Union for the general good—a single purpose in Principal, Council, shareholders alike—this alone could prevent all serious and hindering differences of opinion among them. It was for this union Miss Beale was specially striving now. Her paper to the Council went on thus:— ‘ ... I should like this and other matters fixed, not in reference to my personal wishes, but according to what the most experienced persons think best. I shall see the Heads of all the principal Girls’ Schools probably when I am in London, and probably also an Endowed Schools’ Committee, and I shall learn from Mrs. William Grey what has been done at the Board of the Girls’ Day School Company; perhaps this may modify my views. Meanwhile I enclose a few suggestions I sent to Mr. Verrall.... I feel very strongly with you that if the College is at all to go on doing good work, it must not be governed by local members, and that it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should have upon our Board men of experience and judgment in educational matters. I would not keep more than two or three members of the present Council. It should be made a rule that no person who derives pecuniary profit, either directly or indirectly, should be a member of it. The point on which I feel most strongly just now is that the Principal must be able to select her fellow-workers, to appoint and dismiss.’ There is also an interesting letter to Mr. Verrall on the subject of her authority:— ‘Of course, you are more likely than I am to know what is best in matters of government, still I think it may be well to express, as clearly as I can, what I feel in reference to the subject of my authority. ‘It does not seem to me as if things would be likely to go on long without revolutions in an institution governed by two irresponsible powers. The authority of an irresponsible Principal must of course be checked in _some way_, if not by constitutional means, then by a Russian system. It may be that the Czarina has been trying to carry out some good reforms, but if her plans differ from those of the Councillors, there is an end of them. Our present Councillors are now afraid of being in their turn made an end of by a shareholders’ meeting, but if the constitution, as I understood it, were carried, the shareholders would be powerless, and the Council might, for mere personal dislike, get rid of a Principal who opposed what was wrong. Of course, it will not do for a Committee to interfere with the Principal’s choice of teachers, and there will be anarchy unless she has the power of dismissal; but virtually there will always be a power of appeal to the Committee inasmuch as they _would_, if partisans of any official, dismiss the Principal to reinstate her.’