FEMINIST FORUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 4 (Supplement)

FEMINIST FORUM.

EMILY DAVIES* APPEAL.

HISTORY OF GIRTON.

(By a Feminist Correspondent.)

LONDON, December 6.

An appeal is being issued from Crosby Hall—that fine old Tudor Hall which is now a centre of life for , women in Chelsea—for £1000 to endow a room in memory of Miss Emily Davies, ' the founder of Girton College.. The appeal will not fall on deaf ears,! , for Miss Emily Davies was much more; • than the founder' of the first women's i university college. Its foundation was a step, and a very important one, in • the movement which led to a revolution in the position of women. Iji this movement, Miss was a pioneer and a .leader. In a book entitled, "Emily Davies and Girton College," by Lady Stephen (Constable), we have a notable contribution to fenfinist literature. It describes the efforts made by Miss Davies and Mrs. Garrett Anderson to open the suffrage and the medical profession to women, the struggle for higher education of women, and the story of Girton itself up to the suffrage movement of to-day. Miss Davies was brought up within the close restrictions accepted' as proper for girls at that time, byt she was born a "feminist" (to use the phraseology of a later day), and it was through native force of character that she was able to break away from the conventional grooves and strike out her own line. In all that concerned women, she was a-revolutionary; in all else a conservative. Her contemporaries did not think of her as a revolutionary. As Dame Louisa Lumsden had said of her, "She had a strong sense of order and law, and a considerable power of organisation, and from this sense of (order she had a reverence for outward conformity and a certain contempt for what she might have called one's own particular little heresies." k The book describes the work of that valiant trio. Miss Davies, Mrs. Garrett I Anderson and Madame Bodichon.' Madame Bodichon was a woman of intense convictions, endowed with strong, cheerful common sense. Unlike the other two she had a childhood and youth very different from that of most girls of her time. It was largely owing to this that she was extraordinarily modern in , h6r outlok; r she seemed 'to have been born two generations too soon. She was early allowed to have an unusual degree of personal independence, was well educated,* and; , could count many reformers, social-and political, among the friends of her family. These advantages by her personal quali[ties. ;;; She Was very handsome and attractive, and her generous character, 1 overflowing with life arid vigour, made her greatly beloved. These were no small advantages to so unpopular a i cause as that of women's rights, and her influence was of great value; with her independence and originality (un- i womanly as these * qualities were then considered), she drew,.many friends to the cause, .and her generous , sympathy audi frank enthusiasm were an inspiration to her fellow- workers on the Same thomy path, f- ~ The revolution which these three friends .helped to initiate has been so complete that some effort of the imagination is needed to understand the state of things which prevailed: in their youth. The "deconsideration'' lof women,. as Madame Bodichon called it,' was duV to the state of the law and of public opinion. Exclusion from' the. Parliamentary franchise was scarcely perceived .to be a hardship at ; the' :time when the franchise was ex- , ercised by only a' small proportion of men. ,Jt was- the laws relating to pro- . perty and marriage which were chiefly felt as oppressive to women. Women's Freedom/ To any one who wishes to get a clear idea of the struggle for women's free- , dom this book provides a clear history, well documented and interestingly written. Describing events from the eighties on it says:: "In the course of years a great change was'wrought. In London and the provincial universities, women gained the right jjf admission, not only to examinations but to degrees; and women who had taken honours at Cambridge were x thus placed at a disadvantage. This disadvantage was removed in 1921, when Graces were passed by the .Cambridge Senate granting titles of degrees'to duly qualified members of the Women's colleges. This meant that such women could call themselves 8.A., M.A., and so forjth. These titles did not carry with them membership of the university ;- but they gave' the right to wear cap arid gown, and thfey conveyed to the outer "world 1 the- impression that the women holding them were really the equivalent of Cambridge graduates. A further step was gained by ordinances passed in March, 1923, which secured to women students at Cambridge the right of admission to university lectures and laboratories, which they had hitherto attended only by the. courtesy of individual lecturers—a- courtesy Which might at any time be withheld. This had, in fact, seldom occurred during the last 40 yeafs which had passed since women, were admitted to examinations,-. but it might occur at any time, especially as; ;the lecture, rooms were becoming more crowded-with the growth of the university. It was a great advantage to the women's colleges to have their position made regular and secure in this respect. At the same time women lecturers, and holders of the titular M.A. degree were granted' the" same facilities im the university library as were enjoved by Masters of Arts, and women students, were admitted to the library ,icm much the same condition as undergradnates This was a most welcome and valuable,concession. The number of CfX V was to limited to 500, but the position was otherwise substan^

. Women and tfniyeraities. other situation was unchanged, and the women lecturers at Girton and Newnhpmj remained entirelv outside the university." Women stud ents, being largely taught by members of -the university;;; (as"well by women lecturers), were scarcely aware of bein« excluded from anything, but the Women lecturers; felt increasingly, the . disadvantages of never being : present at the discussion of university schemes of teaching and examining. They fitted in j-jtheir courses of lectures with the uni;.vereity and intercollegiate : .lecture lists I as best tliey could, after the publication of' these, lists at. the beginning of each i ternn >v -'lriußywas something more than a : practical inconvenience; it .meant that ! the women'lecturers Had no- share in the ' intellectual life of, thoumversity, and lit made a great gap in their experience.'