UNIVERSITY WOMEN IN ENGLAND

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12396, 16 March 1926, Page 4

UNIVERSITY WOMEN IN ENGLAND

Our own New Zealand Universitv women are drawing closer together both nationally and internationally, and are certainly taking a great interest in, public affairs (says “Constance Clyde”). Our women, however, have had no need to voice the prptest made recently by their sisters in London, who pointed out recently the absurdity of refusing the vote to graduate women until they were thirty years of age. At a meeting of. the London women graduates in January, a resolution was moved: “That the Senate be asked to call the attention of His ATajesty’s Government to the anomaly whereby in this University Constitiiency, graduates who are women are debarred from exercising the franchise until the age of thirty.” Naturally, the fact that women of superior ability ‘ are refused this elementary right is •ore striking to the imagination thah the refusal to women in general. London University women have done much in training their sex for social service, and also much to eliminate the oldfashioned idea that no particular training was necessary. In Nelson Square, London, they have long had a Women’s Settlement for this purpose, Aliss Helen Gladstone having been formerly one of those who directed its activities. Alany university women, again, during the preceding year, have gained honours not connected with their profession. Among them is one lady doctor who was made ft J.P., two elected to serve on the L.C.C. Board while Dr Ethel Bentham, J.P., was appointed to the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The value of university training in practical life is perceived in other ways; thus a conference was held lately, in England, in which the social study departments of the universities were to be asked to co-operate with the Central Association of Mental Welfare to discuss a systematic scheme of training in the sense already mentioned.