‘by withdrawing pupils from the school, compelling them without my consent and contrary to the wishes of their parents to attend College classes, although they are unable to spell correctly and are ignorant of the first principles of grammar; classes in which you know it is impossible to give that individual attention required by children of twelve, who, owing to the rank from which so many of our pupils are now derived, are singularly deficient in mental training, and require to be obliged in extra time to do work given them; to be trained, watched, educated by ladies (who alone can understand, and therefore truly educate) girls. My pupils in the school are not removed by competent professors who understand the subjects there taught. The instruction which is in itself good, and if given four or five years later would be beneficial, has been rendered useless.’ On learning Miss Beale’s reasons for leaving, and that her decision was irrevocable, Mr. Plumptre wrote: ‘I wish to state at once that I believe most thoroughly that what you have done has been done conscientiously because it seemed to you—painful as it was—to be in the line of duty.’ But before this letter reached her, Dorothea had accepted another post, that of head-teacher in the Clergy Daughters’ School at Casterton. CHAPTER III CASTERTON ‘O lift your natures up: Embrace our aims.’ TENNYSON, _The Princess_, ii. ‘It was a year full of great suffering mingled with a peace which the world cannot give.... I look on this as one of the most profitable years of my life, but I could not long have borne the strain of work and anxiety.’