Henceforth the management was vested in members of the college, with a Council elected from the number and a President, to be called the Visitor. This office has been held successively by Erasmus Darwin, Mark Pattison, and Miss Anna Swanwick.
Bedford, like Queen’s, was happy in its founders, but to none does it owe more than to Miss Bostock. After Mrs. Reid’s death she took over the care of the college as a sacred trust, devoting to it the greater part of her time, and helping it with money and good counsel. Happily she lived to see the fruit of her labours, and to know that Bedford College had won an assured position through its connection with the London University.
Its beginnings, like that of most women’s institutions, had to be tentative. The first lectures probably had a more popular character than those now given; and since they aimed rather at general culture than a systematic course of study, Literature, History, and Language would draw the largest audiences. But from the very first Latin, Science, and Mathematics were taught, and the college remembers with due pride that George Eliot was a member of its earliest Latin class. At any rate the promoters were quite sure of their aims. The daring words, ‘a liberal education for women,’ had been uttered without extenuation or apology. But in those days Bedford College stood alone, with no academic body to test its work and direct its curriculum. Nor was public opinion yet fully ripe for a real University education for women. Bedford had to wait another ten years before the opening of the London degrees came to fix its position and define its studies. They were not wasted years. The college was giving numbers of intelligent and eager girls their first insight into real knowledge, and teaching them to be dissatisfied with narrow, cramping instruction. Many of them have gone out into the world to hand on the impulse and inspiration gained here, and help to influence that public opinion which alone has made admission to the Universities possible. In 1874 the college was helped by a move to better premises. When in 1879 London opened its degrees to women, the opportunity of Bedford had come, and it was ready to use it. From this date onward its history belongs to that of Women’s University Education.
These two earliest colleges may be regarded as not only pioneers but also parent institutions. They drew within the sphere of their influence many of those women who were to train up the next generation. Among the earliest pupils of the Queen’s College evening classes was Miss Buss, who was already teaching in her mother’s private school, and was destined to found the first public school for girls. She was one of the first to win the governess diploma. Another was Miss Dorothea Beale, so well known for her work at Cheltenham. She remained at Queen’s from 1849 to 1856, first teaching Mathematics, then Latin, and afterwards in charge of the school. In 1858 she became Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, which had already been at work for five years.
The Cheltenham College differed in its original idea from Queen’s and Bedford. Both these had been founded with the purpose of giving women such advanced education as they were at that time capable of receiving, and had gradually been compelled by the exigencies of the case to provide for girls as well. Cheltenham, though called a college in imitation of the boys’ college in that town and some other public schools, really aimed in the first instance at providing for girls similar educational advantages to those which their brothers enjoyed in the same town. As King’s College had suggested Queen’s, the boys’ college at Cheltenham suggested the girls’. Twelve years elapsed between the foundation of the two; and Queen’s and Bedford were already pointing the way when a small committee of enthusiasts met at the house of Mr. Bellairs, one of H.M. Inspectors, and drew up a prospectus, inviting the public to take shares in the new undertaking. A day-school was all that was at first contemplated, and the subjects to be taught there were described as Holy Scripture and the Liturgy, history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, French, music, drawing, needlework. German, Italian, and dancing to be extras. The proposal found favour. Shares to the amount of about £2000 were taken up, a house hired, and the new venture started with good auspices, 88 pupils entering the first term, and the numbers soon going up to 120. It is not quite easy to understand why this prosperous beginning was not followed up. After a while the numbers went down, and the college seemed to be losing favour. Probably it was ahead of local public opinion, not yet abreast of North London, where Miss Buss was already successfully at work. The first years were times of struggle, and even the appointment of Miss Beale in 1858 did not at once turn the scale. After forty years of successful work in the college, Miss Beale can enjoy the pleasure of contrasting then and now. Some of her reminiscences throw a curious light on public opinion in the early fifties. The curriculum, unpretentious as it seems, proved too advanced. Parents objected to the thoroughness of the teaching, and the time given to arithmetic and similar subjects. Some disliked the annual examination, which was held to be unfeminine, and the difficulty of obtaining good teachers was almost insuperable. In regard to these Miss Beale suffered through being ahead of her times. She desired especially two things: that the teachers should be women, for, to quote her own words, ‘we think it essential to the right moral training of girls that the whole internal discipline and much of the moral training should be in the hands of ladies’; and that they should be to some extent specialists, the only way to abolish the textbook cram and unintelligent memory work then in vogue in girls’ schools. How she set out again and again to seek for teachers, and how many a time she was disappointed, she has herself recorded in her history of the college. Her efforts show how hard it was to found a school before the reformation of the higher education had given the necessary impetus from above. It was a case of making bricks without straw.
Perhaps the practical difficulties in the way of finance were really the most hampering, for the founders had too little experience of these matters; and a Mr. Brancker, who as treasurer, by readjusting the whole system of fees, put the College on a sound financial basis, may almost count as its second founder.
In 1863, five years after Miss Beale took office, some Oxford examiners were invited to inspect and report on the school. This was a new departure; it meant an acknowledgment of the connection which should exist between girls’ schools and the Universities. A small thing in itself, but typical of the many changes that the next five-and-twenty years were to bring.
From this time onward the College was brought into close connection with every educational reform in England; and its history, like that of the North London Collegiate, presents in miniature the various changes of this busy quarter of a century. In 1863 an informal examination was held for girls in the papers of the Cambridge Local Examination. This was the beginning of a new departure, and from that time forth preparation for one or other of the local University examinations formed part of the work of both schools. In 1866, Miss Beale and Miss Buss were called upon to give evidence before the Royal Commission, and the plan of these two schools was thus brought before the notice of the general public. The interest that resulted in all questions concerning the education of girls reacted on these first schools. For Miss Buss it won an endowment, for Cheltenham that recognition which means success. It became possible to raise the standard and enlarge the curriculum. Mathematics, Science, Latin and Greek, were added to the prospectus. Applications from pupils outside the town necessitated the opening of a boarding-house in 1864. The College was fast outgrowing its first home; then came a fresh obstacle to overcome. Building had become essential, but prejudice stood in the way. Although good premises and beautiful surroundings have long been regarded as essential for boys’ schools and colleges and a really important factor in the training given there, the prejudice that any makeshift was good enough for girls has died hard, if indeed it can even now be called dead. Miss Beale naturally desired to see the now flourishing College in adequate and beautiful buildings. This seemed to some of the governors too daring a departure. However, after many struggles and defeats, the party of progress carried the day. The new premises, the nucleus of the present beautiful College buildings, were opened in 1873. Of course they had the effect of attracting additional numbers; and when three years later, further extension became necessary, it appeared that the College had not merely outgrown its premises, but also its constitution. The time had come to put it on a more lasting basis. At a meeting of shareholders it was decided to renounce all claim on a profit, and accept instead a right of nomination on each share, as is done at several boys’ proprietary schools. The whole income became available for the payment of teachers, the maintenance and improvement of the buildings, school furniture and apparatus. The government was placed in the hands of a council of twenty-four persons, six being representative members chosen by the Bishop of the Diocese, the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, the Lady Principal and the staff of teachers, while the remaining eighteen were elected by the shareholders. The inclusion of women on this body has proved specially beneficial to the College.
By this time there were 500 girls in the school, and ten licensed boarding-houses. Many internal changes had taken place, corresponding to the changes in the world without. The Cambridge Local Examinations had proved helpful in the early days, and the establishment in 1868 of the Cambridge Higher Local supplied a definite aim for the work of the senior classes. It has always been popular at Cheltenham, and over 500 girls have passed it from the College. Another impetus was given to work by the institution of the special women’s examination of the University of London; during the nine years of its existence, one-third of the successful candidates came from Cheltenham. But it was the formal opening of the London degrees that led to the present complete organisation of the College with its system of departments, leading respectively to the Oxford Senior, Cambridge Higher, and London University Examinations. By this time Girton, Newnham, and other women’s colleges had come into existence. Cheltenham could send its pupils to continue their studies at the older Universities, and the specialist teachers, for whom Miss Beale had sighed in vain in the early days, were now forthcoming. Fashion too was beginning to smile on those more serious studies which the College had so long pursued in the face of prejudice. The time of struggle was over. Cheltenham was no longer in advance of the tide, but moving harmoniously with it, giving help and receiving it.
Cheltenham College, as it now exists, has certain peculiarities which distinguish it from most of the girls’ schools of the present day. Firstly, it does not receive all comers, but is distinctly intended for the ‘daughters of gentlemen,’ and references in regard to social standing are required before admission. Secondly, it combines the functions of a day and boarding-school, by a system of boarding-houses which belong to the Council, and are under the general control and supervision of the Principal. Thirdly, it is not one large school, but a system of departments under separate heads, all under the direction of the Principal. Division I. is under Miss Beale herself. The work is directed towards: (1) the London Degrees; (2) the Cambridge Higher Local; (3) the Oxford Senior and Higher Local Examinations. This division is the College proper, and is organised to some extent on college lines. Division II. has about 200 pupils between twelve and sixteen. Division III., the juvenile department, has about 70 pupils between seven and twelve. Below this comes the Kindergarten. By-students may attend single courses of lectures as at Queen’s and Bedford.