CHAPTER VIII.
WORK OF LOVE.
“The fellowship we long for is one in which men shall be themselves as well as fellows to each other, in which each shall know his own desire, and there shall be a harmony among them because of a holy concord in their desires.”—Clutton Brock.
In the year 1880, the College Magazine was started under the editorship of Dorothea Beale, who remained its editor until her death in 1906. Nor was she only the editor, but a very frequent contributor: many of her articles which may be seen collected in book form first appeared in the Cheltenham Ladies’ College Magazine. The contributors were chiefly old pupils, though Dorothea Beale sometimes sought contributions from writers outside College circles. Shortly after the magazine was started it became a vehicle for news of old pupils, and was a means of binding past and present students together. It is interesting to see in old College Magazines the names of those who are now well-known in the literary world—Beatrice Harraden and others.
The year 1883 was what the pupils called Miss Beale’s “Silver Wedding”: as she had then been twenty-five years at the College. The Old Girls were anxious to give her a present on that occasion, and the Principal asked that they should give something to the College. The gift took the form of a beautiful organ, to be placed in the First Division Room—the largest hall at that time—above the Principal’s daïs.
The meeting of Old Girls was fixed for July 6 and 7. Less than a month before it, Dorothea Beale had the sorrow of losing her great friend, Mrs. Owen. She went on, as was her wont, with the preparations for the “silver wedding” assembly, quietly and calmly, not letting her own private griefs intrude on her public duties.
The Principal received her guests at eight o’clock on Friday evening. About a thousand old pupils were present. To many of them the building was quite new, and they were charmed with the beauty of it, decorated for the occasion by flowers and plants everywhere.
On the Saturday morning she had a large breakfast party, and prayers were held in the great hall. It must have been a thrilling experience for Dorothea Beale to hear for the first time so many of her Old Girls sing, “O God, our help in ages past,” to the accompaniment of the new organ. After prayers she gave an address, chiefly on music. She spoke first of the different kinds of music, the noble and the ignoble, the lofty and the base: the music which, like the song of the lotus-eaters, lulls us to forget all sense of duty, and obligation to home and kindred, and that which arouses all our highest powers. She spoke then of the different music of life, of nature, of faith, of every human soul.
The end of this speech expressed an idea that had been in her mind for a long time, that of forming a guild of former pupils. The fundamental aims of the Guild would be to bind old students to their Alma Mater: to keep them, by means of the magazine and Old Girls’ meetings, in touch with one another: to enable them to help one another: and perhaps by and by to take up some corporate work.
This suggestion of an Old Pupils’ Association was taken up at once, and a meeting was fixed for the following year.
A year later the Guild was established. The daisy had been chosen as the emblem of the Guild and a brooch had been devised, the design combining the flower and the monogram of the College. The guests were welcomed on Tuesday evening, July 8, 1884, and on Wednesday morning after prayers Dorothea Beale gave the inaugural address of the Guild. Her outlook on life was essentially that of the devout poet, who sees in the visible world the signs and symbols of spiritual truths. To her, the daisy, the emblem of the Guild, was full of suggestion. She dealt with allusions to the daisy in our poets, explaining why they loved this little humble flower. She spoke of its sturdy independence—“You never see it turning towards other flowers: it can only look up”. She took the independence of the daisy as a symbol of the friendship of middle and later life, the friendship which means little direct intercourse, only the consciousness of a union in spirit and a looking towards the same ends.