No knight of olden times who rode forth against the evils of his day needed greater courage than this woman who set out to destroy the evils of prejudice, custom, and ignorance. I have spoken sometimes with her “old girls,” who were with her in the early days, and were among the first to enter on paths untrodden by women’s feet. They were like men who seek a new land; no sacrifice seemed too great; no toil seemed too hard. Following their dauntless leader they knew themselves to be the vanguard of a great army of women infinite in number and of unknown power.
CHAPTER VI.
ON EDUCATION.
“Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed.”—Tennyson, “The Princess”.
In order to understand Dorothea Beale’s work and that of her many contemporaries who were working towards the same end, it is necessary to know something of the depths to which girls’ education had sunk in that day. All readers of Ruskin’s “Sesame and Lilies” are familiar with his bitter invective against the attitude of parents towards this important question, and his passionate appeal for reform. And Ruskin was only one of the many men who realised the pity of the paltry and superficial education that girls received, and the extent to which the whole world suffered on this account. So strong had public feeling become among the better educated on this burning question that, in the year 1864, a Schools’ Inquiry Commission was instituted; and as far as possible a thorough investigation was made of the subject. Reports on Girls’ Schools were given by Mr. Fitch, Mr. Bryce, and others.
To all interested in education the Blue Book is an extremely interesting document. The evidence and reports are based on what was seen and known, and present a terrible indictment of the then condition of girls’ schools.
“Although,” says Mr. Bryce, “the world has now existed for several thousand years, the notion that women have minds as cultivable and worth cultivating as men’s minds is still regarded by the ordinary British parent as an offensive, not to say a revolutionary, paradox.”
Dorothea Beale’s report, the one with which we are most concerned here, is very comprehensive, and gives not only her theories of education but also an account of the methods employed in her school. The questions asked give a good idea of the many questions that disturbed the minds of thoughtful people of that day; the anxiety lest higher education should injure the health of girls; the fear of the over-stimulating effects of examinations, of the publicity of examination results and of the possible effects on girls’ natural reserve and modesty.
In her reply to the various questions asked, Dorothea Beale gave a good deal of information about her own school and the condition of education it revealed. The Entrance Examination at Cheltenham showed as a rule deplorable results. Frequently girls came from expensive schools incapable of writing, spelling, or composing in their own language, almost ignorant of French grammar and scarcely able to work correctly the simplest sums in arithmetic.
“I think the remedy for bad work,” said she, “is to bring such work to the light. I think it is because it has all been carried on in darkness, because the parents are not able to distinguish between good and bad, and nobody knows that things have reached such a state.”
She then went into some particulars about the work at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, hours of work, the rule by personal influence rather than by punishments, the law of silence and her approval of examinations as leading to more thorough work. She also went into the reasons why she considered that women were better educators of girls than men, and ceteris paribus were quite equal to them as teachers. The education of boys at that time she considered to be rather unsatisfactory, and too limited in scope. She did not believe that boys and girls should be taught on absolutely different lines, as that would undoubtedly hinder friendship and camaraderie in marriage as well as in ordinary social intercourse.