ORGANISATION
‘Shepherds of the people had need know the Calendar of Tempests
in the State; which are commonly greatest when things grow to
equality, as natural tempests about the equinoctia.’—BACON.
‘With no feeling of exultation should we meet to-day, my
children. Those of us who have long laboured at the work
are indeed grateful that we have been permitted to see its
accomplishment, but we are also deeply sensible that every
increase of influence means an increase of responsibility;—that
he who had five talents was required to bring other five.
With larger numbers there is a stronger sense that we are a
collective power for good or evil. And shall we doubt which is
stronger? We dare not be so faithless. There is such a mighty
prevailing power in the spirit of earnest devotion, that when
only two or three are gathered together in His Name, for work
as well as for prayer, His power is felt. What a power might we
be for good if we were His disciples _indeed_.
‘Some say our school is Church-like. I am glad, for Churches
are built to remind us that God is not far away, but very
near to us, and this is the thought which should keep us from
evil and fill us with gladness. May His Presence be seen in
this house, seen in the lives and hearts of His children: May
they remember that they, too, form one spiritual building.
As each stone stands here in its appointed place, resting on
one stone, supporting others; so are we a little community, a
spiritual building; each is placed in her own niche, each has
her appointed place, appointed by the Spiritual Architect; each
is needful for the perfection of His design.
‘May we ever form part of that spiritual building, whose
foundations are laid in faith and obedience. “Whoso heareth
these sayings of mine and doeth them, he is like a man who
laid the foundation and digged deep, and built his house upon
a rock.” St. John wished for one of his converts that he
might “prosper even as his soul prospered.” Let us desire only
such prosperity. Let us ask for true wisdom, for lowliness of
heart, that we may esteem others better than ourselves. Let
us ask, above all, for that most excellent gift of charity,
without which all else is as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal. Something of this spirit of love for one another does
live among us, as we see by those who have come to join their
prayers with ours to-day. I would ask them not to forget us
afterwards, but to remember us when they return to their homes;
and I would fain hope that this bond will last through coming
years, and that the College, though transplanted to a new
place, will always be to you “_the old College_.”’
In these words the Lady Principal addressed her staff, pupils, and a
small sprinkling of friends on the first morning of assembling in the new
building which, begun in January of previous year, was thus opened on
March 17, 1873. As the school hours ended on Saturday the 15th, a simple
order had been given to take home all the books, and to bring them to the
new College at the usual time on Monday. In the course of the afternoon
all desks and portable fittings were moved and arranged in order for
work. The appointment of places in the new hall was, so far as can be
remembered, a matter of a few minutes only, so quiet and free from fuss
was all College organisation. There was certainly not half an hour of
the ordinary lesson time lost. Yet it was a change which made an undying
impression. The quietness with which it came was wholly in accordance
with the spirit of the school. The regular work, undisturbed even for an
hour by the totally new surroundings, spoke emphatically of the response
of duty to every fresh inspiration and larger freedom.
And how beautiful those new surroundings seemed to the hundred and fifty
girls who were privileged to experience the change from the square,
unadorned rooms of Cambray House. Two churches at that time, one with
its high, fine spire, another with its lavish decoration, were all
that the town could show of the Gothic Renaissance which followed the
teachings of Ruskin and Morris. The Ladies’ College was early among
non-ecclesiastical buildings of this type. To some it may have seemed
florid, but not to the eyes of youth and hope, which took delight in
the pierced and patterned stone, the flowers in the coloured glass, the
arch of the windows, the unusual design of the lecture-rooms. These
caused teachers and pupils to ignore for the most part the undoubted
chilliness of the new rooms, and the ‘currents of air,’ about which some
parents wrote complaining letters, for at that time people were even
more afraid of draughts than they are to-day. It is worth mentioning, as
characteristic of Miss Beale’s mind, that she forgot very soon the exact
date of entrance into the new College; though when reminded of it each
year by her own birthday, or by the approach of spring and Lady Day, she
would on some suitable March morning say a few words at prayers: ‘It is
—— years to-day since we entered,’ etc.
In 1873 the building was but begun. It is a question if Miss Beale
herself dreamed of all that was to follow. There was as yet no house for
the Lady Principal, and for a year, while it was being built, she lived
with Mrs. Fraser, who had one of the three boarding-houses then existing.
The house completed in 1874, there followed in 1875 the first enlargement
of the College, the two hundred and twenty pupils for whom it was first
designed having rapidly become three hundred. At this time a second large
hall and more classrooms were added. In seven years the College had
doubled its numbers; hence in 1882 were built the art and music wings and
the kindergarten rooms, to be followed almost immediately by science
rooms and laboratories. After this the sound of the hammer was not heard
for nearly four years; but it is one which has a resounding echo in the
memories of College life. There were a few peaceful half-hours when it
was stopped for Scripture lessons, at all other times it was but a too
persistent reminder of prosperity and growth. A memory also abides of
crowded doorways and passages, overfull lecture-rooms, and a continual
looking forward to the increased accommodation which each new enlargement
would give.
This constant expansion as funds permitted was entirely after Miss
Beale’s heart. In 1891 she wrote to Miss Arnold:—
‘Yes, I do hope you will build, a good building is the best
investment for money, if you have it. Let it be done gradually,
as ours was. Plan for more than you can do at first, and build
only what you can afford at the time. Don’t beg: it is much
better to earn one’s living.’
Strange as it may appear, the building of a fit home for the College had
not taken place without opposition. Miss Beale relates in her _History_
that after the site for it had been purchased, the annual general meeting
of proprietors in 1871 voted by a majority interested in the Cambray
property that it should be re-sold. Dr. Jex-Blake, the Principal of the
Cheltenham College, and a member of the Ladies’ College Council, came to
the rescue, and in a special meeting of the same year spoke earnestly in
support of the plan for building. ‘Teachers so able and energetic and
successful have a right to the greatest consideration, and the very best
arrangements for teaching. A Ladies’ College so distinguished, second
to none in England, has a right to every advantage that can be secured
for it, a right to be lodged in a building of its own, a building
perfect in its internal arrangements, and outwardly of some architectural
attractiveness; one that should be a College, and should look like a
College. It is quite right to say, “Let well alone,” but that does not
involve letting _ill_ alone. The College has achieved brilliant success,
but that was not due to its having been cramped for room; and when no
longer cramped, its success will be greater.’ The resolution of the
earlier meeting was rescinded by fifty-nine votes to nine, and two months
later a contract was accepted for building from Mr. John Middleton’s
design. The site, for which £800 was given, was a part of the old Well
Walk where, between their glasses, George the Third and other famous
water-drinkers had once taken their daily constitutional.
In the matter of the building, Miss Beale had a struggle to get her
bold and comprehensive ideas carried out, but eventually she won the
day. It was hard for her, at the very moment when she seemed about to
realise her dreams for the expansion of the work of the College, to
receive orders which she felt to be new limitations. She had constantly
to explain her reasons and requirements to those who had a deep interest
in the welfare of the school, but who had not also the knowledge needed
for arrangements which Miss Beale felt and intended should be in the
hands of the Principal alone. The following letter which she wrote to a
member of the Council suggests some of her difficulties, and also her
method of skilfully and apparently accidentally stating the inconvenience
or disaster which would ensue if another arrangement than her own were
adopted:—
‘I have drawn up a ground-plan and tables, by the help of which
I hope I may succeed in making clear to you the impossibility
of conducting the College without the use of four class-rooms.
I have never in the slightest degree departed from my original
intention. Time-tables, classes, teachers, furniture, and
building were all arranged to harmonise. It never occurred
to me that any one would wish to interfere in the internal
management, as it had never been done during the fifteen years
I have been here. Great, therefore, was my surprise to receive
a letter saying,—“I have had strict injunctions not to have
desks put back into room 2.” If it is thought well to reduce
the number of pupils, it can be done after Midsummer but not
now, and to give up two class-rooms we must reduce our numbers
not by twenty, but by fifty, _i.e._ by two whole classes. Our
Hall is only ten feet longer than that in Cambray, and we then
had the use of four class-rooms and one supplementary room,
besides that assigned to Drawing and Callisthenics. With fifty
additional pupils we cannot do with less, even though the
class-rooms are larger. It is not impossible to teach a class
sitting on chairs, I should not, therefore, insist on having
desks, but they will certainly be much more convenient, and
much more sightly; chairs will always look untidy. The desks I
have match the furniture, the room was built to fit them, for
examinations. I am therefore unwilling to have them sold for
nothing. It is certainly necessary for the well-being of the
College that the internal arrangements should be in the hands
of one person; if this is not done, I can only foresee the
occurrence of such disasters as we are familiar with, when the
Head Master of a public school is interfered with by those who
cannot see the daily working, and know all the complications.’
The new building was not the only cause of difference. The Lady
Principal, with her advanced ideas on women’s examinations, her desire
to help teachers, to increase the number of the pupils, seemed to some
members of the Council to be pushing the work into other fields than
those for which it was intended when first the Proprietary College for
Ladies was founded. ‘Local interest,’ a term not ominous of good in the
ears of great educators, demanded a good day-school for the daughters
of gentlemen, and nothing more. Some felt that, in the pursuit of
mathematical and scientific attainments for which special teachers and
classrooms were required, accomplishments such as drawing and painting
would be neglected. Some, who had watched the growth of the infant
College, and looked upon it almost as their own, interfered in small
ways, as in the arrangements of seats and rooms. The gossip mentioned
already was at its height during the first year in the new College, and
Miss Beale thought that it might have been prevented or much minimised
had all connected followed her counsel of perfection by being superior to
town talk.
More than all she felt the need of a larger outlook. The Council
should in her view include some members whose personal acquaintance
with the College and the needs of the town would give them a special
interest in it; but she desired to unite with these men and women of
intellectual power and large views whose experience would rank them among
educationists. And for the management of the boarding-houses, which were
now becoming each year a more important element in the College life,
opinion which could be untouched by local prejudices was needed.
Some of the anxieties of this time were expressed by Miss Beale in a
paper which she may have thought of reading to the Council. It began
thus:—
‘Until we moved into the new College a year ago, I had been
singularly free from interference. The lesson learned when
Miss Procter resigned and our College was nearly wrecked,
had not been forgotten. Besides, we were poor, so there was
little to quarrel about. With the removal to Bays Hill our
real difficulties began. I had drawn the ground-plan with the
greatest regard to economy of space. I was told the porch must
not be used for entrance, and I was obliged to show we could
not do without it.... Then I was asked to do with two instead
of four or five lecture-rooms, and so on. I was obliged to
prepare elaborate documents with ground-plans, etc., ere I
could get leave to use the space provided, and without which
the College could not be carried on.’
There were perhaps others who cared for the College, who realised no
less strongly than Miss Beale the advantage it would be to bring on to
the Council those who were less interested in it as a local institution
than as one of educational value for the country at large, but it was she
who undoubtedly took the lead in the steps made to this end. In this she
showed courage, for even those members of the Council who best understood
her views hesitated to support them, fearing an abrupt change which would
do more harm than good. They wrote to caution her:—
‘You must not expect men of Mr. Lowe’s mark to work on the
C.L.C. Council; and you must not expect to see all go as
you would wish at the meeting. You will find no member of
Council but myself anxious to increase the powers of the Lady
Principal, and probably they will not be much increased. And
if you secure the majority of Council being non-local, which
will be hard to secure, you will not secure their attendance at
meetings held out of London.
‘And to get a satisfactory List to propose to Shareholders will
be hard, for the best-known men in England will not join; and
those who will join will not command votes largely; and so I
advise moderation. I did my best at this last Council meeting
to prepare the way for a “bloodless revolution” or quiet
transition ... and I have seen Mr. Verrall. He is very friendly
to you and to the College, and is a man of very good judgment
as well as energy, and you are safe in talking or writing to
him. For myself I feel less and less inclined to advise strong
measures; and I do not see my way to getting the College on
as broad a basis as I think it should stand on.... I advise
you to think well and long before you get into an inextricable
difficulty; and I think you will find your best friend and best
support in one who for fifteen years (or nearly) has given much
time and thought to the College, Mr. Brancker.
‘At the last Council meeting you showed great wisdom in
accepting the adverse Resolution with equanimity.’
Differences of this kind pointed to a change of administration. As early
as 1865, in her address at Bristol, Miss Beale had pointed out the
difficulties besetting a school organised on the lines of Cheltenham:—
‘The machinery of proprietary colleges is somewhat complicated,
and it is liable to get out of order. Thus, for example, if
the shareholders agitate when a measure does not at once
commend itself to their judgment, they may interfere with the
efficiency, and endanger the existence of the institution.
Secondly, none must attempt to carry out reforms in education,
unless they have faith enough in their own system to work on
quietly for a time, in the face of popular opposition, and
unless they have a capital to fall back upon.’
Union for the general good—a single purpose in Principal, Council,
shareholders alike—this alone could prevent all serious and hindering
differences of opinion among them. It was for this union Miss Beale was
specially striving now. Her paper to the Council went on thus:—
‘ ... I should like this and other matters fixed, not in
reference to my personal wishes, but according to what the
most experienced persons think best. I shall see the Heads of
all the principal Girls’ Schools probably when I am in London,
and probably also an Endowed Schools’ Committee, and I shall
learn from Mrs. William Grey what has been done at the Board
of the Girls’ Day School Company; perhaps this may modify my
views. Meanwhile I enclose a few suggestions I sent to Mr.
Verrall.... I feel very strongly with you that if the College
is at all to go on doing good work, it must not be governed
by local members, and that it is a matter of the greatest
importance that we should have upon our Board men of experience
and judgment in educational matters. I would not keep more than
two or three members of the present Council. It should be made
a rule that no person who derives pecuniary profit, either
directly or indirectly, should be a member of it. The point on
which I feel most strongly just now is that the Principal must
be able to select her fellow-workers, to appoint and dismiss.’
There is also an interesting letter to Mr. Verrall on the subject of her
authority:—
‘Of course, you are more likely than I am to know what is best
in matters of government, still I think it may be well to
express, as clearly as I can, what I feel in reference to the
subject of my authority.
‘It does not seem to me as if things would be likely to go
on long without revolutions in an institution governed by
two irresponsible powers. The authority of an irresponsible
Principal must of course be checked in _some way_, if not by
constitutional means, then by a Russian system. It may be that
the Czarina has been trying to carry out some good reforms,
but if her plans differ from those of the Councillors, there
is an end of them. Our present Councillors are now afraid of
being in their turn made an end of by a shareholders’ meeting,
but if the constitution, as I understood it, were carried,
the shareholders would be powerless, and the Council might,
for mere personal dislike, get rid of a Principal who opposed
what was wrong. Of course, it will not do for a Committee
to interfere with the Principal’s choice of teachers, and
there will be anarchy unless she has the power of dismissal;
but virtually there will always be a power of appeal to the
Committee inasmuch as they _would_, if partisans of any
official, dismiss the Principal to reinstate her.’
Many members of the College Council desired change and enlargement. One
wrote: ‘I cannot think it right to leave Miss Beale or any other Lady
Principal to the mercies of a purely local Council ... for I think with
such a Council no good Lady Principal could long agree.’
Among those whom Miss Beale consulted at this crisis, and from whom she
received sympathy, were Dr. Jex-Blake, then head-master of Rugby, and Sir
Joshua Fitch, who later on became a member of the Council.
The desired reform was brought about in 1875, when at a general meeting
in March the relative powers of the proprietors, Council, and Principal
were more clearly defined and the number of the governing body
increased. The Council then elected consisted of the following:—
LIFE MEMBERS
The Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G., D.C.L., F.R.S., Chancellor
of the University of London.
The Right Hon. Lord Lyttelton.
The Right Hon. Sir Edward Ryan, M.A., F.R.S.
J. Storrar, Esq., M.D., Chairman of Convocation of the
University of London.
The Rev. H. Walford Bellairs, Rector of Nuneaton.
The Rev. Canon Barry, Principal of King’s College, London.
Miss Buss, Principal of the North London Collegiate School for
Girls.
W. Dunn, Esq., Cheltenham.
H. Verrall, Esq., Brighton.
T. Marriott, Esq., Victoria Street, Westminster.
S. S. Johnson, Esq., Nottingham.
ORDINARY MEMBERS
The Rev. Herbert Kynaston, Principal of the Cheltenham College.
The Rev. W. Wilberforce Gedge, Malvern Wells.
The Rev. Dr. Morton Brown, Cheltenham.
E. T. Wilson, Esq., M.B. (Oxon.), Cheltenham.
General M’Causland, Cheltenham.
F. D. Longe, Esq., Cheltenham.
John Middleton, Esq., Cheltenham.
T. Morley Rooke, Esq., M.D. (London), Cheltenham.
Miss Mary Gurney, London.
Miss Lucy March Phillipps, Cheltenham.
Mrs. James Owen, Cheltenham.
Miss Catherine Winkworth, Clifton.
Much was gained by this remodelling, but the period of uneasy development
was not yet over. One annual meeting which discussed the constitution
of the College appears in private notes made by the Principal for her
_History_ as ‘Bear Garden.’ Reorganisation was seen to be essential.
The College, founded in 1853 as a voluntary association, had by 1880
grown far beyond the calculations of its founders. Besides the school
buildings and the Lady Principal’s house, it possessed Fauconberg House
and the sanatorium at Leckhampton. To give it a safe legal foundation it
was therefore registered ‘with limited liability’ under the Companies’
Acts of 1862 and 1867, without the addition of the word ‘limited’ to its
name. New regulations concerning the holding of shares and property—the
appointment of officers—were also made.
‘The Shareholders formally renounced all interest on their
shares, and on January 31, 1880, the College was duly
incorporated. On May 1 of the same year, the Lady Principal and
other officials were formally re-elected.
‘The new Constitution provided for a Governing Body of
twenty-four Members, of whom eighteen, namely twelve men and
six women, were to be Members elected by the Shareholders,
and the remaining six Representative Members, each holding
office for six years. The six Representative Members were to be
appointed by: (1) The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; (2) The
Hebdomadal Council of the University of Oxford; (3) The Council
of the Senate of the University of Cambridge; (4) The Senate of
the University of London; (5) The Lady Principal; and (6) The
Teachers.
Miss Beale did not often speak of the difficulties which necessarily
she had to meet, as one called upon to direct the development of a
great institution. But she had counsel and sympathy for those who were
similarly placed. Miss Buss wrote thus to Miss Ridley of help she
obtained from her:—
‘I had a long and grave talk to Miss Beale, who counsels fight,
but not on any personal ground. She says, “Resign, if there is
interference with the mistress’ liberty of action. That is a
public question, and one of public interest.” She was so good
and loving; she was so tender; and she is so wise and calm. She
told me some of her own worries, and said that sometimes she
quivered in every nerve at her own Council meetings. People
came in and asked for information, involving hours of work for
no result; ignored all that had been done, and talked as if
they alone had done everything and knew everything. She urged
me to try and be _im_personal, so to speak; to remember that
these and similar difficulties would always occur where there
are several people. She said that _women_ were always accused
of being _too personal_, and harm was done by giving a handle
to such an assertion.’[46]
The first efforts of the new Council to grapple with their task
revealed that one source of difficulty lay in the government of the
boarding-houses. The early founders had foreseen this when, in their
first prospectus, they announced that they would not be responsible for
any houses. Experience, however, soon showed that by this policy, grave
dangers were at the same time incurred. Into Miss Beale’s early struggle
for pupils the question of boarding-houses scarcely entered, though
for the want of them she often had sadly to witness the loss of good
pupils to the College. There were among the day-pupils many children of
Anglo-Indians in England for a time. On the return of these parents to
India, they were forced to make boarding arrangements for the children
left behind. It was not till 1864 that the first regularly constituted
boarding-house was opened under Miss Caines. This was at 24 Lansdown
Place, now joined to No. 25, and known as St. Helen’s. In 1870 Miss
Caines removed to Fauconberg House, the first property purchased by the
College.
It was only through actual experience that the position of the
boarding-house and its head could be defined. In point of fact, this
situation had to grow and develop according to the requirements of
the College, which as formerly had to constitute precedents and make
experiments. It is but seldom that the details of any great scheme can
be arranged beforehand with deliberate judgment, that all difficulties
can be foreseen, and occasions of conflict avoided. They are more
often worked out by single-minded intention which can endure through
small errors and trifling disputes. The Lady Principal’s position was
rendered more difficult by the tacit opposition of ‘local interest’ to
the extension of boarding-house accommodation. The very existence of the
College had been for many years precarious. Few people in Cheltenham
wished it to become anything more than a suitable day-school for the
sisters of boys at the College. Consequently a lady who took boarders was
regarded with no special favour, and her actions were very often severely
criticised.
In the difficult work of forming and increasing boarding-houses, mistakes
were made by many. Miss Beale’s own belief in others, her habit of
accepting people at their own estimate, of believing they were what she
wished them to be, of judging character from her wide experience of books
rather than from that of life, sometimes led her astray in her choice
of fellow-workers. She who in her lonely position often felt the need
of sympathy, to which she was ever responsive, was anxious to give it,
even where she could not understand. This made her slow to bring about
a change, lest sufficient opportunity for amendment had not been given.
On the other hand, sometimes she could see that a change should be made
promptly, but as she could not act alone a dangerous delay would ensue.
At first the position of a head of a boarding-house was little defined,
and it was hard sometimes for a clever, well-intentioned woman, anxious
to do the best for the children in her care, not to regard the work of
the house as primary, that of the College as secondary only. One lady,
who was extremely capable and interested in her work, was ambitious to
make her boarding-house a complete institution in itself, rather than an
integral part of the College. Many of the girls in her charge came as
her own relations or friends; she chose to adopt the position that it
was right for her to decide whether they should be taught at her house
or sent to College, and she denied the right of any one to interfere in
her management. She also claimed the right to take another house for
herself and her own children, where she could receive and entertain her
friends. As soon as Miss Beale’s eyes were opened to the danger of such
independent action, she did not hesitate a moment on the right course to
be pursued with regard to the boarding-house management. She perceived
that in this matter, as in the work of the school, there was no standing
ground between obedience and independence. ‘I am so sorry for Miss
Beale,’ wrote Mrs. William Grey to Miss Buss, ‘and so glad our Council
determined to have nothing to do with Boarding-Houses. I cannot help
thinking that the wisest course for the Cheltenham Council would be to
wash their hands of them, only reserving to themselves, as we have, the
right to refuse pupils from a house they disapprove of. There seems to me
no tolerable alternative between this and the hostelry system.’
It may be safely said that never, even in moments of worst annoyance,
did Miss Beale ever propose to ‘wash her hands’ of the boarding-houses.
She felt they should be ‘organically related’ to the College life, a
part of it which she could not do without, one which had in it great
possibilities for extending and strengthening the influence of the
College teaching, one which, neglected, must be an infinite source
of difficulty, by which the standard of the corporate life might be
lowered, and its best work hindered.
So she persisted, lending her whole mind and strength to help in the
evolution of a system which should be fair to individuals and the best
for the College as a body. In 1890, after she had won her point, she
wrote to Miss Arnold, then head-mistress of the Truro High School, who
had consulted her on the subject:—
‘I think I told you that after many years, I have prevailed on
our Council to take the whole risk of the boarding-houses,—the
pecuniary risk is of course very great, and in case of war
or sudden depression, I don’t exactly see how we should meet
it, but one must have risks, and we find the moral risks of
not taking pecuniary ones so great that we decided for the
latter—and indeed we had to pay pretty considerable sums in
law expenses and to get rid of unjust claims too. We could not
_prove_ that these ladies had not lost money, if they said they
had—and if they were bad managers they did perhaps lose—and an
outcry was raised that we ruined poor ladies!’
But the difficulties to be encountered on the way to this consummation
were by no means slight, and involved great personal anxiety and pain. It
was especially hard to her that she should be known by her own pupils to
be in opposition to any who had been set over them. It was hard to feel
that many with their partial knowledge of facts must misunderstand her,
or childishly attribute her actions to commonplace motives of jealousy
and love of power. Some part of these difficulties became fully public
in 1882, when the College was involved in a libel case, and a lawsuit
which was settled by arbitration. Exoneration from all blame followed in
both instances. In the arbitration case the judgment was delivered by
Mr. Justice Charles, and placed in a sealed envelope with the injunction
that either party might open it on payment of £350. The Council did not
think it necessary to pay this money. Eventually those who had brought
the action against the College did so, to find that the judgment had been
pronounced against them on every count. It was a victory for the College
and the Principal, but it had not been achieved without great toil and
suffering on Miss Beale’s part. She dreaded the cross-examination with
all the nervousness of a sensitive nature. Speaking of it afterwards, and
of all it had cost her, she ever associated with the pain the remembrance
of the immense help and sympathy she had received from her friend Mrs.
James Owen, then a member of the Council, and would say, ‘Mrs. Owen
said I should not be scorched in the fire.’ She was also upborne by
the loyalty of her fellow-workers, both teachers and boarding-house
mistresses, who signed a joint expression of their sympathy with her in
her time of anxiety. Miss Buss gave more than words of sympathy, she was
present herself in the arbitration-room when the case was tried. When it
was over she wrote to her friend to this effect: ‘Yesterday I made the
personal acquaintance of Miss ——. I fell in love with her because she is
so intensely loyal to Cheltenham and to “dear Miss Beale.” I think if you
could have heard her talk, unknown to her, you would have felt that the
severe trial you have had to go through was more than compensated for by
the love and loyalty it has called out to you and the College.’
The increase in the number of the boarding-houses, with their slightly
different characteristics, brought an obvious advantage to the College.
It led the way to still cheaper houses, and to the promotion of that
work so dear always to Miss Beale, helping poor students and training
teachers. Never heartily sympathetic with what is generally called
charitable work, afraid of seeing money given without a really
equivalent return in usefulness and good work, there was one appeal to
which she never turned a deaf ear. Probably she never knew any case of a
girl honestly trying to improve herself, and failing in the effort for
want of means, without trying to help her. Her usual plan was to advance
money, which she found was almost invariably returned to her in the
course of time. She would, wherever it seemed right, ask for its return
on the ground that it might be of use to others, and because she was ever
careful to make those she helped recognise that the possession of money
is a stewardship only. But it was offered and lent and sometimes given
in such a way that there should be no personal feeling of obligation
and debt. ‘There is a loan fund,’ she would say when there occurred a
question of the removal of a promising pupil from the College on the
score of expense. And hardly any one ever heard her say more than this of
the large system of help which she initiated and to a very great extent
sustained alone. Some of the boarding-house mistresses generously took
one girl free, or for very low terms, but the work was quietly done,
known only to few.
The establishment of scholarships did not fit into Miss Beale’s
educational schemes. She was not wholly opposed to them. One, in 1870,
was accepted for the College, when Colonel Pearce bestowed a gift of
£1000 to found the Pearce Scholarship for the daughter of an army
officer, and Miss Beale in the last year of her life established one for
Casterton. But she had a great horror of a system by which one school or
college could buy promising pupils from others, and she held that it was
hard on earnest students who were not naturally quick to see assistance
given only to ability. ‘I have refused,’ she said at a later period,
‘all scholarships except one, the chief condition of which is poverty.
Three scholarships have been offered unasked, and an endowment for two
prizes, which would have formed a good advertisement, every year, but I
have refused all.’
As the College grew, Miss Beale felt more and more the need of a house
where those who were trying to train themselves to be teachers could
board inexpensively, and in 1876 was made that beginning which, as she
said, was ‘full of blessing to the College, and of much use beyond its
bounds.’ This was before the Maria Grey Training College was opened,
and when there was no institution at all in which women could receive
definite preparation for becoming teachers in secondary schools.
Miss Mary Margaretta Newman, member of a family which had shown itself
sympathetic and interested in Miss Beale’s work from the first, offered
to take a furnished house for a small number of students, to give her
services, and contribute besides £75 a year towards expenses. Miss Newman
had seen, whilst helping Miss Selwyn in her school at Sandwell, how much
some such assistance was needed; how many girls of good social standing
were struggling to obtain the training necessary to fit them to earn
their living as teachers. She therefore provided a home for a few, and
by her quiet, gentle influence supplemented the College work, and won
the affections of her household. ‘What we felt most was the simplicity
with which she gave so much. She seemed unconscious that she was doing
anything remarkable in going to live in a small house, with one servant,
and undertaking all the labour such an economy implied.’[47]
Miss Newman’s work went on for scarcely a year, for at the end of 1877,
after a very short illness, aggravated by the burden she had willingly
laid upon herself, she died, leaving the work but just begun indeed,
yet full of promise, and rendered by her sacrifice and death a sacred
charge to the College and the Lady Principal. So indeed Miss Beale felt
it to be, and in after years she would remember the life given in the
cause she herself had so much at heart, and would write in her diary on
December 31: ‘I think of Miss Newman’s death. Shall I not follow her
example?’ Then for the first time Miss Beale, who had always maintained
and acted on the principle that the College should earn its own living,
asked for money to buy and furnish a suitable house for girls who could
not afford the terms of the boarding-houses. She could not bear to refuse
the many applications she received from those who were too poor to
help themselves. About £1200 was immediately collected, one half being
contributed by the College staff.
The work thus begun extended so rapidly that in little more than five
years it was seen to be necessary that it should have a building of
its own, and the trustees who had the management of the funds decided
to build a residential College. This was opened under the name of St.
Hilda’s in 1885.
The first ten years in the new buildings were a time of larger
development for the College than any other in its history. Miss Beale’s
own active life was also more full, and not less anxious, than it had
ever been. There was never again a time of depression such as the year
1871 had been, when the College seemed to be almost losing ground, when
in the whole course of the year only three fresh pupils entered. But
the rapid increase on every hand of new, good, cheap schools naturally
fed her anxiety at a period when she had to justify to the Council her
constant demand for more classrooms, music-rooms, halls, laboratories.
She saw the immense importance of keeping ahead in these things. Other
schools had endowments or guaranteed capital, the College could only
increase and improve its plant out of the fees paid by the pupils. The
Lady Principal did not wish it otherwise; but the constant remembrance
of this made her very careful in expenditure, and ever desirous that all
individual interest should be lost to sight in regard for the common
welfare. There was something sharper than anxiety to bear over the
boarding-house difficulties and the reconstitution of the Council. So
much patience was needed, so much judgment in decisions, in avoiding
mistakes, in retrieving them when made, that time and thought might well
have been occupied with the care of actualities alone.
Yet it will not be surprising to some to know that it was just in these
years that her inner life also became more full and more active, and that
she was called upon to go through mental crises of great moment. The
habit of prayer, difficult to maintain in a busy life, was strengthened
by attendance at Retreats; a practice begun in 1877 to be continued
yearly. Reading of every kind, with the exception of fiction, was
diligently kept up, and thought was never more active.
The intellectual and spiritual struggles of this time permanently
affected Miss Beale’s work and teaching. They cannot be passed over.