‘He deserved well of his country.’ ‘Shall we try to deserve more rather than to win more?’ said Miss Beale when she quoted the phrase of the Roman senate, which heads this chapter, to some children—not of Cheltenham—who were to receive prizes. It well expresses her feeling about rewards. They should grow out of the work; should be some fresh privilege of service. Hence her indifference to prizes in the College. They were given on a percentage of marks obtained in the midsummer examinations. They were announced when the marks of the classes were read to them on the first morning of the next term, but they were never presented: they had to be fetched by the individuals who earned them from the secretary’s room.
‘I was opposed,’ she wrote on one occasion, ‘to this custom. I did not think it necessary to make pupils work, they seemed as earnest and painstaking before prizes were given as since. I felt it was better they should work from a love of knowledge or a simple sense of duty, but the Council took another view, and as there is much to be said on their side of the question, I yielded.
‘In life, prizes must be to a great extent the reward of thoughtful industry, and it seems to me that on the one hand we may thereby teach the children to put success at its true value, and point out to them that it is at the bar of our own conscience alone that we must stand approved or condemned; that on the other hand they may learn to bear disappointment[313] patiently. I do not find that prizes create any feelings of jealousy or ill-will, nor can I blame a child who looks forward with pleasure to carrying home to her parents this proof that she has tried to do as they would have her. It appears to me a matter of less importance than is usually supposed, and in any case can affect only a few pupils at the head of a class. Stimulants to exertion, however, are rarely needed. There are very few who are not interested and earnest in their work, and our difficulty is more frequently to check too great zeal, and to insist on the observation of those limits we place to the time devoted to study than to demand more.’
The high ideal of deserving rather than gaining was what Miss Beale set before herself as true wealth to be desired. So she was careful, when the management of large public funds and a much increased personal income came to her, to remain as frugal, as poor as ever. It was not merely that she liked simplicity. Her simplicity of life was a deliberate intention. There was a personal note in the fervour with which she would read the words of Abraham to the king of Sodom: ‘I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, ... lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.’ No monk was ever more faithful to his chosen bride of Poverty than Miss Beale remained with her large income and successful investments. She was consistent also in preferring for those she loved a simple personal life, which would leave mind and time free for thought and the needs of others.
When first Miss Beale went to Cheltenham she adopted a very simple mode of living, such as she thought would sufficiently meet her needs, and she never changed it. At the age of seventy she would even help to lay her own table for the frugal midday meal, if the general servant had been delayed by household work in the morning. She would walk to the station to save a cab fare, and invariably chose the simplest means of[314] conveyance unless on a matter of urgency. It is true she became rather grander in dress as years went on. ‘What did I wear,’ she wrote to Miss Brown about 1876, after some function she had attended, ‘“velvet and ostrich feathers?” Well, what could I wear but my felt bonnet and old velvet cloak and old black serge? I looked quite smart enough.’ Kind friends there were who liked to see the Lady Principal beautifully dressed, and who were allowed in later life to guide her into velvet and ostrich feathers. She submitted for the sake of the College, for whose good she would cheerfully have worn either sackcloth or cloth of gold!
For the sake of the College, still more for the sake of that work for women and the race which the College represented, Miss Beale gladly greeted honours. That they had anything to do with herself personally, she was not even aware. Her work did indeed receive recognition far and wide from those who prized education, and who regarded it from various points of view.
Among the first to honour it with special notice and a substantial, even magnificent gift, was John Ruskin, when in 1885 he presented to the College two beautiful and valuable manuscripts—one, of the four Gospels, in Greek, written in the eleventh century; another (Antiphonarium Romanum) of the thirteenth century. He gave also a collection of printed books. These were the occasion of an interesting series of letters from Mr. Ruskin to Miss Beale. Some of them are printed here.
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, February 10, 1882.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—I have to ask your pardon for never having replied to your former letter; but it came when I was already over-wrought and threatened with illness, and it gave me more to think of than it was possible then to review.
‘I am now, however, most seriously bent on understanding[315] the principles and knowing some of the results of modern girl education....
‘A very few lines would enable me to become of some use to you—in my own fields of work—and without moving from my fields of rest.
‘I have the deepest respect for Mr. Shields’ work, nevertheless it is out of my way; and such drawing models as I may send you would be altogether different in feeling.
‘But the first thing I want to know is what kind of library or schoolroom you have, for quiet separate reading, and what standard books the College possesses in Lexicons, works on natural history, and classic literature, and what place Latin and Italian have in your code of studies.—Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, February 18, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—I can only thank you to-day for the most interesting parcel, which gives me an idea of the College and its branches, admitting every degree of enthusiasm in its Principal.
‘ ... but for the moment, entirely puzzling to me, as I neither want to confuse the strict College work with that of Ruskin societies, nor the elementary and general teaching with that of artists’ studios, or of general papers in your Magazine.
‘And when I give you books I should like them to be accessible to the classes in general. I can’t scatter them among the boarding-houses or give them only to the senior students at St. Hilda’s. You can surely put up some shelves for me in a corner of some generally inhabited room, and put them under the care of an official librarian. It seems to me the office might be given for a term at a time to any girl who cared to take it, involving also the curatorship of any drawings, casts of coins, or the like, which I could at times lend or present to you.
‘In the meantime, will you let me have a list of the classes, with the books used in them, and times of required attendance.
‘Dr. Watson has trusted me for the present to arrange the work for his daughter, without reference to any competitive honours or testing examinations. I wish to keep her well at her music, French, and if she cares for it, elementary drawing, with beginning of Latin and the first making out of classic history. What I chiefly need to know is the method of instruction[316] in the music and drawing classes. (Do your seniors touch Greek at all?)
‘I have just been reading an excellent paper by Miss Sophia Beale on Art instruction, in which, however, the general sense and truth of the author’s views are prevented from taking a practical form by her falling into the scarcely in our time avoidable error of supposing that accuracy of drawing can only be taught by the figure.
‘The figure can never be drawn accurately unless life is given to the task. But a triangle, an arch, a cinquefoil, and a wild rose are within the reach of ordinary girlhood’s observation and delineation, to ordinary girlhood’s extreme profit.—Believe me, dear Madam, your faithful servant,
John Ruskin.’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, March 3, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—I shall be most thankful if you can find anything in my books that the girls will like to have in the Magazine: the ivied trunks were sent in no high spiritual but lowly practical intent, simply as the sort of models which you can’t cut and bring in for yourselves, and which, once drawn real size, will teach more than all my talking.
‘I think her librarian cares will be ever so good for my wild flower, and am looking out more fine books for her to-day, chiefly a perfect edit, of Scott’s poetry and Heyne’s beautiful Virgil.
‘I am wholly with you in liking Greek better than Latin, but only as added to Latin by clever girls. The entire history of the Catholic Church being in Latin, and half the language of Europe derived from it, I would make every girl who passed through any course of literature begin with understanding her Pater Noster and Te Deum.
‘But I have put a lovely edition of Hesiod aside for next dispatch to the wild librarian.
‘I don’t quite know what the “Kyrle” Society means, but imagine I have stores of things they could put to use.—Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
‘Enclosed may be a pretty little gift to any of your good girls.’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, March 7, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—I have put the little volume of poems into my near bookcase at the back of my arm-chair. They[317] look really very nice, and show an extremely high tone in the school.
‘I am going to send you with the Pindar, a beautiful 13th cent. MS., with the Gregorian notes all written to the old Latin songs. I think the College will be proud of it, and your organist interested by it.
‘I shall be delighted to see whatever the teachers care to send me. I have been languid and stupid this spring, or should have written something for the drawing classes before now.—Ever faithfully and respectfully yours,
J. Ruskin.’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, March 11, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—There is no way of enlarging those Kate sketches: they were calculated for the little confusion caused by their smallness, and are not well drawn enough for magnifying.
‘I will send you some prettier ones for framing. I am very glad the books have come safe. The grace and dignity of the engravings in Heyne are of great educational value, and the two MSS. are extremely good of the kind. They cost, curiously, the same price each, ￡100 or ￡105,—I forget which.
‘The wild librarian sends me an extremely bad account of herself to-day. I have sent her a beautifully impressive and didactic answer, which she ought to show you.—Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
‘I have sent your organist a Magister for himself. I am so glad he likes it. I couldn’t make out his initials, or would have put his name in it; people ought always to sign in print.
A.B.C. So and So.’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, March 12, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—I send you two books to-day with real pleasure. The old book of towns containing images of the things that once were, in spite of their stiffness, liker the realities now lost than any wooden efforts at restoration, while the Arabian book is a type of all the subtle and faithful skill of France can do at its present best.
‘I call it the faithful skill of France. There is no nation has ever produced such honest work in love of its subjects, not in vanity, as the Desc. de l’Egypte and the illustrated beautiful books of modern times. The great Cuvier series is degraded by its filthy anatomies, but in mere engraving and colours stands[318] alone. But I am going to send you some birds, also matchless, as I can’t send you the Cuvier for its horror.
‘The English book on the Dee, with its rotten paper and vulgar woodcuts, illustrates our English meanness in comparison, but has its poor use too....’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, March 14, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—There is not the least need of this flame of gratitude. I am only too glad to find a place where I can send books likely to be permanently useful to English girls. I am sending three more to-day, which I think likely to be far more serviceable than those finer ones, containing as they do, quantities of sound historical information given in a simple and graceful way on subjects which every Christian girl should have knowledge of, while I suppose not one in fifty ever hears any truth about them. They are nice collegiate books too, to look at.
‘I am mightily pleased too at your having a girl-organist, and hope to work out some old plans with her.—Ever most truly yours,
J. Ruskin.’
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, March 24.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—These candlesticks are lovely, but a little too loose and catchy to be quite good design. The fillets of the bases should be bars, and branch into the foliage, not be entangled in it. But I am heartily glad to see such work.
‘The glass for the MSS. will be excellent,—but only the lazuli and gold will stand sunlight—all colours of time fade in full light. But there’s no harm in a little fading of the Greek Evangelists, or the musical notes on a single page.
‘That Norway Bishops’ book will be a lovely companion to the Old Geography.
‘You needn’t mind who is or isn’t in association with you.
‘You have plenty of power alone—and inventiveness enough to boot.—Ever affectly. yrs.,
J. R.’
Mr. Ruskin’s munificent gifts did not stand alone. Almost every number of the Magazine chronicled some present to the College, some book or picture, scientific apparatus or specimen. Special mention should be made[319] of Dr. Wright’s collection of fossils which formed the foundation for a museum, and of the grant of flint instruments and many animals obtained through Sir William Flower from the British Museum.
The distinctions which came to both Principal and College in the later years of Miss Beale’s headship were very numerous and came from widely differing sources. The College gained gold medals for educational exhibits at the Paris Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900.
The name of Dorothea Beale became known abroad as that of one who had a real interest in education for its own sake and who had no exclusive or insular views. The warm welcome she would extend to educationists of every kind and tongue, the care with which she would personally answer letters of inquiry, the high tone of her addresses at public gatherings, her pamphlets and articles made the name of Cheltenham respected afar. To this may be added the freshness and openness of mind with which she would lend attention to new methods. She always took them seriously, however empirical they might appear,—considered them, tried them if they seemed hopeful, persevered in them if they were proved to be effective, abandoned them if they were inferior to methods already in use. There were many examples of this. Once, for instance, in the eighties, she heard of a method of teaching reading and of preserving discipline which had been evolved by Mrs. Fielden, a clever lady who had established a good elementary school in a Yorkshire manufacturing village. Miss Beale sent an old pupil who lived in the neighbourhood to visit the school, watch its working, and send her full details of the management. After receiving her report, she obtained the loan of one of Mrs. Fielden’s teachers for a week, and had the system[320] introduced by her into the schoolroom of the Third (Junior) Division. It lived but a short time. Miss Nixon, head-mistress of the division, found it mechanical, and it was abandoned.
In Miss Beale’s last term, in September 1906, Mrs. Arthur Somervell’s Rhythmical Mathematics came to her notice. She not only wrote to the author ‘The book is beautiful and the method very suggestive,’ but within a few days introduced it to the teachers whom it concerned and had its principles explained to a class of little children.
Foreign pupils were always welcomed at the College, and made to feel at home. When first it was suggested that some Siamese girls should be received there, Miss Beale wrote eagerly to secure them, and always took the greatest interest in their work. The foreign teachers found her sympathetic and interested, able to understand and allow for their different training and points of view. With some it was not merely a case of mutual esteem. There were those who found she welcomed their friendship and returned it with kindred affection and confidence.
In the summer term of 1889 several foreign educationists came to Cheltenham. Mrs. E. H. Monroe was sent by the Government of the United States, and Signora Zampini Salazaro by the Italian Government, to study English schools and methods. Madame Garnier-Gentilhomme, Officier de l’Instruction Publique, spent a week with Miss Beale. These visits were perhaps not unconnected with the International Congresses of Education which met in Paris in August. These Miss Beale attended, and herself wrote an account of them in the Magazine of autumn 1889, from which some brief extracts are made.
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‘I cannot sufficiently regret that so few English took part in the most interesting International Congress of Secondary and Superior Instruction which has just concluded in Paris. It was an assembly such as one can scarcely hope to see in a life-time. One had an opportunity of hearing not only the leading educational authorities of France, who are doing a great work for their country, but distinguished men from all parts of the world.’
After enumerating the representatives present from different countries, she continues:—
‘From England, the near neighbour of France, came the Honourable Lyulph Stanley, member of the School Board, but not one person having official rank as a member of the Education Department, not one representative of a university. There was one Professor from Edinburgh, the Secretary of the College of Science from Dublin, Mr. Widgery, of University College School, the Editor of the Schoolmaster, Miss Buss with one of her staff, Miss Beale of Cheltenham with four, and two private governesses.
‘ ... The first step was to add to the Committee a number of foreign members; eighteen were chosen, amongst whom were Mr. Stanley and myself. Then, after arranging the order of the day, we separated and formed ourselves into sections, each person selecting the question which interested him most. In each section a President and Vice-Presidents and a reporter were elected. I was chosen a Vice-President of Section IV.[83] ...
‘I was told that we were to speak our own language, as was the case at the Congress held at the Health Exhibition in London. However, the general wish was at last complied with, that we should all produce our thoughts in more or less foreign French, and it was nearly always intelligible.
‘ ... One question (“The methods best adapted for the Secondary Instruction of girls, specially as regards Modern Languages and Science”) gave rise to a good deal of warm discussion. We were surprised to find that less than two hours in a week were given to a modern language in French schools for girls. The importance of beginning very early was not generally recognised. The English, specially Mr. Widgery and Miss Beale, contributed a great deal to this part of the discussion, insisting much on a truly scientific gymnastic of sound as opposed to the haphazard mode of teaching pronunciation.’
The Misses Andrews who accompanied Miss Beale on[322] this occasion were impressed by the way she was received and heard. Her deafness did not prevent her taking a part in the discussion, and speaking as she did in a foreign tongue, she yet dominated her large international audience. She showed extraordinary indifference to her own comfort. Miss Alice Andrews remembers, for instance, a luncheon in the neighbourhood of the Sorbonne, at a little restaurant to which they had been guided by some acquaintance. Miss Beale and Miss Buss found themselves in the midst of artists and students, some of whom carried on pronounced flirtations with the waitress girls. Miss Beale sat calmly writing her speech for the next meeting, indifferent to her déje?ner and unconscious of her surroundings.
The Congress of Secondary and Superior Instruction was followed by a Congress of Primary Teachers, for which Miss Beale was induced to stay. One day she addressed it:—
‘I said a few words on the work of teachers in enlarging the sympathies and diminishing prejudice and enabling us therefore to understand one another better.
‘It is the seen, the material, about which nations quarrel; it is the unseen, that which belongs to the intellect, the spirit, which unites us in a generous emulation, in which all are gainers, for in such contests all may obtain the prize.’
Greatly pleased as Miss Beale was with much she saw, she quickly perceived that she could not work herself with such a system as prevailed in France. ‘I do not wish to see secondary education in England subject in any way to a Government department, or secondary schools in England assimilated to primary.’
All the intervals of the Congress were filled with visits to various educational institutions and interviews with leading educationists. There was a visit to Fontenay-aux-Roses, to a deaf school, to a primary[323] school and kindergarten, to the Musée Pédagogique. There were also some visits less of the nature of business. Once, at least, they went by invitation to the Théatre Fran?ais, where they witnessed a representation of the Femmes Savantes. There were also many receptions. Miss Alice Andrews wrote:—
‘We had two evenings at the Ministère de l’Instruction Publique, just for the members of the Congresses. These were more like our Guild meetings; no amusement was provided, but the members found it for themselves in walking about and conversing; and so did we, for by the end we had made many acquaintances and a few friends, and there we met some of those who, in the day, had been seated on platforms and had interested us by their eloquence. On the last evening there was a dinner-party of about fifty persons, at which the principal foreign members of the Congress were entertained. To this Miss Beale was invited, and placed at table on the right hand of the minister.’[84]
It was a great happiness to Miss Beale to see so much good work going on, and to meet so many who really cared for the cause for which she lived.
‘Many were the promises of visits; we left Paris with a higher idea of the great work that France is accomplishing, and grateful for the generous hospitality with which we were welcomed, and allowed to see all that is being done by those who are directing education in France.’
The immediate result to the College of this Congress of 1889 was an honour for its Principal when Miss Beale was made Officier d’Académie. In the following year a meeting of the ‘Société des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes’ met at Cheltenham. Miss Beale was elected a member of this Society, by means of which many French students came to Cheltenham. After her death a little article upon Miss Beale appeared in Les Langues Modernes, the monthly organ of this Society.[324] It rightly acknowledged the welcome and the constant kindness that foreign students always received from her.
‘Il faudrait un volume pour analyser sa vie et son ?uvre. Les Anglais l’avaient bien comprise, parce qu’elle résumait au plus haut point les qualités de leur race. Les étrangères ont pu admirer son esprit d’initiative, son énergie et son enthousiasme communicatif. Les jeunes filles fran?aises qui ont eu la bonne fortune d’étudier à Cheltenham, lui étaient particulièrement reconnaissantes de la sympathie large qu’elle leur témoignait. La vivacité et la spontanéité fran?aises, que les Anglais confondent volontiers avec la légèreté et l’insouciance, étaient des qualités qu’elle prisait beaucoup. La bienveillance pour nous se traduisait en actes. Dans ce collège aristocratique où les frais d’études étaient assez considérables, où l’on n’admettait que les jeunes filles appartenant à un milieu social élevé, Miss Beale réduisait volontiers les frais d’études des Fran?aises, et facilitait leurs relations avec des familles anglaises distinguées.
‘Elle eut pour plusieurs de mes compatriotes et moi des attentions qui nous allèrent au c?ur. Quand nous la rencontrions dans les couloirs avec son petit bonnet blanc de douairière, ou quand elle nous invitait au thé dans son home, elles s’informait de nos études, corrigeant elle-même dans la conversation nos phrases défectueuses, nous parlant avec sympathie de notre pays, et nous rappelant le souvenir agréable qu’elle avait gardé de Paris, où elle était venue passer quelques mois dans sa jeunesse, en vue de compléter son instruction.’
A further result was the permission granted by the French Government for the admission of students from the College to Fontenay-aux-Roses. This permission was much prized by Miss Beale, who was comforted by it for delays which had occurred in the opening of St. Hilda’s, Oxford.
Another recognition of her work for education came to Miss Beale in 1896, when Durham University conferred upon her the distinction of Tutor in Letters. The widespread influence of that work was emphasised by her election in 1898 as a Corresponding Member of the National Education Association, U.S.A. In her letter acknowledging this honour Miss Beale said: ‘We[325] receive much inspiration from the States, and possess in our Library a large number of valuable works from Americans on Philosophy and Education.’ She was specially attached to the writings of Dr. Harris.
The contrasts existing between girls’ education as it was in 1865 and thirty years later must have been brought very forcibly before Miss Beale when, in 1894, she was again asked to give evidence before a Royal Commission. The chairman of this was Mr. Bryce, who had himself inspected and reported for the Taunton Commission of 1864-7. The composition of this later body marked the advance that had been made. Of its seventeen members three were women. Well might Miss Beale say that the changes she had witnessed were ‘inconceivably great.’ Her own position was changed. On the first occasion she had merely been the able representative of a little known and rather despised class of workers. On the second she came as one of the recognised leaders of a band whose work was becoming yearly more valuable and more important.
Miss Beale was first questioned on the co-operation and co-relation of different schools in one neighbourhood. She expressed herself in favour of the co-operation of teachers, not of unity in governing bodies, ‘because one governing body is rather apt to generalise and say that everything that is suitable for boys should be done for girls.’ She was also careful to say that there must be a supreme authority in each school. One point of special interest to-day is the discussion which took place on the teaching of the classics to girls. Miss Beale, as has been shown, was never in favour of teaching either Latin or Greek to young girls, and she maintained her objections on this occasion. She thought it a mistake to begin[326] Greek at the age of eleven or twelve, though she admitted that it was easier to learn than Latin. ‘But children,’ she said, ‘do not enter into the delicacies and refinements of the Greek language, ... and they get tired of it.... I do not think the most intelligent teacher could make a child like the intricacies of grammar early.’[85]
Miss Beale does not seem to have mentioned one reason why she would not teach Latin early until, in 1898, she wrote in Work and Play: ‘I feel strongly that Latin should, however, properly come after German, specially for girls. There is a pestilential atmosphere in the Campania, and one needs to have one’s moral fibre braced by the poetry of the Hebrews and of England and Germany, if one would remain unaffected by writings saturated with heathen thought.’
Other points discussed were the training of teachers, a subject on which Miss Beale had much to say. She insisted on the advantages of associating training colleges with large schools: ‘If students get simply lectures, and ideas which they have not an opportunity of carrying into practice, they become unpractical, and they have to learn the practical parts of their profession when they become teachers.’ The question of scholarships was introduced; Miss Beale enunciated her theory that they should be given irrespective of place. It ought not to be possible for one institution to buy up scholars from another. She admitted that she would like to make necessity a condition of holding a scholarship. ‘Would not that,’ asked Dr. Fairbairn, I carry with it to a large extent what one may term a social distinction,—even a stigma in certain cases?’ ‘I think,’ was the reply, ‘if[327] people are ashamed of being poor, they ought to be ashamed of being ashamed of it.’
Some points there were on which the Commissioners desired enlightenment from Miss Beale’s experience, but got little help. One of these was by what means a passage might be effected from primary to secondary schools and the universities. Miss Beale, who disliked free education, had in 1895 even less sympathy with elementary teaching than she had a few years later, when she undertook to train students for it. The indication she gave the Commission was a suggestion that to meet the needs of the prize pupils of the elementary schools, it would be best to found higher schools of the same class, as she maintained that, owing largely to the influences of their homes, children coming from primary schools could not profit by the kind of education existing in secondary schools as they are.
Three or four times the chairman also sought to obtain an opinion from her on the difference between boys and girls, but was always met by some such answer as, ‘I do not profess to say much about boys.’
It was an excellent thing that Miss Beale was asked by Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. to put forth her own original ideas, and state something of her long experience concerning education, in the volume which appeared in 1898 under the title Work and Play in Girls’ Schools. Designed primarily for the enlightenment of the generation which first received it, the book will remain as an historical record of methods actually in use at the Ladies’ College.
With the two last sections of this work Miss Beale had nothing to do: that on the ‘Moral Side of Education’ was written by Miss Soulsby, the concluding chapter on the ‘Cultivation of the Body’ was from the pen[328] of Miss Dove. Yet it is worthy of notice that both these able and original-minded head-mistresses were for a time teachers at Cheltenham. Miss Beale felt that Miss Soulsby’s chapter should have been first in the book; but as her own section is so very much the longest, and as it would have been impossible to her to treat of education from the intellectual side only and apart from its bearing on character, there is nothing to be regretted in the arrangement. One of Miss Beale’s chapters is, moreover, devoted to the question of Philosophy and Religion.
A letter she wrote to Miss Strong on this subject is interesting:—
‘January 1897.
‘I have ventured to accept Mr. Longmans’ proposal. I am afraid it is rather rash, and I hope I shall find that he gives me the Midsummer holidays. This is what he puts in his programme. “Order of importance. Cultivation of the body, cultivation of the moral character, cultivation of the mind,” and so he arranges the subjects in that order. You see what I have said, it makes me so vexed to hear people say, “Of course health is the first thing,” when I know they mean to put pleasure before duty. In order of importance, of course, Miss Soulsby is first.’
This book, the most important of Miss Beale’s mature age—she was verging on sixty when it was published—was written with all the enthusiasm of youth. The hopefulness and freshness of a young teacher, heightened rather than restrained by the experience of years, glow on every page. Nor is the idealism of the student missing. Notice specially for this the passage on astronomy on page 254:[86] ‘Thus [is] the mathematical passion awakened; surely most of us can remember the first time that our soul really ascended into[329] the seventh heaven.’ The chapter entitled Psychological Order of Study,’ in which this passage occurs, is perhaps the most suggestive in the book, which abounds in the results of ripened thought and knowledge. But that on the ‘Relation of School to Home’ was most impressive to those who did not already know the writer’s views on the subject. In ‘A Few Practical Precepts’ occur one or two phrases which might well pass into scholastic proverbs, as for instance this: ‘It is a worse fault to teach below than above the powers of a child.’
Miss Beale did not write the whole of that part of the book for which she made herself responsible. Some parts were given to specialists upon the College staff, in order that all the subjects might be treated with expert knowledge.
Miss Beale’s own life during this later period naturally became more social than ever before. She attended many public functions, and was brought constantly into touch with those who shared her high intellectual aims or literary work. Among these was Dr. Jowett, to whom she felt she owed a special debt for his translation of the Republic. A day came at last, in 1893, when, as a witty friend said, she and the Master lunched together, ‘with Plato as an unobtrusive third.’
In 1894, accompanied by Miss Draper, she made another visit to Paris, to be present at the wedding of Lady Victoria Blackwood and Mr. W. L. Plunket. She greatly enjoyed the experience, especially Lord Dufferin’s friendliness.
‘Lord Dufferin proposed to send a young man to take us out in the morning, and show us something of Paris. I rather wondered that we grey-haired ladies should require an escort, but of course accepted, and we were awaiting our young man in the salon of the H?tel Normandie when, to our surprise and pleasure, we heard Lord Dufferin’s own voice in the hall. Though he had to be present at the civil wedding at twelve o’clock, he most kindly found time to take us up the Heights of Montmartre. We had much interesting conversation on the way.’
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The diary which Miss Beale still kept carefully, though briefly, gives a glimpse of this fuller outside life, but remains faithful to its early character as a record of thought and aspiration. A few extracts from the last years are given.
1893.
‘Jan. 15. Retreat at Brondesbury. Canon Body 9th to 13th.
” 22. Last Sunday of Epiphany.... Perfect revelation of God’s character only possible to man in Christ. Arise, shine! Magi faithful to what was given....
” 24. More earnestness in work needed. Unnecessary speaking of others’ faults.
” 31. Again a quarter of an hour wasted....
Feb. 2. Edward died.[87] Presentation in the Temple.
” 14. Friendless Girls’ meeting.
Mar. 31. All Saints. Mr. Illingworth.
May 10. In London. Degree Day. Radley.
” 11. Ascension Day. H. C. Radley. At Cowley House. Froude’s Lecture. Lunch at Balliol.
” 12. Text. “In Him was Life and the Life was the Light.”
” 14. Mrs. Russell Gurney lunched.
June 7-10. Royal Society. Staying with the Samuelsons.
” 19. Grandchildren’s party. Twenty-three present. Five absent.
” 24. Council. Baker Street. Queen’s College. Greek Play.
” 25. At Miss Clarke’s............