‘I think you may be willing to help me in the plan chiefly for the last four or five years in my mind, of getting a girls’ choral service well organised in a college chapel. The most beautiful service I have ever heard in any church of any country is that of the Convent of the Trinità at Rome, entirely sung by the sisters, unseen; and quite my primary idea in girl education—peasant or princess, is to get the voice perfectly trained in the simplest music of noblest schools. Finding your organist is a girl, and that she is interested in the book on Plain Chant I sent her, it seems to me my time has come, and I am going to write to Miss Lefevre at Somerville, Miss Gladstone at Newnham, and Miss Welch at Girton, to beg them to consider with you what steps they could take to this end. If you could begin by giving enough time for the training of the younger girls, I think I could, with that foundation, press for a more advanced action in the matter at Cambridge and Oxford.’
Miss Beale obviously replied to this with some questions about the training of the choir, for Mr. Ruskin’s next and rapidly following letter closes thus:—
‘As for the choir, nothing is necessary but a due attention to girls’ singing, as well as their dancing. It ought to be as great a shame for a girl not to be able to sing, up to the faculty of her voice, might I say, as to speak bad grammar. You could never rival the Trinità di Monte, but could always command the chanting of the psalms with sweetness and clearness, and a graceful Te Deum and Magnificat.’
Besides the organ, Miss Beale’s wedding gifts included the first light of a stained-glass window above the new grand staircase. This was drawn by Miss Thompson, and executed by Clayton and Bell. Miss Beale herself chose the subject for the whole—a series of scenes from her beloved story of ‘Britomart.’
Over and above the opening of the new buildings, and the installation of the wedding gifts, there was in the early part of the summer term some excitement and much pleasant sense of preparation for the gathering of old pupils fixed for the 6th and 7th of July.
Then, into the midst of the glad anticipation, came as with transcendent suddenness Mrs. Owen’s death on June 19. Hers was indeed
But for many the happiness of the coming meeting was marred, most of all for her in whose honour it had been largely arranged. Miss Beale made no change, but went through all the proceedings as they had been planned, dwelling never for a moment on her sense of bereavement and loss, but speaking calmly even in public of the life that had passed out of sight.
The first meeting, on the evening of July 6, was a conversazione in the Upper or Second Division Hall. An unexpectedly large number of old pupils were present, and on the next day at the ordinary College prayers Miss Beale gave what was practically the first Guild address. Though made on an occasion of so much personal interest and gratification to herself, this address was remarkable not only for the piercing insight with which she ever penetrated below what was apparent or obvious, but also for what, for want of a better word, must be called its soberness. Touched, emotional as the speaker always was, keenly alive to the sense of union and communion with all lives that in the highest sense had come in contact with her own, happy in recognising the College to be a step by which souls might ascend out of mere material interests, marking with joy its noble work in the progress of the ‘higher education’ of women, she chastened all excess of feeling by the calm sincerity with which she could contemplate ‘Even in the green, the faded tree.’ ‘Schools too,’ she said, ‘like the members of which they are composed, have their period of growth, manhood, and decay. Some tell us the first is over for us, and that we, too, have settled down into vigorous manhood. I am not so sure that we have quite done with growth, even in the outside body; but however that may be, I trust there is that among us, which is not even like the most substantial building, not like the outward form, liable to decay and death.’
Thus quietly she spoke, marking for all that heard her that there was no commonplace elation or poor ambition in her thoughts and feelings for her school. On this really momentous occasion for the College, when its members as a whole were summoned to catch a glimpse of all it could be of help and blessing in a far larger world than its own, the Principal spoke less of work accomplished than of growth, and ‘the silent witness of a beautiful life as a power to bless.’ She said less about the gifts with which the College had been enriched, than of some visible sacraments of Nature with which these gifts should bring them into touch. She dwelt specially on the great meanings of music. ‘In the Psalm of Life each is necessary to the perfection of that glorious music, which we shall hear and understand when the discords of earth have been resolved.’
In conclusion Miss Beale sketched the possibility of an association of old pupils, such as already existed in some boys’ schools, and was not wholly unknown among girls. ‘When I read of meetings of old Etonians, Rugbeians, Marlburians, and of works undertaken by them in common, and know how strong is the tie of affection which binds many of our old pupils to their Alma Mater, I have often wished there were some means of uniting us into an association.’ She named also the uses and aims of such an association. It is needless to say that though its members strive to bear in mind the objects their Principal and President put before them, rules, precisely to embody them, could not be framed.
‘Members should consider themselves united together to help in sustaining, especially in distant countries, as high an intellectual and social standard as possible, first amongst those of their own class. Thus reading societies, mutual improvement societies, libraries, etc., would be helped on by them. They would bear in mind the College motto, “Let no man think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the Book of God’s Word, or in the Book of God’s Works; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress and proficiency in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity and not to grovelling; to use and not to ostentation.”[58] Some articles of their creed would be—(a) that influence radiates from a centre, and hence it is a duty all through life to continue one’s own education; (b) that the nearer we stand in intellectual and social position, the stronger are our ties to any, and the greater are our duties; (c) that the worst thing one can do with any talent one possesses is to bury it. Rules would have to be framed concerning admission.’
Miss Beale added that secretaries to the proposed association had already been appointed: Mrs. Ashley Smith for the general work and organisation, Miss Flora Ker as local secretary. This announcement of her appointment to what proved to be a very strenuous work was the first suggestion that Mrs. Smith received that she should even undertake it. In an article in the next Magazine Miss Beale unfolded her plan more fully, suggesting a few rules. She proposed further that the badge of the association should be a little brooch engraved with a figure of her beloved Britomart.
The idea of a guild of old pupils was eagerly received, and a committee at once formed to deal with its organisation. In all these arrangements Miss Beale showed great strength of mind and self-control in being able to stand aside and let others work out the details of the scheme, even submitting her own judgment to that of the younger ones, whom she thought called upon to do the work. Yet she was in a true sense President of the Guild, guiding and directing where she would not command. Indeed, this ever-growing society which multiplied interests for her was largely her own inception, at a time when her special work, the College, was also increasing rapidly. The power of mind which could keep the right hold on both is certainly rare.
The first committee consisted of associates of the College and a few other old pupils. Meetings were held to draw up the organisation of the new society, and this was made known at large in a delightful article by Mrs. Ashley Smith in the Magazine for spring 1884. In this the writer adventured far enough into the future to be able to suggest the possibility, at no very distant date, of some corporate work, ‘such as is done by many boys’ schools,’ but in 1884 the time for this had not arrived for Cheltenham girls.
The Lower Hall, Ladies’ College Cheltenham
from a photograph by Miss Bertha Synge.
The second large gathering of old pupils, which took place on July 8 and 9, 1884, is always reckoned as the first meeting of the Guild, the association being on that occasion formally founded under the name of ‘The Guild of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College.’ It is interesting to note that what then seemed a large gathering really included less than eighty former pupils of the College; ten years later, at the fourth Guild meeting, there were nearly five hundred, and the number has increased ever since. The daisy was chosen as an emblem for the Guild: its choice and its significance were explained by the President in her address on Saturday, July 9. In a second address at this time, given after the candidates for Guild membership had received their ‘Masonic sign,’ Miss Beale dwelt chiefly on the practical questions arising out of the existence of the new association. She spoke of the difficulty of decision among the many opinions which must necessarily exist in a large college; she hoped that ‘whatever decision might finally be arrived at, all would cheerfully submit to it, and if their own individual tastes were not in every case gratified, would find their satisfaction in giving up their own wishes for the sake of the majority. She herself had had to submit, she hoped cheerfully, to an adverse vote.’ The rules were then read. Of these it is sufficient to say here that they made it difficult for any one whose life was spent in a mere pleasure-seeking spirit to be a member of the Guild. The rules were accepted for two years, and two courses of study were suggested for junior members.
In the year following these meetings, Mrs. Ashley Smith wrote an article for the Magazine on the reports received from various members and on the general working of the Guild, which by the end of 1885 numbered nearly two hundred members. This is now an old story, nor is there anything specially remarkable in the many details of work in Sunday-schools and coffee-clubs. Yet even at the time when the Guild, compared with its present self, looked little more than ‘seven maids with seven mops,’ the tale of individual work done shows that already much quiet persistent effort was being made by Miss Beale’s old girls. This association, founded on principles rather than rules, was indicative of its origin in a mind which habitually dwelt rather on being than doing. The small beginning, the gradual steady growth, the outcome of ideals and thoughts, were consistent with the whole of the College history. And to re-read the story of the foundation of the Guild is to remember once more how many quiet, unobtrusive, untiring workers have helped to make that history. In especial, the immense work and patience of the secretaries can perhaps never be adequately recognised: the labour of merely reading and tabulating the reports was considerable.
‘The General Secretary,’ wrote Mrs. Ashley Smith on one occasion, ‘on receiving the reports enters under more than sixty different headings the occupations of all the Guild members. It will be easily understood that the task of reducing to order and collating a chaotic mass of miscellaneous information on all subjects, from the keeping of poultry to the study of Hebrew, from making the beds to organising institutes, is not a very simple affair, and that therefore an immense saving of time and trouble is effected when the proper form is used, and it does not become necessary to wade through a letter full of apologies and exculpatory remarks, before one can arrive at the gist of the report.’
On another occasion, after enumerating the different charitable and self-improving societies to which Guild members belonged, she said:
‘It almost gives one a headache to read this long list of occupations; and when at the end, hoping for a little breathing space, we come to an “odd minute society,” it puts the finishing touch to the bewildering sensation of restless activity, and one begins to wish for a “Sit-down-in-peace-and-calm-yourself Society.”’
The reports, a matter of obligation to the junior members of the Guild, were often looked over by the President, who would surprise the secretaries by her detailed knowledge of the home surroundings and characters of girls whom she hardly knew by sight. ‘What is so-and-so doing now?’ she would ask, and on being told, would say, ‘She ought to be doing more,’ or ‘less,’ and perhaps make some other criticism. Not less surprising was her memory of former discussions. ‘She never forgot,’ writes Mrs. Griffith, ‘what had been said. Sometimes she began again, continuing the conversation just where we left off, after a three months’ interval.’
The secretaries were also impressed by the way in which the President held herself bound by its smallest rules. Miss Helen Mugliston, who succeeded Mrs. Griffith as General Secretary in 1898, said Miss Beale was ‘perfect to work under. Having given you the task, she gave also her absolute trust and support throughout the whole of it.’
The second meeting of the Guild was held in June 1886, lasting from a Friday evening to the following Tuesday morning. The President’s opening address dealt with work and duty. This year, for the first time, the Guild was also addressed by an outside speaker, the Dean of Gloucester. Mrs. Ashley Smith, in summing up her impressions of the gatherings of this year, rejoiced in the interest the members took in the proceedings. ‘We cannot,’ she added, ‘certainly be accused of a servile unanimity in opinions or in the expression of them; but I hope we are united in underlying principles.’
It was not until two years later that the sense of fellowship was strengthened, and the individual desires to help others directed by the resolve to organise a corporate work, a work in which not only all Guild members might help according to their opportunities, but in which also all old pupils and others connected with the College might be invited to join. This was formally proposed at the Guild meeting of 1888, and an idea as to what shape it might take was thrown out in a paper then read, which told for the first time something of what Miss Beale had done by means of the Loan Fund.
To say that Miss Beale wished the corporate work to be of such a nature as to carry on that which she had long been doing for impecunious students, but feebly expresses what was really an earnest desire and hope. The claim she had upon the Guild, the importance that must attach to her lightest wish, was recognised; and yet,—yet, many felt that there were stronger reasons still why another kind of work should be chosen. Consequently no decision could be made at once, and those who had heard and discussed the paper parted after merely voting that the Guild ‘should undertake some corporate work.’ Among so many workers there were necessarily many ideas; the question was too important to be hastily decided, and it was resolved to give time for suggestions to be made and considered before anything final was done. The Committee appointed to consider these reduced them to three schemes of work, on which all members were asked to vote. These were:—
1. A scheme for educating at College a few pupils who were worthy of education, but unable to pay the fees.
2. A scheme for taking over an elementary school in order to work it through teachers who had been trained in College.
3. The third scheme, which was carried, was submitted to the Guild in these words: ‘That the corporate fund be devoted to starting and supporting a mission in one of our large towns, the place to be decided by the votes of the Guild Members.’
It was but natural that President and members should have different ideas on such an occasion. 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. She had seen the work she wanted the Guild to take up in operation for years, knew that it did not pauperise, that it blessed giver and receiver, and was increasingly fruitful, like good seed in good ground. On the other hand, she had a profound suspicion of much charitable work of the day, thinking that ‘it will quickly perish because it does not aim at developing energy, inward power. To do for others what they ought to do for themselves is to degrade them in the order of creation.’[59] She could far more easily bear to see people suffering from hunger and nakedness than from loss of will power and sense of responsibility. This was partly, perhaps, because she did not know nor in the least realise the miseries and difficulties of extreme poverty.
Miss Beale’s misgivings about the East End work were probably never quite set at rest. Writing to Mrs. Charles Robinson in 1899, she said: ‘I shall perhaps sleep two nights at St. Hilda’s East. I feel the whole question of Settlements most difficult. It was undertaken against my judgment, and yet the guidance all the way seems to point to its being right. Sisters and Deaconesses are much better for this work, yet there are some whom we can enlist who will never join and could not join “Orders.”’
The Guild members who had been trained by their head not always acquiescingly to ‘do the next thing,’ but to think out questions, to plan carefully for the best if hardest, belonged to a new generation and had received another call. They saw how greatly educated women were needed to deal with charity organisation, with labour problems, with the children of the poor in schools and workhouses. Many of them were already at work for these. They felt, too, that they should take their part in helping to rouse others to study and work for the poor. On the other hand, they saw the need for cheap, good girls’ education to be one which was lessening every year. They had never felt it themselves, had had no struggle for training under pressure of adverse circumstances. Finally, they must have known that it was work which Miss Beale would not fail to carry on, meeting every necessity which was brought to her personal notice.
On May 6, 1889, a general meeting of the Guild was held in London to consider further the lines on which the adopted scheme should be carried out. It was decided that the Guild Settlement should be made in London, in the parish of St. John’s, Bethnal Green, described by its vicar, the Rev. G. Bromby, who warmly welcomed the Cheltenham workers, as a ‘typical East End parish of the better sort.’
At this meeting the President introduced the subject by saying:
‘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. I not only accept my defeat, I feel sure that you have sought guidance of that inward oracle which must ever be our supreme ruler, you have done what conscience bade, and so it is right. As regards my own scheme, I only allude to it to say, that having now to continue it single-handed, I cannot help you as much as I could wish, and I just refer to it to-day in the hope that you will remember it when I am no longer here.’
In these few words only did Miss Beale at the time announce her own disappointment and anxiety. There was much more she might have said, which she did in effect say in an early draft of her speech, which she fortunately did not destroy. Here her misgivings show themselves plainly. They were due to her foresight and judgment, yet it is likely that in some ways the untried workers, whom she feared were lightly taking upon themselves responsibilities to which they might prove unequal, really knew more than herself of the scope and details of the actual task before them.
This is what Miss Beale wrote but did not say:—
‘It is no use concealing from you, for I could not, that I am greatly disappointed. But when I have said that, I have done; I accept the defeat. Others whose schemes have equally been rejected are suffering, thinking, perhaps, it is hard they have been met with so little sympathy. If they do not think well to join in this, no one will blame them, I hope, but will believe that they refuse because they ought not to give except as conscience requires, but let them give or spend in the best way they can all they would have bestowed on the Guild scheme of their heart’s choice.
‘This matter has brought before me many things which seem to show that our organisation needs some more distinct ideal. Like some “Topsy,” it could say in its infancy, “’spects I growed!” But when it undertakes to do something on its own account, then questions of power and how much power it should exercise, the questions of law and liberty which need to be faced, and which we shall, I trust, grow stronger and wiser in facing,—these have come before me with painful strength because as your President I had to face them. I was strongly opposed to the London scheme; I felt we were far too young, both in the age of the majority of our members, and also in the age of our organisation, to undertake such a great scheme. I had the strongest dislike to fashions in philanthropy, and especially is it most undesirable to familiarise the young with lives led in the slums of heathen London. Only those whose faith has had years to grow strong seem called to such work.
‘I could not see the Head whom I could trust with its management, and such a centre of work could not be ruled by several equal Heads, or by a committee with almost no experience and but little individual responsibility. The whole thing seemed to me a mistake, and my heart sank as I thought of myself as President over our Guild, working what seemed an impossible scheme. Yet it is one of the first principles of education to let children who are not grounded properly make mistakes and so learn where they fail.’
Much happened to reconcile Miss Beale to the Settlement scheme. Miss Catherine Newman, as her sister had done ten years before in aid of poor students, volunteered to undertake the management of the work gratuitously, and to pay her own expenses. Miss Newman was an old College pupil and a member of the Guild. She was also a trained nurse, with long experience of work among the poor. Miss Newman’s offer and the appeal of her old friend, Mr. Bromby, had weight with Miss Beale. She felt less anxious about the efforts of her ‘children’ if safe-guarded by the experience of those she knew and trusted. Miss Newman could also sympathise with Miss Beale’s own disappointment and anxiety, while she was confident of her large-mindedness in this matter. This may be gathered from a letter she wrote to her in the course of the proceedings at this time:—
‘ ... It is very good of you to set aside your own wishes and to throw yourself into this scheme. I have thought many times since the corporate work was talked about, that the freedom both teachers and old pupils felt in proposing schemes of work spoke volumes for their confidence in your generosity. Several members of the Guild who felt drawn towards the mission scheme said to me, “If I thought Miss Beale would wish me to vote for the Loan Fund because it was her scheme I would do so, but I believe that she would prefer that we should think for ourselves and vote for the scheme which most commends itself to us individually.” This confidence in your generosity and sense of justice struck me greatly; they knew you too well to fear for an instant that you might resent their taking a different line, and I felt sure from all I had ever known or seen of you that their confidence was not misplaced. Had you been able to unfold your scheme to them the result might have been very different, but of course it is too late now. If we were to renounce the idea of the Home for workers in the East-end, the elementary school would certainly take its place, and I am sure that you have realised ere now that it would be unjust both to the workers and the parish in which the Settlement is made to make it a temporary thing. Either it must be the corporate work of the Guild or it must be given up altogether,—at least so it seems to me. We could not expect enthusiasm either to work or support if it might be withdrawn at any moment. As regards your scheme, dear Miss Beale, I am truly sorry that it had not really a fair chance from the accident of its not being ripe yet for publicity. Two years hence might have been soon enough, yet I need not remind you that the “corporate work” was suggested by yourself. I am not afraid to say, however, that your scheme is sure of support and success, and this I trust while your powers are still unimpaired; but if, unfortunately, your strength should oblige you to limit your useful labour before it is fairly launched, I have every confidence that your friends and “children” would look upon it as a sacred legacy, which it would be their pride and pleasure to inherit from you.’
At the very moment that the Cheltenham Settlement was about to be opened in Bethnal Green, the ladies of Oxford were prepared to start one in the same district. For the convenience of both, an arrangement was made by which the two sets of workers could live together for a time, under one head, Miss Newman, until the resources of each, and the work they were called upon to do, were better known. Mayfield House, close to St. John’s Church, was therefore taken and formally opened as a Ladies’ Settlement (at that time the second in London), on October 26, 1889. Four years later, as suddenly as her sister at Jersey House, Miss Newman died at her post. ‘What can one feel,’ wrote a friend to Miss Beale, ‘except that her death seems to seal the whole life with the heroism of service.’
This trouble was the first link in a chain of circumstances which led, in the course of three or four years, to the removal of the Settlement to Shoreditch, where it became an important branch of that work to which Miss Beale gave the title of St. Hilda’s.
Those who had often the advantage of hearing Miss Beale speak, either in general addresses to present or past pupils, or in the more regular course of literature lessons, soon learned that there were certain heroic names which had for her an almost romantic fascination. Among those of great women who influenced her imagination are specially to be remembered St. Hilda, St. Catherine of Siena, la Mère Angélique, Mme. Guyon. Of these the most dominant, the most inspiring was that of the great Northumbrian abbess, known to those whom she taught and ruled by the name of ‘Mother,’ not by virtue of her office, but on account of her signal piety and grace.[60] Hilda, the earnest student who ‘had been diligently instructed by learned men, who so loved order that she immediately began to reduce all things to a regular system.’ Hilda, the patron of the first English religious poet, ‘who obliged those under her to attend much to the reading of the Holy Scriptures; who taught the strict observance of justice and other virtues, particularly of peace and charity.’[61] This great Hilda and her work were to Dorothea Beale not merely romantic names, they were an ideal, an inspiration. And when the due time came, though for the sake of Miss Newman she hesitated for a moment over the alternative title of St. Margaret’s Hall, the name of St. Hilda was the one she chose to grace her own foundations. There are, possibly, members of the Ladies’ College who felt a pang of envy when the Students’ House became St. Hilda’s College. They could have borne to exchange the prim early Victorian title bestowed by the godfathers of 1856 for this more inspiring name. There is, however, consolation in the thought that the Ladies’ College is still free to adopt the name of its second founder.
St. Hilda’s Hall, as it was at first called, was formally opened on November 27, 1886; but its real building was a much longer process, even if dated only from Miss Margaret Newman’s death at the close of 1877. Miss Beale thought much and anxiously how she could best lay out the money which she and her staff and some friends had given in order that Miss Newman’s work might be carried on and enlarged. She advised with a few who cared for education and for the College. Among those who helped and counselled were Miss Soames, who subscribed largely to St. Hilda’s, and Mr. Brancker, some of whose letters on the subject remain. If there seems now to be little that is original in the suggestions and plans discussed by Miss Beale and Mr. Brancker, it is because they were to a great extent pioneers, and among the first to bring about a real system for attaining the educational objects they had at heart. In 1878 Mr. Brancker wrote:—
‘The object you advocate is a very desirable one, and one I have longed for many a time as an adjunct of the Ladies’ College—but while we were struggling upwards I could never see an opportune time to advocate my ideas on the subject. The means you suggest are very undesirable, to my mind at least, as partaking too much of the “charitable object” idea to commend themselves to me.
‘So necessary do I consider the future training of those who in their turns have to teach that for the present I should be inclined to treat every case on its own merits; as there may be many who may be anxious to get their education on such easy terms and yet have not the very least idea of imparting that knowledge to others, and in such cases the object you seek is not attained.
‘My idea, which is perhaps a crude one, would be that the capabilities of each pupil as regards teaching should be tested, and if she showed suitable powers she should be drafted into one of the boarding-houses, or if thought better into a separate house; that the fees of the College in her case be remitted, and that the expense of her board be paid all or in part by the College. That for this she should engage to become a regular teacher; that the College should have the first claim on her services, and that she should pass all the necessary examinations appointed by the College. If in a boarding-house she might assist in keeping order and authority, not as a governess but as an elder pupil,—not as a spy but by moral power, keep her position, something like a præpostor in a public school; a great deal of evil might then be prevented by being nipped in the bud. Should she eventually wish to take a College degree she should be assisted by the College if she remained with them or under their control. My great object would be to get ladies to accept such a position, as there must be many who would come within the rules of the College as to position who would be very glad to have such a vocation in prospect, and the College ought to be in a position now, unless the funds have been unnecessarily squandered, to afford to assist such cases in the hope that in the future they would help it.
‘Such are my rough ideas on the subject, as I do not believe in the isolation of those who want a practical knowledge of human nature to enable them to become teachers worth their salt.’
In a second letter on the same subject Mr. Brancker said:—
‘I quite understand what you feel about this matter relating to the governess of the future, and it was only my fear that you might be unwittingly getting into troubled waters that induced me to write you at once about it. It is a very difficult question to solve, and one that wants a good deal more thought so that no mistake may be made. My plan is to take up the idea of a “pupil teacher” in Government Schools, and from that form some plan for the education of those who aspire to be the teachers of the future. I should then carry out the idea I have always entertained of giving a preference to our own pupils, and working them up to our standard. I have always regretted that we missed Bessie Calrow, as she was a born teacher and would have delighted in the work. It seems to me that as you do not take these pupils until they are seventeen, you have a great chance among your own pupils, and would certainly know their own character better than any stranger; therefore, to any one who had passed through the College—could pass the necessary examination, and was willing to be such pupil teacher—I would pay the College fees and half the boarding-house expenses, or all if you like, and would give her a fair trial, and if at the end of twelve months, or longer as might be thought desirable, it was not satisfactory to all parties, let her depart and no harm would be done. This is a far better and more dignified position than being educated by charity; and the person enjoying it would lose nothing of her dignity, if it was not even added to by the position. If the plan is to do any good it must be grafted on to the College, and I for one should be very sorry to see that obliged to go to the public for any funds it requires to do good. I would make the pupils sign nothing on my plan, my hold upon them would be their association with the College. I can quite understand the difficulties raised by the boarding-houses about new pupils at that age, but with old ones that difficulty is at once removed; as, like the præpostors, they would have certain privileges, but at the same time they must submit to the discipline of the house. My plan may be, and no doubt is very crude, but these are the lines I should start from and feel my way tentatively, so as not to destroy the independence of the individual. Look where you get the best masters of public schools:—The man who succeeds is a scholar and very likely Fellow of his College; he may have been Bible-clerk, sizar, or undergraduate, and so has worked his way upwards and obtained his position from hard work, thus adding to his dignity and power of teaching. And I should follow as much as possible in these tracks.’
Eventually the ideas expressed in these letters were carried out in the arrangement of St. Hilda’s, which became not only a home for pupils who could not afford the normal boarding fees, but also a residence for senior students who needed more liberty than they could have in the other houses. By this means the house was put on a self-supporting basis. Miss Beale could have borne with no other. The Loan Fund, up to this time, had been the means of assisting over a hundred students. Miss Beale now asked a few personal friends to support it, pointing out that such a means of help was far better than any system of scholarships, which she never ceased to dislike, and against which she continually spoke and wrote. Her chief objections to scholarships have been already noted.[62] She was moreover opposed to the principle of material giving involved in the system. She only cared, at any time, to give what would embrace and ennoble character. She thought it best that people should pay for advantages received, thought they would value them more, thought it made girls more careful and self-denying when first the management of money came into their own hands, to feel that it was not their own to do as they pleased with. A mere gift seemed to her like a dead thing compared with the money which, lent and returned and then lent to others, was thus used over and over again. Yet the want of response to appeals for the Loan Fund must have been partly due to a difference of opinion on its method rather than to want of sympathy with Miss Beale’s aims. There are many who feel an objection to saddling with a loan a young teacher starting on her work, or who recognise that an unpaid loan may help to lower the standard in money affairs, and on that account shrink from giving help in this way. There are few indeed who could lend money so successfully as Miss Beale could, because there are few who could so successfully command repayment. Of the first £500 advanced by the Loan Fund, £495 was repaid in a very few years. The pressure she would exercise for repayment sometimes led to the wrong notion that she cared for money for its own sake. She had at all times great skill in wringing the utmost use out of a sum of money to promote those ends for which she lived; but in the ordinary commonplace sense she was indifferent to money and the things for which it is usually exchanged. Her own personal life was as bare of luxury when she was a rich woman as it was when her capital was reckoned in hundreds only. But she did care deeply for character, and anxiously avoided all forms of easy generosity which might injure those she sought to help.
For several years before a turf was cut for St. Hilda’s College, Miss Beale was, as she would herself have expressed it, building it: student teachers were being trained in the College, and in 1881 one of these passed the Cambridge Examination in the Theory and Practice of Education. Gradually she gathered an increasing body of students in a separate house—a house which was as unlike as any could possibly be to the beautiful home which was shortly to be opened. She waited year after year for money with which to build without interrupting the work she had begun in assisted education, and for the reasons named made no public appeal for it. It was enough, she maintained, to state the real needs—to show the value of a work by the way it was done—and thus let it make its own appeal for support. She had a horror of plant which might be a mere empty shell, or which in its establishment might become a diversion of energy from spiritual work. She felt this especially in the matter of church building, as may be seen in the following extract from a letter: ‘What I disapproved of was the amount of begging for the Cathedral. I do not disapprove of it, but I think you know what I felt. However, the Bishop will do all he can to make it a strong spiritual centre. I can never get over the feeling of spiritual destitution at one very beautiful cathedral.’ It was also, perhaps less consciously, a principle not to take money except from those who were willing for her to carry out her own ideas. She wrote to one friend in 1888:—
‘As regards our Students’ Home, I have given up the idea of a public meeting. It seemed not right to refuse the offer at first. But I shall go on with the work, and I doubt not the money will come. There is such a great need for training teachers. If we had a meeting things might be said and money be given in a way which would pledge us, or be thought to pledge us, and now we shall be free.’
And again in 1884 to one who helped her Oxford scheme:—
‘I grieve over that Protestant spirit which forbids people to read books, to associate with people, who do not think precisely in their way. Is this done in Science? No; we put various theories before the student and show why we accept them. But we don’t ever want to impose our beliefs; so I want not to impose mine in religion, but to bring the learner to the “fountain of living water.” Any transferred opinion is without root, and cannot endure the storm. Teachers must, if they are to help, gain the sympathy they need by entering into the religious modes of seeing and feeling of many different souls. I think in a University town they would come in contact with various influences, and in a house like St. Hilda’s I should want thoughtful people who have gone through some of the experience of life,—old teachers to help the young. There is a little more of my dream, but I am quite content to wait. If it be God’s will that such a house should grow up, the way will be pointed out. I felt I could not say all this to you when we meet, and I have got to care that you should not misunderstand me.’
As the time to begin the actual erection of the house drew near she had no exultation over the fulfilment of a dream. Yet in the beginning of August 1885, surrounded by young teachers from her own and other schools drawn together for a Retreat and a brief educational conference, her mind was naturally full of that dream. Some few of her own thoughts about it she wrote down; such as the following, with their characteristic heading:—
‘Sunday, Aug. 2, 1885—on St. Hilda’s. Some thoughts at church.
‘God fulfils Himself in many ways. Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
‘How often have we seen endowments thus rendered injurious, not helpful. So it is with many of the institutions around us. Can we hope better things from this one? No, we can only hope for it not a perfection but a temporary usefulness. “He, after he had served his generation according to the will of God, fell on sleep”;—so it is with men, so with institutions, they need not a body but a spirit. As long as the spirit lives the body is the instrument of all good works. When the spirit dies, the body becomes the source of disease and corruption. For this reason I have cared more to awaken the spirit than to gather funds and build first. The spirit will, I hope, shape the body.
‘Now what we want is a body of women whose one desire is to consecrate themselves to the ministry of teaching.
‘“Get work in this world.
‘Be sure ’tis better than what you work to get.”
‘Ye are the salt of the earth,—light of the world, said the Lord to the teachers He sent forth.’
The first stone of St. Hilda’s College was quietly laid by Canon Medd (one of the trustees and a member of the Ladies’ College Council) in 1884. The opening, which took place on November 27, 1885, was far more dignified than that its illustrious parent had known in 1856.
‘The ceremony of opening the institution,’ so ran the account in the Cheltenham Examiner, ‘which was performed by the Bishop of the diocese, took place at three o’clock, and was attended by a large and influential company, who assembled in the study, a spacious—but on this occasion none too spacious—apartment on the ground floor.’ Among those present were the Dean of Winchester,[63] then Chairman of the College Council, who conducted the short service, the late Bishop of Ely, and many of the clergy of the town, besides the friends and benefactors of St. Hilda’s. On entering the study the eye was caught at once by the words which Miss Beale quoted so often that they seemed like the motto of her work: ‘Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up.’ Here, in this ‘Godly Place,’ as he called the house, the Bishop of Gloucester, who since 1875 had been both nominally and actually Visitor of the Ladies’ College, gave an address full of sympathy for the ideals of the founder.
Thus the first resident Training College for teachers, other than elementary, was planned, and built, and opened. In order to make its position more permanent it was constituted into a separate College with a Council of its own. In 1886 a statue of St. Hilda was presented and placed in the hall. On unveiling it, Miss Beale spoke of the Saint’s life, and especially of her work as a teacher. She concluded with a thought, the deeper for the personal touch in it, of memory of what she had had to bear in the past, and indeed in later years also, of misconception and misrepresentation.