Beale, Dorothea, 1831-1906; Cheltenham Ladies' College -- History; Teachers -- England -- Biography
The summer holidays were again spent at Oeynhausen. She wrote in the
course of them that she was deriving benefit from the treatment, but
certainly it was far less effective than before. Nor did she give herself
a chance of throwing off the cares of work. In the ordinary sense of the
word, indeed, Miss Beale could never rest, and though physically less
strong her brain seemed inexhaustibly active. She corrected the Magazine
proofs, engaged new teachers, and wrote many letters to the College
secretary, going as usual into all kinds of details about arrangements
for new pupils. Nor did she even rest from study. She wrote to Cheltenham
for a table of German genders; while from Mr. Worsley she asked the
Scripture examination papers, which he had as usual undertaken. Her
letter shows this continued activity of mind:—
‘_September 12, 1906._
‘Thanks for your note. I think I should like to have all the
papers; we can better show the girls where they have failed to
enter into the full meaning. I looked at mine, and thought they
had kept to very outside things.
‘Have you seen Montague Owen’s record of the Sewell family?
It is privately printed, but I can lend you my copy. They
certainly were a wonderful and original people. Now Elizabeth
is gone at the age of ninety-one. You were, I think, at Radley.
‘We re-open next week with one hundred and fifty new pupils to
fill our vacancies.’
She was glad to get back to Cheltenham, but those who knew her best saw
that it was only by a stern effort of will that she nerved herself to
begin her work in the ordinary way. They began to hope that she might not
much longer be called upon to make what was visibly a tremendous effort.
Nothing was left undone.
School began on September 22. Miss Beale, as usual on the first day of
term, gave a short address after prayers to the assembled teachers and
children. She spoke, as often before, of the parable of the Talents, but
mainly of the joy of the Lord—the joy and reward of being fellow-workers
with God. Strangely fitting did her words afterwards seem for the last
time she addressed the College as a body.
In the month which followed only a few saw signs of the weakness and
illness which had really begun. She had undertaken the usual courses of
lectures, and missed none. The College numbers were very large, the life
as full and vigorous as ever. There was even a new department started for
the first time that term, in the arrangement—the revolution of Time’s
wheel having been made—of courses of lessons in cookery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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