Training colleges for elementary school teachers were established before there was anything of the kind for the teachers of better class children, and it was the head of the Battersea Training College who examined the candidates and awarded the diplomas for knowledge of methods of teaching. At Queen’s College Dorothea Beale began to show signs of where her power as a teacher would lie. Throughout life it was one of her leading ideas that a teacher should be primarily an inspirer of her pupils: that though she should never cease to prepare her work with the greatest care, her aim should be chiefly to kindle the enthusiasm that would make her pupils eager to learn for themselves. Even at this early age she seems to have possessed this faculty, and long after she left Queen’s College, she occasionally received letters from her former pupils, saying how much her teaching had meant to them. Her time there, however, was not to be long. There arose difficulties which she felt could not be tolerated. These were, briefly, that one particular person had too much authority, while the women visitors had too little, and what they had was gradually diminishing. This led to many evils, notably the promotion of children into the upper section, or college, from the lower section, or school, long before they were able to derive any benefit from advanced tuition. Dorothea Beale returned from a summer holiday abroad in 1856 to find these difficulties worse than ever. She and a friend thereupon sent in their resignations, hoping to be able to avoid giving any explanation. Dr. Plumptre, the Head, was, however, extremely anxious for her to reveal the reason for her withdrawal, which she did very reluctantly. After hearing her reasons for leaving, he acknowledged that she was acting in accordance with her conscience and was trying to do what she held to be her duty. Dorothea Beale throughout her life seems to have had to fight against an impetuosity of nature which was in curious opposition to that greatness of mind that enabled her to wait for the carrying out of any great project. Her action in this connection was characteristically impetuous, for before the correspondence was concluded, she had accepted the post of Head Teacher at Casterton School. Already we find that she had formulated some of the educational theories she held through life. One of these, which she mentioned in her letter to Dr. Plumptre, was that girls can be thoroughly educated only by women: that though some classes may be taken profitably by men, the education of girls as a whole must be in the hands of their own sex. She showed also her appreciation of the need for thorough groundwork, without which no advanced work can be well done. Though her action in this matter was characteristically impetuous, and that of a young idealist, it revealed that strong sense of duty which would not allow her to shrink from any painful experience, if the doing of right was involved.