“Miss Beale never learned to play,” said Mrs. Raikes in a speech on Foundress’ Day at the College after the beloved Principal had passed away. “During her girlhood there was no hockey, tennis, net-ball, swimming or other healthy exercise for girls; and Dorothea and her sisters were thrown back for their pleasure on the joys of the mind. Not only did Dorothea Beale never play herself, but she could never quite see the need for other people to play. The playgrounds, etc., which perforce grew up round Cheltenham Ladies’ College, were always rather a stumbling-block to her, though she was wise enough to be led by those who were more in touch in this respect with the spirit of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. “Her reading always inclined to the solid type, and in her girlhood she came across few novels. “Her love of reading was never allowed to dissipate itself on trivialities, and here she had a great advantage over girls of to-day, for the ephemeral literature of this age--the endless magazines and short stories--did not exist to tempt and gradually to fritter away a good literary taste.” She was at this time very much interested in the life of Pascal who, prevented by his father from acquiring a knowledge of mathematics, discovered for himself the truths of Euclid. Perhaps, as Mrs. Raikes suggests, it was Pascal’s example which inspired her to work through the first six books of Euclid by herself. She plodded steadily through the fifth book, not knowing that even at that time a few simple algebraic principles were substituted for Euclid’s rather laborious methods. To Dorothea Beale, as to many boys and girls, mathematics came as a wonderful revelation; they opened up to her developing mind a new world. In her subsequent work as a teacher she seems to have been able to hand on to her pupils something of the thrill and wonder that she herself experienced in these early days. In the year 1847 Dorothea was sent with two elder sisters to a Mrs. Bray’s school for English girls in the Champs Elysées. This school is perhaps best described in Miss Beale’s own words in the “History of Cheltenham Ladies’ College”. “I was myself for a few months, in 1848, pupil in a school that was considered grand and expensive. Mrs. Trimmer’s was the English History used in the highest classes. We were taught to perform conjuring tricks with the globe by which we obtained answers to problems without one principle being made intelligible. We were even compelled to learn from Lindley Murray lists of prepositions that we might be saved the trouble of thinking.” She was glad, however, in later life of this and similar experiences. It gave her some idea of the enemies of education she had to fight. It made her realise how great was the need for the thorough training and education of teachers and how little could be accomplished without it.