Elizabeth Helen Shillito

“ His lecture at the opening of Queen’s College was a most inspiring one, and his words must have fallen on the ears of some of the girls who listened to him like a call to high and noble service.
“The vocation of a teacher,” said he, “is an awful one: you cannot do her real good, she will do others unspeakable harm, if she is not aware of its usefulness.” He spoke against the harm done by simply providing her with necessaries. “You may but confirm her in the notion that the training of an immortal spirit may be just as lawfully undertaken in a case of emergency as that of selling ribands.” ”

“ At Queen’s College Dorothea Beale began to show signs of where her power as a teacher would lie. Throughout life it was one of her leading ideas that a teacher should be primarily an inspirer of her pupils: that though she should never cease to prepare her work with the greatest care, her aim should be chiefly to kindle the enthusiasm that would make her pupils eager to learn for themselves. ”

“ If you knew how full my own life has been of sorrow, how every day of it begins with a death-knell, you would bear with me in what I will yet venture to say to you as the head of a noble school of women’s thought, that no personal feelings should ever be allowed to influence you in what you permit your scholars either to read or to publish. ”

“ In after years Dorothea Beale acknowledged the value of this year at Casterton. No life is perhaps complete without its times of failure, as she must have felt her year at Casterton to be. For the world is full of men and women who fail, and it is only by personal knowledge of their experience that we can sympathise with them and help them to rise above it.
Many, however, appreciated the good work Dorothea Beale did at Casterton, and her quiet and steady persistence in what she felt to be right were not without their permanent influence on the school. ”

“ All through her career there is no thought more marked than that of the loftiness of a teacher’s work. From herself as well as from others of her calling she demanded that consecration of body, mind and spirit without which there can be no good work done. All who have read her “Addresses to Teachers,” and other works on teaching, realise the high level on which she placed the teacher’s calling, and the stress she laid on the need to pursue continuously impossible ideals of goodness and efficiency. ”

“ But Dorothea Beale was no dreamy, unpractical mystic, holding herself aloof from the practical difficulties of life. She realised that there is little value in a religion that cannot find expression in the life of every day; and little strength in the soul that is not continually fortified by the struggle of work and the carrying out of duty. ”

“ Our generation is beginning at last to allow music for girls to take only its fair share of time along with other subjects and to train the mind and soul to appreciate rather than the hands merely to perform. We are beginning to realise that born musicians are few, though the need for music in life is universal. To train the ear to hear, the body to feel rhythm, is held to be more important than the mere technique of piano-playing. ”

“ In the building of a new world there is no force so great as that of education in its many aspects, the most important of which is that of the home. Teachers realise that what is done at school is as nothing compared with the enormous power of home education, composed as it is of all the influences of early childhood. Parents must always be the chief educators, and for this reason parenthood must be one of the most sacred of human relationships and one of the highest callings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Foundations are laid at school as if every man and every woman were going to be a scientist, and the average boy and girl leave school with a certain amount of skill in measuring and weighing, but with none of that illuminating general knowledge that makes the world so vastly interesting.
In religious teaching, “we try,” said Dorothea Beale, “to make our teaching practical as regards the daily duties of life upon which we are all agreed, instead of dwelling on points of doctrine wherein we differ”. ”

“ Her personal relationship to any of her children in sorrow was always a very tender one.
“When I was almost a child at College I lost my mother and shall never forget Miss Beale’s tender sympathy and help. She took such interest in my preparation for Confirmation and brought me herself to my first Communion—just she and I alone: a day I shall always remember. All through my girlhood she was a kind and ready adviser, and continued her interest throughout my married life. One always felt whatever happened to one, ‘Now I must tell Miss Beale’.” ”

“ Yet in a boarding school a true teacher has opportunities which never come into a day-school teacher’s life. In many ways it is a much more satisfactory sphere, provided the Head realises that no teacher can do good work without ample leisure and opportunity for a life of her own apart from the school. More and more are our generation realising that outside interests are absolutely essential for a teacher if he or she is going to be a person of real power and influence. Apart from the knowledge of one’s own subject there is nothing so necessary in a teacher as a knowledge of life ”

“ They pass from school to college, and from college back to school, and never quite lose the schoolgirl point of view. It is often the greatest boon to a teacher to be obliged to give up her own work for a year or two at some period of her life and to live in a world where people do not measure time by terms or mark out the day by bells. But in any case a teacher can always have some interest that has nothing to do with teaching and has no direct bearing on her work. ”

“ In her theories of education, in her outlook on life, she was of our day. Her methods of teaching are still employed in our best schools, and the teacher can still find her essays on teaching suggestive and helpful.
Yet we live in another world. Since August 1914, we have passed through experiences that have changed [Pg 80] for ever the values of things. Nothing can ever be the same again. We of our generation are faced not with one little difficulty or another but with the building of a new world. The old civilisation lies in dust at our feet. ”

“ As a rule the desire to teach indicates some aptitude for the work; though between the eager expectancy of the untried student and the quiet joy of the skilled teacher, lie many dark valleys which must perforce be passed. This, however, is not peculiar to teaching. It is common to all work of a personal nature, in fact is inherent in all high living.
For those who wish to teach, the great problem arises: “What kind of teaching shall I undertake?” It is a difficult one to solve.
In England the different kinds of teaching for girls are very clearly defined. ”

“ Praise and appreciation are almost unknown, whilst criticism is given, as was the medicine of last century, in large doses and at frequent intervals. If it is properly done, the work is hard. Real teaching implies ceaseless learning. It is imperative to keep a mind open to all new thought and new ideas, not only in the educational work but in the world at large. It is necessary, too, to acquire the wisdom to deal with what is new, so that to some extent the true may be separated from the false, the lofty from the base. ”

“ They will not do nothing—you cannot say to the human mind that it shall absolutely rest; but if they have not wholesome and proper and unexciting occupations they will spend their time on sensational novels and things much more injurious to their health. When I have heard complaints about health being injured by study, they have proceeded from those who have done least work at college. Indeed I do not know of any case of a pupil who has really worked and whose health has been injured: we have had complaints in a few cases where the girls have been decidedly not industrious. ”

“ A tired teacher is, ipso facto, a failure: it is, therefore, work in which the preservation of freshness of mind and body becomes a special duty. In the best schools the hours of teaching are short, and long holidays, wisely spent, ought to keep the health vigorous. The right use of holidays is frequently overlooked, especially by young teachers, who often spend them in the fulfilment of claims as strenuous as their work, and return to school used-up and unfit for their duties—a form of dishonesty not always recognised as such. ”

“ The boy, who is to be a soldier—one day he hears a distant bugle: at once he knows. A second glimpses a bellying sail: straightway the ocean path beckons to him. A third discovers a college and towards its kindly lamp of learning turns young eyes that have been kindled and will stay kindled to the end.”—James Lane Allen.
The opening of Queen’s College marked a great advance in the cause of girls’ and women’s education. It had its root in the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution, which was founded for the purpose of helping governesses in times of need. ”

“ If, however, the beloved task has to be deferred, and the need of our loved ones claims us, there comes with the accepted duty peace and rest of mind, and the waiting time may be used for preparation of mind, heart, and character. To many men and more women, who have kept before them the vision of the work they would do, has often come in a quite unforeseen way an opportunity of doing it: and they have realised how much richer and better their life is for their wider experience during the time of waiting. ”

“ Many teachers are still needed, and to the girl of intellectual interests and power who is seeking a profession, the question may well arise, whether she should adopt that of a teacher. There are many matters to be faced in considering this.
Teaching brings with it few of the rewards for which the ordinary person craves. Financially, its prizes are few: for the most part it is a badly-paid profession, especially considering the years of training it involves. It brings with it little renown. Even the greatest teachers are known in a comparatively narrow circle, at any rate during their lives. ”

“ All her life Dorothea Beale had to fight against extreme sensitiveness and shyness. She, who never shrank from any duty, however difficult, often shrank from the society of those who might be unsympathetic, and was sorely wounded by adverse criticism. Yet in a larger sense, she did not trouble about the judgment of others, accustomed as she was throughout life to submit herself to a Higher Judge. She found it difficult to make advances to other people and always welcomed the fearless, happy girls who ventured to treat her as a comrade and friend. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nor is it without significance that to women at this hour have come for the first time direct power in politics and opportunity to do any work of which they are capable. On them must fall the work that the dead and disabled would have done. To the men of England and of other countries came the call to give their lives: to the women no less comes the same call. ”

“ With an educationalist at the Board of Education many difficulties have been and will be removed, and elementary teaching with smaller classes, higher pay, and better buildings, is made more possible for those who wish to embark on it. It is useless, however, to take up this work unless one has in one’s heart a great love for little children, whether dirty or clean, ragged or well-cared for. The elementary schools have not yet adopted the high school system of morning lessons and afternoon preparation, and this makes the hours of teaching long. ”

“ Among the collateral benefits resulting from the great movement for the higher education of women, in which Miss Beale has played so conspicuous a part, not the least important is the power which the Scotch Universities have obtained of conferring their honorary degrees upon women, and therefore it is with no ordinary satisfaction that the University of Edinburgh now exercises this power by begging Miss Beale’s acceptance of an honour which has been brought within the reach of her sex largely through her own endeavours. ”

“ Many large schools also offer help to their pupils who have the ability and desire to go on to the universities.
To the girl who feels in her the desire to teach, and has the power necessary for the task, I should say, “Accept your work, and I am sure you will have no reason to regret your decision.” For with all its hardships, all its endless striving after impossible ideals, it is a work which can really be one’s life: and surely such work is always the happiest. ”

“ Whilst still young, Dorothea Beale formed the habit of frequent attendance at early Communion, which she maintained all through her busy life. Like the saintly men and women of all ages, she felt that the more strenuous and exacting her work, the more she needed these hours of Communion. The Sacraments of the Church as generally necessary to salvation she believed to be two—Baptism and Holy Communion—but the whole of life to her was sacramental. ”

“ The world needs teachers: not the perfunctory worker who takes up one of the most sacred of callings as a means of livelihood, but the teacher who is willing to consecrate herself for the work.
At the end of that powerful novel of Robert Herrick’s, “The Healer,” is a vivid scene. The old doctor, whose gift had been lost through the exacting claims of an unsuitable marriage, is walking arm-in-arm with a young student. The older man has recognised in the younger the power he himself once had, the gift of healing. ”

“ Perhaps the greatest need of the world just now is work: not only for the production of material necessities, but for its steadying, sanity-restoring power. After four years of the passions and sorrows of war, mankind has not yet regained its mental balance ”