[Illustration: DOROTHEA BEALE
FROM A PAINTING BY J. J. SHANNON
_Frontispiece_]
PIONEERS OF PROGRESS
WOMEN
EDITED BY ETHEL M. BARTON
DOROTHEA BEALE
PRINCIPAL OF THE CHELTENHAM LADIES’
COLLEGE
1858-1906
_WITH TWO PORTRAITS_
BY
ELIZABETH H. SHILLITO, B.A. (LOND.)
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
“Some there are who go forth to their own life-work with the holy
hands of the dead who live laid on their hearts, who feel that they
have a debt to repay, who see a ray of life from afar cast upon all
they do, and bear about for ever a light within, which they must pass
on for the sake of the dead who live.”
EDWARD THRING.
Great Souls who sail uncharted seas,
Battling with hostile winds and tide,--
Strong hands that forged forbidden keys,
And left the door behind them wide.
Diggers for gold where most had failed,
Smiling at deeds that brought them Fame,--
Lighters of lamps that have not failed--
Lend us your oil, and share your flame.
TO
DR. ELSIE MAUD INGLIS
WHOSE CRIMEA WAS SERBIA,
BUT WHOSE POST-WAR WORK
IS IN ANOTHER WORLD
SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Discoveries and enterprises of the Nineteenth Century--Effect on the
educational world--Girls’ education in age of Elizabeth and in
Nineteenth Century--Protests against the latter--Pioneers of
higher education--Our indebtedness to them 1
CHAPTER II.
Dorothea Beale--Parentage--Mrs. Cornwallis and her daughter--Their
influence on Dorothea Beale--Home life--Early education--School
life--Time of self-education--Attitude to games--Reading
in early life--Euclid--School in France--Some personal
characteristics--Religious and other influences of home 4
CHAPTER III.
History of Queen’s College--Early students--Rev. F. D. Maurice--His
opening address--Dorothea Beale’s attitude to teaching--Study
and friendship at Queen’s College--Appointment
there--Difficulties--Resignation--Impetuosity of nature--Some
inherent difficulties of women’s life 10
CHAPTER IV.
Clergy Daughters’ School at Casterton--Hasty acceptance of post
there--Beautiful situation of school--Evils--Personal
difficulties--Mr. Beale’s letters--Dorothea Beale’s dress and
appearance--Thoughts of resignation--Father’s advice--Appeal to
committee--Suspicions of High Church tendencies--Determination
to resign--Notice from committee--Acknowledged indebtedness
to the school--Appreciation--Work at home--History of England
begun--Spartan habits--Some philanthropic work--Offer
of service--Dawning conviction of real vocation--Her diary
begun--Extracts--Time of waiting--Religious life and beliefs 16
CHAPTER V.
Cheltenham Ladies’ College--Early history--The first
Principals--Advertisement for new Principal--Dorothea Beale
candidate--Tributes to character and ability--Alleged High Church
tendencies--Declaration of belief--Time of anxiety--Appointment as
Principal--Work at Ladies’ College--Personal appearance at this
time--Rule of silence--Precarious financial position of
school--Practice of economy--Question of renewing lease of Cambray
House--Mr. Brancker--His wise policy and administration--Some
reminiscences--The Fight against ignorance and prejudice--Dorothea
Beale’s inspiring leadership 27
CHAPTER VI.
Blue Book Report on condition of girls’ education--Dorothea Beale’s
evidence and theories with regard to women as teachers; effects
of higher education on health; idleness and health; the teaching
of music--Modern ideas on the teaching of this subject 38
CHAPTER VII.
Rearrangement of school hours at the Ladies’ College--Opposition
met and overcome--Gradual breaking down of prejudice--Gossip
and disloyalty--Dorothea Beale’s gift of inspiring
loyalty--Miss Belcher--Death of Dorothea Beale’s father--How
she spent holidays--Singleness of aim--Idea of Sisterhood of
Teachers--Expansion of Cheltenham College--Opposition to a
new building--Dr. Jex Blake’s plea--Farewell to Cambray
House--Continued growth--College incorporated under Companies’
Acts--Boarding houses made an intrinsic part of
College--Defining of Principal’s powers--Cambray House again 43
CHAPTER VIII.
Cheltenham College magazine started--Dorothea Beale, editor--Her
“silver wedding”--“Old Girls’” Gift--Scheme of Guild
put forward and carried out--Emblem--Opening address--Dorothea
Beale’s remembrance of former pupils--Miss Newman’s
work--Continued after her death--St. Hilda’s, Oxford--St.
Hilda’s, East London--Dorothea Beale’s attitude to charitable
enterprises 51
CHAPTER IX.
A time of darkness--Effect on outlook and character--Some general
interests--Freshness of outlook--Pundita Ramabai--Interest in
Indian widows--Women policemen--Balfour’s Education Act,
1902--Attitude to prizes--John Ruskin and the Ladies’ College--Paris
Exhibitions--Another Royal Commission on Education--Visits
of Empress Frederick and Princess Henry of Battenberg
to College--Epidemic of smallpox--Dorothea Beale and
vaccination--Personal honours--Officier d’Académie Française, Tutor
in Letters of Durham University, Corresponding member of
National Education Association, U.S.A., Freedom of Borough
of Cheltenham, LL.D. Edinburgh--Robes presented by staff--Three
weeks’ tour--A brief interval of ill-health--Story of the
Shannon portrait--College Jubilee celebrations 58
CHAPTER X.
Greatness of personality--Varied gifts--Prodigious power of
work--Great organising capacity--Organisation of the Ladies’
College--Advice to teachers--Her sense of humour--The tricycle learnt
at 67--Her extreme sensitiveness--Power of sympathy--Her
outlook that of a religious poet--Her Scripture lessons--Her
views on marriage--Tribute of the Bishop of Stepney 70
CHAPTER XI.
Signs of the end--The last Guild meeting--The last term--A journey
to London--The doctor’s verdict--Operation--Waiting the call--A
morning of suspense--Laid to rest--Tributes to her
character and work 75
CHAPTER XII.
The modern world--The need of work--Power of education--Supreme
importance of home training--Responsibility of parents--Teaching
as a vocation--Personal fitness--Different kinds of
teaching--Elementary schools--Boarding schools--Demands of
the work--Its joys and advantages--The need of devoted teachers 79
PREFACE.
I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to all who have helped me
in the writing of this short biography: especially to Mrs. Raikes for
her kind permission to use her “Life of Dorothea Beale of Cheltenham,”
without which this book could not have been written; also for her
most generous help in many difficulties: and to Messrs. Constable,
the publishers, for their kind consent. It is impossible to name all
who have so willingly helped me, but I should like to mention Miss A.
M. Andrews of Cheltenham; Lieut-Colonel J. F. Tarrant for his help in
many ways; Mr. J. J. Shannon for kindly allowing a reproduction of Miss
Beale’s portrait; Messrs. Martyn of Cheltenham for their photograph;
“The Times,” Messrs. Macmillan, and other publishers, who have
permitted me to quote extracts from works which are still copyright.
E. H. S.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
“Tho’ they to-day are passed
They marched in that procession where is no first or last.”
--AUSTIN DOBSON.
The story of the nineteenth century is one of wonder: a story with
Romance written large on every page. It is a tale of great discovery
and enterprise in almost every sphere. Under the influence of its
discoveries, material life became transformed and new mental and
spiritual horizons appeared. The newly-acquired knowledge of forces
like steam and electricity opened up to the world undreamed-of
possibilities. Scientists at home and in distant places of the earth
discovered truths that did much to reveal God’s ways to men. In the
world of medicine new theories were applied to take from operations
their dread, and fatality from many diseases. In literature it was a
time of great riches: an age equal to any, not excepting the great
Elizabethan; an age of prophets and seers, of men and women expressing
in singleness of heart the truth as it was revealed to them. And those
of us who already live at some distance can hardly imagine a time when
Scott and Dickens, Browning and Tennyson, Ruskin and Carlyle, George
Eliot and Charlotte Brontë will not be held in high esteem by those who
love the great, the true, and the beautiful in literature.
Springing out of these discoveries and revelations there naturally
arose a demand that the mind of man generally should be prepared
to enjoy this new world. Dissatisfaction with existing methods of
education began to be felt; and humble people who were unable to read
and write began to ask that they and their children should be taught.
The education of girls at this time was particularly unsatisfactory,
though it had not always been so. In the age of Elizabeth, for example,
girls of the higher classes had received an excellent education. It was
customary then for girls to learn Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and as Mrs.
Stopes points out in her interesting book on “Sixteenth Century Women
Students,” the number of really learned women was very great. I do not
know when these ideals of education gave way to lower ones, but readers
of Addison will remember that one of his aims in his _Spectator_
essays was to rescue women from the utter frivolity and emptiness of
their lives. How scathing he is in his description of the way in which
ladies killed time! when the buying of a ribbon was held to be a good
morning’s work!
In the early part of Queen Victoria’s reign, the education of girls
was indeed deplorable. An excessive amount of time was given to
accomplishments and to the study of deportment; the instruction
consisted, for the most part, of a smattering of many subjects: and the
whole process of education was shallow and superficial. If the women of
that day developed--as many did--force of character and of intellect,
it was rather in spite of their education than because of it. Numbers
of girls rose in revolt against this mental and spiritual starvation:
some managed to become well-educated without any outside help, but to a
great number this system meant either an utterly frivolous or extremely
dull grown-up life.
Many were the voices raised in protest against this lack of education.
And as one reads the literature of this time one is greatly struck by
the number of men who pleaded for a different régime: not only leaders
of thought, like Tennyson and Ruskin, but ordinary men of the educated
classes. Perhaps as lookers on they saw most of the game, and into
their souls there entered a deep bitterness that those who might count
for so much counted for so little.
But although men by their writings and speeches and actual help in
teaching, did much, it was on women that the real burden of this work
was to fall. Neither sex can fully educate, though it may teach the
other. In the main, the education of boys must be carried on by men;
and the education of girls by women. It would be impossible to give a
list of all the women who dedicated their powers to this work; who in
a very real sense gave their lives that those after them might live.
This little book is devoted to the story of one of the pioneers of
educational work, and is necessarily limited to the part that Dorothea
Beale played in this great enterprise. But Miss Beale, great as she
was, was only one of many. Whilst she was working out her ideals at
Cheltenham, other women in other schools and colleges were working
out theirs: Frances Buss at the North London Collegiate, Emily Davies
at Girton, Anne Clough at Newnham, Mrs. Reid at Bedford, Miss Pipe of
Laleham, and many others. Nor is it possible to say which of these did
the most important work. For we are dealing with that which cannot be
measured,--the things of the mind and spirit.
Those of us who came late enough to enjoy some of the fruits of their
work, can only acknowledge our deep sense of gratitude to this noble
army of women who did so much. If the gates of knowledge are open to
us, it was their hand which turned the key: if we can enter nearly
every field of service, it was their feet which beat the track. If we
hold in our hands a lamp that makes many of the dark places bright, it
was they who kindled it and passed it on to us.
The part we must play is no passive one. If the lamp is to be kept
burning, it must be fed by the oil of our devotion and our service.