Beale, Dorothea, 1831-1906; Cheltenham Ladies' College -- History; Teachers -- England -- Biography
secretary, died in July 1899.
As the permanence of the Settlement became assured, and the interest
of both past and present pupils increased, being augmented by the
organisation of shares, and by the formation of St. Hilda’s Association,
Miss Beale’s own interest in the work grew. She regarded St. Hilda’s East
less as a centre of help for the poor than as a place of training for
workers. In this aspect it appealed to her as rightly an integral part of
the work of the College. In the year 1898, which she said might be called
for the College an _annus mirabilis_, she was able to point to the three
institutions bearing the name of St. Hilda, each firmly established,
flourishing, and full of promise of future usefulness.
‘This year St. Hilda’s, enlarged from six to sixty students, is
full and free from debt.
‘This year the link with the University of Oxford, so early
formed, has been made permanent by St. Hilda’s, Oxford,
becoming a Hall of the University.
‘Above all, this year St. Hilda’s East has been built by the
spontaneous co-operation of past and present girls, and this
has specially cheered us, that those who have left us for other
spheres, the Heads of other great Schools, still stretch out
their hands to us, work with us in the Guild and the Mission,
and the old ties are not broken.’
But the three great institutions bearing the name of St. Hilda by no
means included all that thought-training work which was what Miss Beale
specially associated with it.
The existence of St. Hilda’s College at Cheltenham made it convenient,
if not imperative, to find exercise for the energy there inspired and
directed, and to supply classes for practice. To keep this stream of
energy within her own guidance for a longer period than the time of
training involved, it was necessary to have scope for it at hand. Even
the great and growing College was not large enough to employ all the
workers it trained, and the Principal was ever alive to the necessity
of having a certain number of teachers from outside, bringing with them
fresh ideas and methods.
The Kindergarten was the first addition to the Ladies’ College proper
to need such young helpers as Miss Beale now had at her disposal. It
began, like Miss Beale’s other creations, without a local habitation of
its own in 1876. The College, owing to the quick perception of its Lady
Principal, who was sensitive to each fresh tendency in education, was
one of the first schools in England to avail itself of the Kindergarten
mistresses trained by Madame Michaelis, who began her work in her own
house at Croydon as early as 1874.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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