He attended Centenary Collegiate Institute in Hackettstown, New Jersey before entering Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut,[1] where he graduated in 1899 with a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy.

[1] After his graduation from Wesleyan, Beech went to Sichuan (Szechwan), western China as a missionary through the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Beech was appointed a member of this Board together with Dr. Canright, C. R. Carscallen, E. J. Carson, H. T. Hodgkin, H. D. Robertson, H. T. Silcock, J. Taylor, E. Williams, and J. W. Yost.

The Board prepared a report for presentation to the University of Chicago commissioners, Ernest DeWitt Burton and Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, on the occasion of their visit to West China in May 1909,[6] as part of the Oriental Investigation Commission project supported by John D. Rockefeller to reconnoiter the Eastern world as a potential site for the humanitarian projects of the nascent Rockefeller Foundation.

[9] In "History of the Union University: A Sketch", H. D. Robertson, a Canadian Methodist missionary, described Beech as someone "smiling his way through all sorts of difficulties and bringing to definite conclusions all manner of suggestions and ideas.