NO PRIGS AT GIRTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16026, 18 September 1915, Page 5 (Supplement)

NO PRIGS AT GIRTON.

Miss E. E. Constance Jones, mistress ot Girton College, Cambrideg, since 1903, recently resigned her position. because she desired more leisure to devote to her literary work on moral philosophy and ethics.

Asked by an interviewer, " Is the typical Girton girl the 'blue-stocking' of legend ?" she answered with the following story of Professor Sidgwick.

A German professor visited him at Cambridge and told him that he had noticed that in England we have no class of learned men corresponding to the " gelehrte" of Germany, who are learned men first and last, and have no other interest in life. " Oh, yes," said Professor Sidgwick, "we have got a few of them ; but we don't call them 'gelehrte;' we call them prigs."

"There aren't any prigs nowadays," continued the mistress of Girton. "There are certainly none at Girton."

A student at Girton first in 1877, Miss Jones took first-class honours in the moral science tripos in 1880, started as a lecturer at the college in 1884, was librarian for a short time, vice-mistress for about nine years, and has been mistress since 1903. "It is rather a record, I think," she said, wistfully.

Miss Jones maintains that she owes everything to Girton. "What Girton owes to her," said the bursar of the college, "can scarcely be put into words."