As early as the year 1882 Miss Beale, attracted by the increasing facilities offered to women by the elder universities, had purchased three acres of land in north Oxford. These she retained for building uses should the right moment or a definite reason for such a purpose occur. But no one showed much sympathy with the scheme, there was no offer of money, and for long much of her own capital was absorbed in St. Hilda’s, Cheltenham. Impulsive to a fault as she often was, Miss Beale could school herself to wait. After five years came an opportunity of purchasing a ready-made college in Dr. Child’s beautiful house on the Cherwell. It seemed well to accept this, and begin there the new house of education. There were many reasons why Miss Beale allowed so long a time to elapse between her purpose and her act. Her own ideas and her aims for her Hall at Oxford shaped themselves but gradually. Somerville College[64] and Lady Margaret Hall were still in their first youth. Miss Beale’s scheme seemed uncalled for where there were already so many workers for the cause of women’s education in the field. Her educational experience had been different from that of those whose minds had developed among university surroundings; her methods were unacademic, unconventional. Consequently there were some to warn her as she prepared to take her new step: ‘The University may easily receive a shock from which it will take long to recover.’ It may well be asked even now, as it was often asked at the time, why Miss Beale wanted to come to Oxford at all, and particularly while she was uncertain of the value of University Examinations for women. But she valued even more than the certificate gained by taking schools the atmosphere of Oxford. She saw that the students of St. Hilda’s, Cheltenham, missed this. When she founded that institution she had written of it, that she hoped it ‘would be a Hall similar to the Halls at Oxford and Cambridge.’ Now she felt the need of what only the older universities could give. She hoped her new house might become a place of intellectual enlargement and refreshment such as Oxford could best supply to some who had already begun their work of teaching, and who needed new thoughts and inspiration, more time for thought, a higher intellectual standard. She thought that a year at Oxford could supply that feature in education which is sometimes more developed at home.