Dorothea Beale

“ Dorothea Beale was always anxious to work in sympathy with parents, not in antagonism to their aims. She realised, as does every wise teacher, that parents see a quite different side of their children and was glad of any information that might be a help in understanding the child. She was very desirous that people should be frank with her if there was any cause of dissatisfaction with the school, and was most anxious to know if a child was at all overworked. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The following extract is from a notice in the Guardian of November 21, 1906:—
Dorothea Beale. In thankful remembrance.
‘Miss Beale is dead. To many of us who loved and reverenced her, death seems the wrong word to use, she looked forward with such loving hopefulness to the great time of direct revelation, that one would rather (following Dr. Pusey’s practice) call her deathday her last and greatest birthday. Much has been said and written of her work—comparatively little of her personality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dorothea Beale in age remembered that in youth she had planned ‘an air-castle school, with a central quadrangle, cloisters and rooms over.’
To few is it given, as it was given to her, to realise so nearly the dreams of youth, for few possess the sense of purpose and the indomitable will which fell to her portion. But the college of her vision did not come into being without a process of development so slow that for some years progress could hardly be recorded, nor without infinite disappointment even in matters which seemed at the time vital ”

“ Some of her essays were published in the College Magazine, others in periodicals. All her work gives one much food for thought.
The Bishop of Stepney, at the memorial service held for Dorothea Beale in St. Paul’s Cathedral, gave a very true epitome of the things that Dorothea Beale stood for.
“She gave a proof that the personality of a teacher was the most indispensable and enduring power in education. The main object of all her work at Cheltenham and elsewhere was not so much to instruct the mind as to inspire the character. ”

“ Not in Cheltenham only but far and wide her children were praying for her: watching for news, and remembering and repeating to each other things she had said. It was stormy weather, and more than one thought of Wordsworth’s lines—lines which she had often read to her class—written when he was expecting to hear of the death of Charles James Fox:—
A power is passing from the earth
To breathless nature’s dark abyss!
Dorothea Beale died on Friday, November 9, at 12.15 [Pg 78] during college hours. It was thought best that the girls should hear of her death before leaving. ”

“ Dorothea Beale, who had never ceased to hear and obey the call she had received as a girl to help women, and with them the race, by means of improved education, longed to see those she had taught and trained freely sharing with others the very same advantages they had received. The difficulties which beset her own youth were still fresh in her mind. The need for good teachers still existed. ”

“ But pray remember that to neglect (the care of your health) is the worst economy in the world.”
In 1862 Dorothea Beale had the great sorrow of her father’s death, an event which left a great blank in her life.
Holidays at this time were spent partly at Cheltenham, partly abroad. When on the Continent she visited schools and gained new ideas for her work. For, to her, life and work were one. Nearly everything she did bore directly or indirectly on the one purpose of her life. It is impossible to enter into the spirit of her life unless one realises this singleness of aim. ”

“ Sir Ludovic Grant in summing up Dorothea Beale’s claim to a national recognition gave an excellent epitome of her work:—
“No feature of the national progress during the last fifty years is more remarkable than the revolution which has transformed our girls’ schools from occidental zenanas into centres of healthy activity. In the great crusade which has been crowned with this most desirable consummation the foremost champion was the cultured and intrepid lady who guides the destinies of the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham. ”

“ In her reply to the various questions asked, Dorothea Beale gave a good deal of information about her own school and the condition of education it revealed. The Entrance Examination at Cheltenham showed as a rule deplorable results. Frequently girls came from expensive schools incapable of writing, spelling, or composing in their own language, almost ignorant of French [Pg 40] grammar and scarcely able to work correctly the simplest sums in arithmetic.
“I think the remedy for bad work,” said she, “is to bring such work to the light. ”

“ Such as Dorothea Beale can never die. She lives still in her College at Cheltenham, and in the great work carried on there: in her “children,” who in many lands and many spheres of work still live in the spirit of their great Head: and in the grateful remembrance of all women who have been able without hindrance to quench their thirst at the fount of knowledge.
CHAPTER XII.
THE VOCATION OF TEACHING.
“The power of any life lies in its expectancy.”—Phillips Brooks. ”

“ Few people, whether individuals or collective bodies, can endure criticism, and Dorothea Beale’s complaints [Pg 21] seem to have caused a great deal of discomfort in her relationship with those connected with Casterton. ”

“ I feel I can appeal to you as lovers of truth, as those who feel that no advantages of education, of health, or any other, can compensate for the disadvantages which would arise to any children who lived in an atmosphere of evil-speaking, lying, and slandering.”
More than most Heads, perhaps, Dorothea Beale had the gift of inspiring loyalty in her staff. As the College grew older the teachers were largely recruited from Old Girls. Some women there now, no longer young, have been at the College since childhood. ”

“ It should be remembered also that each generation has its own mission. To that of Dorothea Beale belonged especially the duty of crying to the careless daughters of England, ‘Rise up ye women that are at ease.’ To another it may be given to serve by waiting. ”

“ 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”. ”

“ All readers of “Jane Eyre” will remember the school, Lowood, to which Jane was sent, and her terrible experiences, especially at the beginning of her time there. The [Pg 17] foundation in actual life of this school of fiction, coloured by the Brontë temperament, with its evils exaggerated for the purposes of art, is known by all to be the Clergy Daughters’ School at Casterton. As we have seen in the last chapter, it was to this school that Dorothea Beale had somewhat hastily resolved to go after sending in her resignation to the Head of Queen’s College. ”

“ GROWTH. Men say the dreams of twenty-two
The winds of thirty shall undo....
We prove them liars, do we not?
Which of our dreams have we forgot?
—Frank Betts.
“At the end of five years’ hard struggle,” writes Dorothea Beale in 1863, “it was pleasant to read in the (Examiner’s) Report: ‘This examination has convinced us that the plan and working of this institution are admirable and calculated to supply a growing want in our community ... that of a real and solid higher education for ladies’.” ”

“ The story of the great queen whose life was given up to her country, ordered wholly for their good, with no private interests; whose marriage was an act of sacrifice; who ruled her people with large-minded beneficence, and under whom they prospered; who finally, as age came upon her, resigned for their sake, seemed strangely appropriate for the close of Miss Beale’s long work for Cheltenham. The very remoteness of the story, its gravity, the absence from it of such didacticism as abounded in Miss Beale’s interpretation of Britomart and Griselda, made it all the more forcible. ”

“ As a result of this decision Mayfield House, close to Bethnal Green, was taken by the Committee. Dorothea Beale was greatly disappointed and did not conceal the fact. At a General Guild Meeting in alluding to this subject she said:—
“I trust we shall be able to try to win harmony out of notes not altogether concordant. Some of us come with a feeling of disappointment that the scheme we desired has been rejected—I am one of these. ”

“ The inaugural lecture on the opening of Queen’s College was delivered by the Rev. F. D. Maurice, the first Head of the College, on Wednesday, March 29, 1848. As his inspiring but stern words fell upon the ears of Dorothea Beale, we may well believe that the sense of vocation which must early have grown for her out of her natural dutifulness, became to her more clearly shaped. Certainly, in reading them now, we feel we are tracing back to its source a stream of that thought with which she herself in due time awed and inspired many a young teacher. ‘The vocation of a teacher is an awful one ”

“ 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. ”

“ Miss Beale greatly enjoyed her time with these old friends whom she had first known as pupils at Queen’s College. She was singularly active. ‘I dare say you would like to do just one thing each day,’ said one hostess to her, little realising the vitality which would carry her on through a long series of events such as would tire out most younger people. ”

“ She, who was ever ready to learn from mistakes, from pain, from adverse circumstances, gratefully acknowledged her debt to all that had shown her the real difficulties of her vocation, and her own weakness, and which had deepened her consciousness of the only source of strength. Some lives are led so much at haphazard, that it really hardly appears to matter whether at any given period they have taken one direction or another. In the lives of those who, like Dorothea Beale, are always conscious of an over-ruling [37] and ordering Power, every year is not only known, but seen to have its place. ”

“ So successful, however, was the scheme that at a General Meeting held at the end of the time mentioned, only eight voted in favour of the old régime. As every one knows, the plan which Dorothea Beale introduced against such strong opposition has since that time been adopted by every High School, and has in the main made for a higher standard of work, and better health, both in pupils and in teachers. A number of children, as a rule, go to school in the afternoon, but it is chiefly for preparation and lighter lessons, such as drawing and needlework. ”

“ They found themselves at the end of four years’ trial of their scheme without a head, with a scattered band of workers, and an insanitary house. No one felt the sorrow of it all more than Miss Beale; no one was more courageous in meeting it. The necessary, difficult, and toilsome work which was the result of the crisis did not indeed fall to her share, but to that of some members of the committee on whom the responsibility specially pressed. But such difficulties to be met, such a death for a cause, were exactly what roused Miss Beale to feel the worth of it as she had never done before. ”

“ The highest honour Dorothea Beale received came in 1902. It was an invitation from the University of Edinburgh to receive the LL.D. degree. Her students and staff were delighted, and the latter determined to present her with her robes. These were the most beautiful and costly they could procure. The degree was conferred in the McEwan Hall of the University. ”