The month passed in teaching and helping, though gladly given out of her own holidays, was an undoubted physical strain to Miss Beale. She wrote to Mrs. Benson:—
‘I wish I had never said I would try to write a paper for Thursday at the Health Exhibition. I do not like to leave even for a day, as one ought to go on trying to help those who remain. We do feel so grateful for all the time and thought you and the Archbishop have been good enough to give us, especially in the selection of Mr. Stanton. For myself, I should never have had the courage to go on; (one gets nervous)....’
And she was tired. The last entry in her diary for that month is this:—
‘August 27.—End of month at Fauconberg. Last address not good, and result of neglect.’
Yet Miss Beale probably felt such a strain far less than any other head-mistress would have done, so absorbingly interesting to her was this kind of work. She always looked back with great pleasure on that time. She treasured the letters she received afterwards from those who had been present, dated from it lasting friendships made with some who had come from other schools, and felt it had drawn her nearer to some of her own teachers.
Miss Beale’s outside interests were concerned, as was natural, chiefly with education. With every educational movement made during the last fifty years in the direction of progress she became to some extent associated. She presided at the first meeting of head-mistresses held in 1874 at Myra Lodge, when the Association for Head-mistresses was founded with Miss Buss as president. ‘I see,’ said Miss Beale of this meeting in 1906, ‘it is recorded that I presided. My recollections are only of lying in great pain on the sofa and taking only a feeble part in the discussion. I little thought that I should be allowed to address a conference which more than thirty years after numbers over two hundred and thirty members.... At our first meeting certain principles were asserted which tended to settle some difficult questions.’ Miss Beale here doubtless refers to the very first resolution passed by this aristocratic body, which was to the effect that no school can work satisfactorily unless the head-mistress be entirely responsible for its internal management. Miss Ridley, in writing of Miss Buss,[79] (to ‘whose insight and foresight,’ said Miss Beale, ‘the founding of the Association was entirely due,’) has shown that the passing of this resolution was in itself almost a raison d’être for the Association. For the rightful position of a head-mistress was not recognised without some difficulty and controversy. The governing bodies of girls’ schools could not at first be selected on the ground of interest and experience in educational matters. Another resolution passed on that occasion was to the effect that an examination to test the power of teachers is desirable.
On the death of Miss Buss, in 1895, Miss Beale became president until 1897, when her term of office expired. She never sought re-election, her increasing deafness making it difficult for her to conduct meetings. She thought a great deal of the importance of the Association and of the discussions which took place at its meetings, and strove in every way to render them not only earnest but fair-minded. ‘I hope,’ she said on one occasion, ‘that our assemblies will not become such as the discussions in Parliament, merely formal, every one having taken a side before and being unmoved by anything said.’ Miss Beale several times read papers to the Association, and in later years the deferential welcome she received from its members was very noticeable. Her last address, given on the request of the Association in June 1906, only a few months before her death, may be regarded as her farewell to the educational world.
When the Association for Assistant Mistresses was formed, Miss Beale regarded it at first with some anxiety. She feared the clash of interests and promotion of suspicion between a head and her staff. Later, when she understood the work of the Association, she received it into favour, and on one occasion addressed a meeting of the western branch at St. Hilda’s. Members of the Association were welcomed, and sometimes spent the morning at College when they came over for branch meetings. Miss Beale, too, was always willing to let those of her staff who belonged to the A.A.M. Committee go up to London to attend meetings in term time, and was pleased when it fell to Miss Lumby, as President of the Association, to give evidence together with Mrs. Withiel, before the Bryce Commission in 1895.
The Teachers’ Guild, founded by Miss Buss in 1883, met with warm support from the head-mistresses of the Association. A branch was started at Cheltenham in the following year, and a paper by Miss Beale read, she herself being indisposed at the time. She used her influence with her own teachers to join the Guild, and frequently addressed the branch meetings on such subjects as the Value of Examinations. In the Froebel Society she was also much interested and subscribed to it regularly. When the Church Schools’ Company was founded in 1883, Miss Beale became at once a member of the Council. She was proud that the College supplied head-mistresses to both the Graham Street and Baker Street Schools.
The hopefulness no increase of years or disappointment could abate, the open mind ever quick to receive what was good and original from those younger and less experienced than herself, were seen in the way Miss Beale greeted the work of the Child-Study Association.