridge, where it became known as Girton. This step
was perhaps even less of a venture, though more startling to the public
mind, than the first beginning at Hitchin. Of this Miss Maria Hackett had
written to Miss Beale:—
‘The proposed Foundation of a College for the Superior
Education of Women is another most important measure in the
same direction. I had much correspondence about twenty years
ago, with your dear father, Mr. Mackenzie, and Mr. Storrs, on
the subject, but I did not venture upon so extensive a scheme.’
Public examinations for girls necessarily followed the work of the
Commission, the opening of women’s colleges, and the establishment of
public schools for girls. Head-mistresses were called upon to face all
the difficulties and drawbacks of these, as well as to accept their
advantages, and in some cases also to incur odium, as they worked with
measures which they knew to be not in themselves the best, but only
the best attainable. Miss Beale had her own vision of what a public
examination for girls should be. She had said at Bristol in 1865 that
parents
‘are afraid of popular outcry, afraid that their children
should take a low place, forgetting that (if the examination be
conducted without any of the improper excitement of publicity),
it is also a test and means of moral training, since those who
work from the right motives simply do their best and are not
overanxious about results. I do not desire that there should be
a system of competitive examinations, but a general testing of
the work done, and if this cannot be responded to in a quiet,
lady-like manner, it does not speak well for the moral training
of the school.’
She had also said:—
‘I do not think the plan for admitting girls to the same
examination with boys in the University local examinations a
wise one; the subjects seem to me in many respects unsuited for
girls, and such an examination as the one proposed is likely
to further a spirit of rivalry most undesirable. I should
much regret that the desire of distinction should be made in
any degree a prime motive, for we should ever remember that
moral training is the end, education the means. The habits of
obedience to duty, of self-restraint, which the process of
acquiring knowledge induces, the humility which a thoughtful
and comprehensive study of the great works in literature and
science tends to produce, these we would specially cultivate in
a woman, that she may wear the true woman’s ornament of a meek
and quiet spirit. As for the pretentiousness and conceit which
are associated with the name of “blue-stocking,” and which some
people fancy to be the result of education, they are only an
evidence of shallowness and vulgarity; we meet with the same
thing in the dogmatic conceit of the so-called “self-educated
man,” who has picked up learning, but has not had the benefit
of a systematic training and a liberal education.’
The formal admission of girls to the Cambridge Local Examinations took
place in 1865, though they had been informally accepted as candidates as
early as 1863. Miss Beale did not accept the examination at Cheltenham,
mainly because its arrangements did not fall in with those of the College
year; but she closely observed its working, noted each set of questions
and reports, recognising that with these examinations new impetus had
been given to the progress of education. She wrote and spoke on the
subject, holding it to be the duty of the teacher to seek to guide this
movement, which must increasingly affect girls’ schools.
The following extract from one of her papers is chosen because of its
bearing on the larger and still unanswered question of university
degrees:—
‘Examiners must be prepared not to domineer but to learn that
the art is yet in its infancy, and their knowledge of what
girls can or ought to do is at present very slight. They must
be ready to admit the possibility of a teacher knowing better
than his judges. The latter are sometimes tempted to exclaim,
_Quis custodiat ipsos custodes?_ If the school curriculum and
the examinations are so far out of harmony that a large amount
of special preparation is required, either the curriculum is
at fault or the examination an evil.... I know that some make
a great point of having the actual University examinations
opened, because a mere “women’s examination” is spoken of
contemptuously. I believe that in trying to avoid this, we
should encounter greater evils, and that the wish is connected
with a misplaced reverence which many women entertain for the
learning of a “pass man.”’
After some years of consideration a decision was practically forced upon
Miss Beale. She must choose for her clever girls either to pass a public
examination which she thought more suited for men, or to fall behind
in a path which was surely leading in the right direction. She did not
hesitate, but saw that on this, as on many occasions, it must be her part
to labour to remove obstructions, to overcome obstacles.
In her interview with the Commissioners, on being asked if she would
approve of the establishment of a special examination for ladies up to
the standard of attainment of the London matriculation, she had replied,
‘Certainly,’ but advocated that it should be made possible for women to
take German instead of Greek. This examination, she agreed, might be
taken as a measure, though the measure might not be filled with the same
subjects as for men. She was soon called upon to act in this matter, for
in 1869 it was opened to women, and the University of Cambridge also
instituted an examination for women over eighteen years of age.
Miss Beale accepted both for the College, but for some years there was
no regular organisation of work for those who were taking the Cambridge
examination. This was partly due to the higher limit of age. It was
then thought extraordinary that girls should stay at school after they
were eighteen. It was difficult to persuade many to do so. Some were
‘wanted at home,’ some wished to ‘come out’; those who were intending to
be teachers thought they should be already earning. Then the absorbing
work for the London examination made it difficult to arrange for much of
a wholly different character. Consequently, at first, the older pupils
and the young teachers who sought to pass the Cambridge examination had
to look after themselves a good deal. Miss Beale would certainly not
consider this a drawback. They had the additional advantage of lectures
from herself on literature and history.
The ‘London’ must have seemed better worth while for many reasons. It
might prove a first step to a definite degree. The degree examinations
were not opened till ten years later, and might not have followed at all
had zeal and courage not been shown by women over the matriculation.
Again, the matriculation certificate enabled men to offer themselves as
candidates for further examination with a view to certain careers, such
as the medical profession. This would hold good for women. For it had the
real advantage of being a recognised standard, while a certificate for an
examination arranged specially for women would be like ‘foreign coin.’
One cannot too much admire the qualities which bore teacher and pupils
up that steep initial step of the London examination; for steep it was.
At that time it demanded a certain knowledge of subjects which were
generally regarded as the prerogative of men. Hardly any of the girls who
hoped to pass in them had, when they began their special preparation six
terms before the examination, learned any Latin, chemistry, geometry,
algebra, or natural philosophy—this last being a term which embraced
some acquaintance with optics, statics, dynamics, and hydrostatics.
Little more than the rudiments of these new subjects had to be mastered,
for the examination at that time required ‘a collection of minima, a
smattering of everything, enforced with Procrustean rigour on Philistine
lines.’ Primarily designed for boys with a grammar-school education, the
Latin paper included some knowledge of Horace. It is scarcely necessary
to say that disappointment as well as hope was woven into the strand
of these brave beginnings. Many failed. Some who were not really equal
to the work were persuaded to enter. Some who passed, complained that
they could not retain knowledge which had been acquired too rapidly
and not assimilated. Not avowedly, not ever consciously to herself—her
sense of responsibility for the individual was too great for that, and
she reckoned the training of value even if there were no success at the
end—but in actual fact, the failures were accepted by Dorothea Beale as a
necessary complement of victory to be.
‘Let the victors when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!’
All the weakness of the position was known to her. And she showed not
only courage and daring, but patience and humility still harder to
practise. On one occasion, after a specially difficult Latin paper,
which had proved too much for many examinees, she wrote to another
head-mistress whose disappointment was as keen as her own:—
‘The more I reflect, the more I think any protest unadvisable.
No doubt some have passed (even in Class I.) in former years,
who were worse in Latin than one at least who has failed this
time. But then there are many things that may be urged.
Perhaps the good have not done themselves justice, and the bad
more than justice. Besides, I cannot myself, even in looking
over one set of papers, unless I correct all at a sitting, mark
them fairly even to my own mind; how much more difficult it
must be when the examiners change, and the papers come in after
a year’s interval. We, by submitting ourselves to examination,
pledge ourselves in some sort to be content. It will never do,
in my opinion, to impugn the justice of a University, and I
really think they will do justice. Any expression of discontent
would tend to throw back the granting of degrees. I believe
the unification is more likely to take place soon, if we are
patient. Remember, too, the decision has not been that of one
individual examiner, but has been in some sort confirmed by the
Senate.
‘My impression is that the papers will be very carefully set
next year, and that we must bear our disappointment this year
as well as we can. I am very sorry you feel it so much. Your
candidates have done so well in other subjects, that if they
should try again next year, you might be certain of a large
measure of success, and _then_ a protest, or any remarks from
us would tell so much more. I certainly do not mean to send in
a large number, but I am pledged to a few, and to those who
failed, if they like to go in again.’
This conclusion showed special insight, willingness to bear, and
readiness to learn; for the Latin paper was a far more real test of
knowledge than any of the others. To have complained of it might have
been to acknowledge inferiority which did not seek improvement. And
looking back, it may be seen that the failures and mistakes were not of
much moment. The real importance and the real triumph lay with the aim
and effort. Miss Beale early foresaw what has been literally fulfilled.
‘It is clear,’ she said, ‘that it will before long be impossible in
England, as it is now on the Continent, for any one to obtain employment
as a teacher without some such attestation,’ _i.e._ as a certificate.
If she could help it, Miss Beale would not let girls who were intending
to teach, pass from her without one; she persuaded the pupil, she
reasoned with the parent, she frequently mastered both; she silently
bore contradiction and misconception. She refused to be thwarted by any
obstacle, much as she might wish to change it—such as the time of year at
which it was held, the difficulty of sending candidates to London, or by
any hesitation on her own part. She might write to a newspaper, ‘it is to
some extent an open question what education is most suitable for girls,’
but she inspired her class to prepare for ‘the London’ with zealous
drudgery and in the power of self-denial, as the best they could do to
fit themselves for work.
Yet the College list of successes was from the first good. In 1869,
the first year of examination, eight in all England went in for the
matriculation examination, and six failed. The only candidate from
Cheltenham passed. This was Miss Susan Wood. In the next year, of the
three who passed from Cheltenham one was the famous Greek scholar, Miss
Jane Harrison, another bore the name—so dear to its generation—of Marian
Belcher.
There was plenty of criticism. There were many to repeat the old
complaint that women were being unfitted for their proper duties. It was
Miss Beale’s delight to show that those who did well in examinations
could also excel in domestic duties. She would tell how one successful
candidate of the London examination proved first a helpful sister, then a
devoted wife and mother. She would show with pride a letter she received
from one of whose ability and success she had great reason to be proud,
signed ‘Yours in flour and dripping.’
It may be mentioned here that there is a home distinction connected with
the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham. In 1868 it was resolved at an annual
general meeting that pupils who reached a certain specified standard in
the College examinations, and whose general conduct was approved, should
be entitled to receive certificates. The first certificates under this
resolution were awarded in 1869 to four pupils. In 1875 it was resolved
at a Council meeting that those who obtained the College certificate
should be entitled Associates of the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham. These
associates are, with the consent of the Lady Principal, allowed to attend
any ordinary classes of the College without the payment of fees.
Following hard upon the introduction of public examinations for girls
came the cry of overwork. There was some reason in it; but it was
much, very much due to timidity and want of knowledge, as well as to
exaggeration. It is not necessary to repeat here the evidence which
Miss Beale began to collect even before she was a teacher herself,
and to which she was ever adding, to the effect that idleness and
_ennui_ have more and sadder victims than even misdirected energy and
overwork. A healthy prejudice against an empty, self-centred life is
steadily growing. The movement which its followers have named Christian
Science—also that which is preferably called Faith Healing—daily bring
to light instances of self-destruction caused by the slothful mind and
unruled will. None the less, the cry of overwork was not an empty one.
When first girls began to work for examinations, it was not known how
much or how little they could do. Miss Beale’s own opinions upon this,
as put before the Commission, were quite tentative. Clever teachers did
not always allow for slower-moving brains than their own. Nor was the
difference of temperament sufficiently observed and considered. The eager
and artistic mind would feel strain and fatigue where one less delicately
balanced might toil unwearied. It was not recognised how willing girls
are to be pressed, how eager they are to please, how unreasonable they
often are in their own arrangements for work, or how easy it is for them
to fall into the insincerity of making protracted hours of reading take
the place of concentrated mental effort. Head-mistresses and others who
had mastered difficulties alone, and who still carefully prepared every
lesson they gave, in spite of the pressure of daily affairs, had to learn
to reckon with these drawbacks. Examinations when first introduced must
from their very novelty have been a great anxiety to both teachers and
pupils. The best way of working for them and of resting before them had
to be discovered by experience. The pressure was less obvious with those
actually first in the field, as they would naturally be all of good
ability. The danger began when girls of smaller brain-power and equal
ambition, but ignorant of their limitations, dared to follow.
Complaints of overwork came often from homes where there was little
cultivation or regard for the things of the mind. Girls who could
produce, in what they called their ‘notes of lectures,’ statements
concerning ‘_heroic cutlets_’[44] and ‘_Lincoln’s hotel_’[45] had not,
it may be well understood, much intellectual background. Yet the wholly
unfounded complaints of the parents of such pupils would receive public
attention that was little deserved. There were others, whose parents
would have had them play a pretty part in home life in the afternoon and
evening, but who naturally did not find enough time for lessons unless
they sat up late or slurred them over. As it was never Miss Beale’s
intention that day-pupils should consider themselves to be anything but
‘in the schoolroom,’ the home work was not arranged to allow time for
more than the necessary walk or recreation.
The question of overwork is one that still agitates the scholastic
world. The real difficulty, at Cheltenham as elsewhere, is not with the
schoolgirl whose life is under supervision, but with the young teachers
and the elder pupils who have the management of their own time and
health, and have not yet learned their own limitations, or acquired a due
measure of self-control.
During the early period of the history of the College, Miss Beale came in
contact with minds and ideas outside her own school, chiefly by means of
the Schools’ Inquiry Commission, and the matter of public examinations.
Those who wished had the opportunity of learning her views through her
magazine articles and the pamphlets which she began at this time to
publish. The most notable of these was ‘The Address to Parents.’ Much of
this valuable little paper—one which in her early years as head-mistress
made Miss Beale’s ideas widely known among those who cared for real
education—had been anticipated in her address to the Social Science
Congress in 1865. Then she pleaded the cause of day-schools, urging for
them that they offered a training which did not separate children from
the influence of home.
‘Of course when children are educated at home, and an anxious
mother daily sees and suffers from her children’s faults of
temper and disposition, she will be tempted to think that she
had better give up the training into other hands, and send them
away. Doubtless this is sometimes wise, often unavoidable; but
how frequently without necessity is the burden of parental
responsibility temporarily cast aside, only to press with
tenfold weight in later years. How many parents have learned
bitterly to regret that they removed a daughter from the
divinely appointed influences of home, and severed by long
separation those bonds of affection which might have checked
the young in the hour of temptation, and been the support and
comfort of their own declining years.’
In 1869, in another address to the same Society, Miss Beale unfolded for
the first time her ideas of the help which should be given to girls who
were in need of education they could not afford, more especially to those
who wished to prepare for a life of teaching. ‘I propose,’ she said, ‘the
foundation of a new Benevolent Society, which shall be distinguished from
other societies by its rigid adherence to the principle of giving nothing
away.’ Instead of gifts, she suggested yearly loans of money, for the use
of which an exact account and report of work done should be rendered.
This Society has never been founded, but the work Dorothea Beale wished
it should do was carried on by herself, quietly and thriftily, but with
ever-widening operations, to the day of her death.
At one other point did Miss Beale at this period touch opinion outside
her own sphere. This was by writing for the Kensington Society,—a little
semi-educational association which during its short life included many
names of women who were in their day leaders in philanthropic work and
thought. The topics on which its members wrote or deliberated were such
as these:—
17 CUNNINGHAM PLACE, LONDON, N.W.,
_November 15, 1865_.
_The Kensington Society._
1. What are the limitations within which it is desirable to
exercise personal influence?
2. What are the evils attendant upon philanthropic efforts
among the poor, and how may they be avoided?
3. How does the cultivation of artistic taste affect the
wellbeing of society?
Meanwhile the general work of the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham, was going
on quietly and steadily, developing in every best way. The valuable time
of the Principal was no longer taken up with the superintendence of
lessons and chaperoning music pupils. A larger and gradually improving
staff enabled her to arrange her own work so that it might be of the
greatest service to the College. But her increasing interest in education
at large, her ever-growing sense of having a special place in a large
movement, were never allowed to distract her mind from the work of the
hour. Rather, she used them as an inspiration for daily drudgery.
The preparation of lessons, the minute and careful correction of notes of
lectures,—monotonous work which demands a continuous strain of attention,
went on week by week. By means of this quiet, diligent toil she and
her fellow-workers were building the real College, of which the fine
structure whose first edition was opened in 1873 is but a sign and a
symbol.