‘Miss Beale’s personality made itself everywhere strongly felt, but most of all in her own school. Even in later days, when she could come in contact with a very small minority of the 1000 under her care, her absence was felt by all as a loss of moral support, almost a lessening of tension. Strenuousness was a dominant note of the tone she inspired by the force of her own vitality, and, to use a favourite word of her own, she was always “energizing” the school. And it told. “I am sending my girl to Cheltenham,” said one, “because I find that those who have been there do their work—paid or unpaid—with thoroughness and attention to detail,” and others paid the same testimony to the training. This thoroughness was eminently characteristic of Miss Beale’s own work. To the end she prepared her lessons with the same care she would have asked from the merest beginner in teaching. Her correspondence was unlimited, and an astonishing amount of it was written in her own hand. She superintended every detail of the building which she loved—which was indeed her hobby. While allowing her subordinates much scope and encouraging suggestion, she kept the threads of the intricate organisation in her own hands. Her physical energy was only second to her force of will, though her “spirit” was pathetically shown in latter days by her refusal to accept the limitations set by failing health. “We have talked for three minutes about my health,” she said to one who saw her after a serious illness, “let us speak of something more interesting.” And, though she had lost the sight of one eye, and was so deaf that listening to others reading must have been a strain rather than a pleasure, she still continued to read every book of importance as it appeared. Her intellectual vigour was fresh to the end, and her keen interest in every new branch of learning unimpaired. She would plunge on a railway journey into a discussion of the last book on psychology, or demonstrate the latest method of teaching shorthand. She was astonishingly young in thought, always “up to date,” and often in advance of the general progress.

‘Her personal influence, though strong, and in some cases almost overpowering, was peculiarly free from any weakening element. She did not encourage demonstration, and, though in later years she allowed her tenderness more play, the atmosphere about her was always bracing. Perhaps she was more in touch with the strong than the weak. She had little understanding of, or sympathy with any form of frivolity, still less of flippancy. She made decisions herself on principles always, and she expected the same from others. Very often she induced it by her mere expectation, and so made the weak strong. It was this partly which made so many come to her for the advice which was given at the cost of any amount of time or trouble to any “old girl.” And, though she never sought, or perhaps enjoyed, popularity in the ordinary sense of the word, many who had feared her in their school-days, grew afterwards to love her as well as to admire her, and often to depend on her. She had a great reverence for the conscience of each with whom she dealt. She brought up her “children” to think for themselves, and, though naturally disappointed when they differed from her, she always acknowledged their right to hold their own opinions. She was incapable of pettiness, and nothing could exceed her generosity in owning herself mistaken. Indeed she loved a fair fight, and greatly appreciated an honourable opponent, and she welcomed as fellow-workers those of very different views from herself, and had, indeed, the most wonderful power of discovering worth in all.

‘Much of her outward success was due, no doubt, to her shrewd business capacity—her physique, her intellectual strength, her single-minded absorption in the cause of education, and its concrete embodiment in her own school. But the real success, her power of inspiring others, was due to her greatness of character. The Guild meetings, at which there was often an attendance of some hundreds of old girls, were the source of inspiration to many. “I come back feeling a poor thing, but knowing that great things are possible,” was the feeling of many, if not expressed in these words. And this was due, not to her organising power, nor even to her freshness of thought, but to her spiritual genius. She was a seer, perhaps, rather than a prophet, for, though of original mind, she found accurate expression of thought difficult. “I never understood Miss Beale’s Scripture lessons,” said an old pupil, “they were so vague; but I always felt a bigness of thought about them, and sometimes the meaning of things she said begins to dawn on me now.” Her religious life was not expressed formally; but it was beyond all doubt a real force and the source of her strength. The feeling was there and was intense. Years after she could not speak without tears of a time of doubt and uncertainty. She was rapt in prayer, and at times fervent to passion. It was with absolute reality that she taught that the important thing was to know and do the will of God, and it is this above all else which is causing thousands of her children to “rise up and call her blessed.”’