THE UNIVERSITY WOMAN

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 141, 17 June 1922, Page 14

THE UNIVERSITY WOMAN

SOMETHING ABOUT NEWNHAM

In an interesting talk about Newnham, a woman correspondent of the London Times says :—Newnham will reniejnber its beginnings, it will modestly review its progress, and will take heart and courage for the struggle which lies before it in the future.

It is the early pictures (as always) which tell us most. By telling us what, was thoy also suggest what was going to be. And certainly "what. was", during the middle years of last' century presented in some respects a strange picture of artificial limitations. English society generally had imprisoned itself and was, , its own gaoler. The male portion of it anight, like the starved prisoner of the ■anecdote, open the window eventually and get out; but the women were more ■definitely immured. Women had been told of their "subjection" by Mill in 1869, but only, a few of them agreed with 'him. The majority thought imprisonment decorous. . Men played cricket in top 'hats and young ladies (as in Trol- . lope's "Can You Forgive Her?") climbed the Cumberland hills in crinolines, and college dons, when compelled to examine chapel roofs, 'scaled ladders in cap and gown; and every pereon was generally handicapped—except those who were not genteel at all. But the universities had to stimulate education, and' education is the great liberator. The- Schools Inquiry Commission had examined the girls' schools of 'the country in 1864, and found their state to be "a revelation of superficiality, narrowness, and general inefficiency." Cambridge University, accepting its responsibility towards the young of both sexes, began the following year to admit girls to its Junior and Senior local examinations. The girls made a poor show, especially in arithmetic. Somebody, as •usual, was ready to say that the standard of the examinations ought to be lowered to suit the peculiar shortcomings of girls. But nobody hearkened. The standard of teaching was raised, the examinations continued, and the girls began to hold knowledge with a firmer grasp. Examinations were useful, yet th 6 country demanded more.than these. In the big commercial cities, -where wealth had been accumulated almost too easily, a hunger was felt for other than material riches. "Sweetness and light" had scarcely been mentioned, but provincial society was vaguely aware of its defects. The women, in particular, -were dissatisfied. Their brothers and their brothers' friends might go up to Oxford or Cambridge, but they themselves had little to do and little to hope for. They began (especially in the North),to pray that ■university men would give, at least, come courses of lectures for-women. 'On this aspiration the thought quickly followed. "Why should some of us not go to Cambridge and try to gain admission to lectures there?" ' ■ 'j . THE GERMINAL IDEA.

This was the germinal idea of Newnham. It was the. idea of entering the university rather than of founding a college. There was not, even in the first instance, an invasion o£ women from outs:de. Cambridge men, such as Henry Sidgwick and: Henry Faweett, . were eager that women should share the best things of life with themselves, and there were women already living in Cambridge who welcomed the generous offer. When the "Lectures lor .Women,"- already organised, drew Miss A. J. Clough from Liverpool to Cambridge in-1871, in order that she might arrange some congenial household life for five young women students, the existence of Newnham: Collego had already begun. But as yet there was no college, and the first students came not to college, but to Cambridge. They came in a spirit of rapture" and hope most flattering to Cambridge scholars. The classics were invested with clouds of glory; even algebra.and euclid were idealised. That women would be able to tread the realms of learning on an equality with men was scarcely contemplated. The few intelligent female students -were regarded as' the stray swallows,, on whose appearance no summer and no larger flock need follow. Yet the number of the women grew, and their successes grew likewise. Learning and learned men gradually became less amazing, and knowledge more accessible. The real friends of the women students rejoiced, and fathers saw that the life of their daughters was going to be widened and enriched. After dealing in general with individual licenses among women, the writer says : —After these events, it began to be said that examinations were, after all, of little value, and that Triposes were just the sort of tests for such mediocre abilities as those of i women. The average member of the Senate was no longer so well pleased with women as he had been. He doubted whether'a Gam-, bridge education was for their highest good ; and when in 1897, he was: asled to admit women to degrees (though still not to university membership) be "drew the line.," and refused. The grr.ceful flight of the fow swallows l.nd teen all very pretty as a spectacle, but he did not care fov the summer's heat he was now experiencing.

Meantime. Newnham College was growing. Block after, block w>-s ac tied. The first ivurm red-brick ruii&'ng, vr-ere the spirit of the wise, large-minded, "old" Miss Clough seems still to linger, went up in 1875. Old Hall was followed by Sidgwick Hall in 1880, Clough Hall in 1888, and Pfeiffer Buildings, linking the blocks into two sides of a square, in 1893. The college could not be ignored ;. its appearance was sunny and smiling, but solid. And it went on growing. The rebuff ip 1897 affected it not at.all. Kennedy Buildings, offering quiet quar-tei-3 for lecturers and fellows, were added in 1906, and tho college' filled threesides of a quadrangle on the completion of Peile Hall in 1910.

And so the story goes on. Many men and women wonder where it will ail end, while the difference- of opinion as to the good or bad effect, is remarkable. A clever woman recently returned ,from England, who is full of hope and joy, with no doubts as to the use' of cultivating the feminine 'brain, tells a. witty story of an old clergyman who hurried UP from the Shires to vote against; any "graces" being permitted 'to girl students, and who remarked to his colleagues, "You :can always trust me to vote against any reforms!" Verb sap, and "nuf sed."