On the occasion of the opening, after the little service conducted by the Dean of Winchester, the Bishop of Oxford spoke a few ‘grave and weighty words’ on the duty of ‘self-culture of the whole mind, soul, and spirit.’ The Dean, who thanked him for his address, said that ‘the new venture of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College was by no means so ambitious as the Bishop seemed to think.’ He spoke of the way in which it might prepare women to be of real service in their generation, and added: ‘One cannot think of this opening day for the Oxford St. Hilda’s without strong emotions of gratitude and hope. This is the crown and highest result of all that work for women’s education which has been carried on under Miss Beale’s wise rule at Cheltenham these many years past; the College, with its varieties of activity, and its eight hundred students, justly claims to be represented here in the home of highest education.’ [Illustration: _Photo. W. H. Rogers_ _S. Hilda’s Hall, Oxford._] Among the friends gathered for this opening ceremony was the founder of the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham, Canon Bellairs. He welcomed this house in Oxford, though he would have named it differently. ‘I am very glad to hear,’ he had written a month before, ‘that you are starting what will no doubt become a veritable College. You should christen it at once. St. Clare would be appropriate. She founded an Order, and your College will be the foundation of an order. I do hope the G. W. R. will alter its time-table to suit your convenience. It would do so if it had as high an opinion of your excellence as the Father of your College, and your Pupils and all that know you have. Fancy, thirty-five years since we first met! What a period for evolution.... I should like very much to have a chat with you to see where you are now.’ After five years, St. Hilda’s, Oxford, was recognised by the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford as St. Hilda’s Hall. Miss Beale finally, in 1900, connected it with St. Hilda’s, Cheltenham, by presenting it to the Association of that College. That Miss Beale was fully alive to changes that must come in the course of time to such an institution as St. Hilda’s Hall, and could be content to see her own personal wishes set aside in everything that did not affect the essential life of the place, is clear from the following letter to Mrs. Wells in January 1903:—