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.’