‘Is it lawful to give up a higher for a lower work?
‘If, when you have considered it well, you feel at all drawn towards it, then will you write either to me or to the Rev. John Oliver of St. Mary’s House of Mercy, Highgate, appointing with him to see you (for the appointment is in his hands), and he will not make it unless he is fully convinced that the lady would work it on strictly English principles, and that her heart was given to God first. He is very earnest and very honest, and all there seems most hopeful if regarded as a beginning and a foundation, for at present there are only two Sisters and one other lady at work. The house and grounds are delightful, the Penitents in a good healthy state, and if but a wise lady is given to the work I should be very hopeful of seeing there, such a Sisterhood as we have talked about but have not been privileged to see growing up in English soil. Pray do consult your sister, or your parents, but please confidentially, as I think we ought to do these preliminaries as quietly as possible. I have mentioned your name quite in confidence to Mr. Oliver, and I do hope you will see him and talk it out to the bottom with him before you decide. I know you will do what is better than all, ask for guidance that cannot fail.
‘I do not think your parents would object, after allowing you to go to Casterton and Queen’s College, because in point of position, this is now felt to be all that a lady need care about. I am so very anxious about Highgate because it seems so hopeful as regards soundness of principle now, but I will say no more excepting to beg you to remember that the appointment does not rest with me even if you felt you could and would take it.—Ever yours affectionately and sincerely,
Rosa: Lancaster.’
It is probable that Mrs. Lancaster’s friendship and the glimpse of Sisterhood life which she obtained by means of it deepened the sense of vocation with which Miss Beale was prepared to take up the new work for which she was waiting in 1858. It may also have had its influence on outside matters such as dress, which we know, when engaged on her work of teaching, was in early days especially very plain and simple. Mrs. Lancaster was obviously a friend whom she revered, one to whom she could speak of religious matters, and with whose devoted work among poor women she fully sympathised; but the conventual side of it never really appealed to her.
Through Miss Twining, who began her work in 1850, Miss Beale became much interested in the reform of workhouses, and the idea even passed through her mind of seeking a position as matron in order to help to promote a better state of affairs. We can only wonder what would have been wrought had that great personality and unwearied diligence, that refusal to accept anything but the best, been brought to bear on the Poor Law, on Vestries, or Boards of Guardians.
The education of girls of her own class was of far deeper interest to her than any other work for women. She was trained for it, was conscious of her own power and knowledge of what a school should be, and she decided to wait till she could find a headship and carry out her own ideas. It was not quite easy to find the post she wanted. As she put it herself, ‘They might say, “She could not get on at Queen’s, she could not get on at Casterton”’; and it is obvious from her diary, that though she was actually told as early as January 1858 of the possible vacancy at Cheltenham, she tried for more than one school before she was elected there in June.
While she waited, she worked. There was plenty of home interest, a pleasant circle of friends about her: she took her share in the life of others, and yet led her own and accomplished a large amount in those few months. During a part of this time she gave weekly lessons in mathematics and Latin at Miss Elwall’s school at Barnes, a school which afterwards became well known under Miss Eliza Beale, already in 1858 an assistant teacher there. But the great occupation of these months was The Student’s Textbook of English and General History.
In point of time this important work was the third book produced by Miss Beale, and a word on its first predecessor will not be out of place here.
The little volume on the Deaconesses’ Institution at Kaiserwerth was the outcome of a visit there during one of two summers passed in Germany for the sake of studying schools and foreign methods of education. Miss Beale stayed for a few days with the founder, Pastor Fliedner, and his wife, and studied each department of work. She was specially pleased with the Hospital and Sunday-school, of which she wrote with much appreciation: ‘I never was present at a lesson which seemed to give so much pleasure to children and listeners, as well as to the teacher, who certainly understood the art of drawing out children by means of questions.’