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 books. In 1880 the college was incorporated as a company. The numbers then had reached 500. Numerous additions were made to the buildings between 1882 and 1905. In the present year (1912) there are over 1000 pupils and 120 teachers, fourteen boarding houses, a secondary and a kindergarten teachers' training department, a library of over 7000 volumes, and fifteen acres of playing-fields.

As early as 1864 Miss Beale's success as a head-mistress was acknowledged, and in 1865 she gave evidence before the endowed schools inquiry commission, the seven other lady witnesses including Miss Buss and Miss Emily Davies. The evidence, published in 1868, gave an immense impetus to the education of girls in England [see, Suppl. II, and Shirreff, Emily, Suppl. I]. In 1869 Miss Beale published, with a preface by herself, the commissioners' ' Reports on the Education of Girls. With Extracts from the Evidence.' It is a remarkable exposure of the low average standard of the teaching in girls' secondary schools before 1870.

Miss Beale perceived that the absence of all means of training teachers was a main obstacle to improvement. A modest endeavour to meet the need was made by a friend at Cheltenham in 1876. Next year, on her friend's death, Miss Beale undertook to carry on the work. The progress was rapid ; a residential training college for secondary women teachers, the first in this country, called St. Hilda's College, was built in Cheltenham, and opened in 1885. It was enlarged in 1890, and incorporated under the Companies Act in 1895. In order to give teachers in training the benefit of a year at Oxford, Miss Beale purchased in 1892 for 5000l. Cowley House, Oxford, which was opened as St. Hilda's hall of residence for women in 1893, and was in 1901 incorporated with the Cheltenham training college as 'St. Hilda's Incorporated College.' The students at St. Hilda's Hall, Oxford, are mainly but not exclusively old Cheltonians. A kindergarten class was also started by Miss Beale at Cheltenham in 1876, and a department for the training of kindergarten teachers soon followed, and became an integral part of the college work.

In 1880, mainly with a view to supplying a link between past and present pupils, Miss Beale founded 'The Cheltenham Ladies' College Magazine,' and remained its editor until her death. With the same aim, she established in 1884 'The Guild of the Ladies' Cheltenham College,' which now (1912) numbers 2500 members. On 26 Oct. 1889 the guild started in Bethnal Green the Cheltenham settlement, which is now carried on as St. Hilda's East, a house built by past and present pupils and opened on 26 April 1898. An earnest church-woman of high church principles, Miss Beale, who was guided through life by deep religious feeling, instituted at Cheltenham in 1884 Quiet Days—devotional meetings for teachers—generally at the end of the summer term, when addresses were given by distinguished churchmen.

Outside her college work Miss Beale associated herself with nearly every effort for educational progress, and with local philanthropic institutions. She was president of the Headmistresses' Association from 1895 to 1897, and was a member of numerous educational societies. In 1894 she gave evidence before the royal commission on secondary education, of which Mr. James Bryce was chairman. In collaboration with Miss Soulsby and Miss Dove she embodied her matured views on girls' education in ' Work and Play in Girls' Schools' (1898). She identified herself with the movement for women's suffrage, being a vice-president of the central society.

Miss Beale's activities remained unimpaired in her later years, despite deafness and signs of cancer, which became apparent in 1900. On 21 Oct. 1901 the freedom of the borough of Cheltenham was conferred on her. On 11 April 1902 the university of Edinburgh awarded her the honorary degree of LL.D., in recognition of her services to education. Eleanor Anne Ormerod [q. v. Suppl. II], the entomologist, was the only woman on whom the degree had been previously conferred. The staff at Cheltenham presented her with the academic robes.

Miss Beale died after an operation for cancer in a nursing home in Cheltenham, 9 Nov. 1906. The body was cremated at Perry Barr, Birmingham, and the ashes buried in a small vault on the south side of the Lady chapel of Gloucester Cathedral. From the time of her appointment to Cheltenham until her death Miss Beale devoted her life to the welfare of the college and to the improvement of girls' education. Living frugally, she spent large sums of her own money on the college, and at her death made it her residuary legatee, her residuary estate amounting to 55,000l. As a teacher Miss Beale's main object was to kindle a thirst for knowledge rather than merely to impart information (cf. for