NEWNHAM COLLEGE IN ADOLESCENCE
The early part of the eighties was full of events for the women
students of Newnham and their supporters. In these years they obtained
(1) a fixed legal constitution; (2) a second hall of residence, and
other much needed buildings; (3) gradual increase of facilities
for study, especially in the opening of Cambridge College lectures
to women; (4) more important still, a large measure of University
recognition, and (5) greater opportunities of educational and social
work for past students. These several lines of progress may here be
taken in order, except the fifth, which I reserve for the next chapter.
(1) It has been mentioned that when the necessity arose of increasing
accommodation for women students, an amalgamation was in 1879 discussed
of the _Association for the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge_
with the _Newnham Hall Company_. The Memorandum and Articles of
Association were drawn up before long, and Newnham College came into
existence and was registered in the spring of 1880. The constitution
was not entirely according to the character of an Academic institution,
being under the financial control of the Board of Trade. There was
a provision that no profits should accrue to members of the College
in the legal sense of the word _members_, though members might
receive remuneration for work done for the College. The Ordinary
Members consisted of the first promoters of the College, with large
subscribers to its funds afterwards; Associate Members (helpers and
benefactors, not to be confounded with the present Associates); and
Honorary Members, mostly teachers and helpers of the students. The
government rested with a Council, to be elected at a general meeting
of Members of the College, four going out annually in rotation,
but re-eligible. The executive officers were to be a President,
Vice-President, and Secretary. The President and the Principal were to
be _ex officio_ members. There was as yet no systematic representation
of quasi-graduate students, but the resident lecturers were as a rule
entitled to vote as ordinary or as honorary members.
We shall see later on in what respects this Memorandum of Association
came to be regarded as inadequate. In point of fact, it marked progress
in stability, and worked very well for many years. The Council
generally consisted of persons enthusiastically devoted to the
interests of the College, and many of them able, by their experience
on educational bodies or by their social influence, to assist in its
development along the best lines.
(2) Materially, the great event of 1880-81 was the completion and
opening of the second Hall of Residence, the North Hall, as it was
called, the name South Hall being given to the earlier Newnham Hall.
The ground on which it was built was on the other side of a narrow
road. In the daytime, when gates could be kept open, passage from one
Hall to the other was easy, but at night, for privacy's sake, it was
necessary that they should be closed. This, of course, was a check to
late evening parties for cocoa, chat, or dancing, among the students
belonging to separate Halls, and the concession of one open evening
a week hardly met the difficulty. There seemed to be a danger lest
_Hall_ feeling might endanger devotion to the College as a whole, and
one might expect that the fact of the Principal residing in the older
building and only a Vice-Principal in the newer might seem to imply
some kind of inferiority. Any danger of the kind was avoided by an act
of generous devotion on the part of two promoters of the College which
could hardly have been foretold.
The great services of Dr. Sidgwick to the incipient College have been
alluded to, though they are far too wide and various to be severally
recorded.[6] His wife, formerly Miss Eleanor Balfour, had for some
years been a very able treasurer and member of council. She had given a
scholarship to Newnham in Mathematics, her own chief subject of study
at that time. They lived a quiet, scholarly, but sociable life in their
house at Hillside, at the beginning of the Chesterton Road. At this
moment, when anyone of less standing in the University and the world
generally could hardly have met the emergency, Mrs. Sidgwick agreed to
come and preside in the new Hall, with the title of Vice-Principal,
and Mr. Sidgwick came to live there also, thus giving up his privacy
and the company of most of his books. The arrangement was the more
successful in that Miss Gladstone also took up residence in the North
Hall as her secretary. The name of Gladstone brought distinction with
it. Miss Helen Gladstone had resided as a student of English and
Political Economy for one year with the Sidgwicks and for two years in
Newnham Hall, and was deservedly popular both with the students and
in the University world outside. Students who entered the College,
and were taken into the new Hall, cherished ever after the memory of
these two years as a halcyon time--in which they enjoyed listening
to good talk and associating with interesting persons more than
during any other period of their lives. At the end of two years, Miss
Gladstone became Vice-Principal, resident in the North Hall, a post
which she held for many years, and in which her well-known geniality,
cheerfulness, and whole-hearted devotion to her task and to the
students under her care found abundant scope and recognition.
[Footnote 6: Including financial help. Miss B. A. Clough (in the life
of A. J. C.) mentions how when treasurer, Mr. Sidgwick used to fail
to present the coal and gas bills. There was a legend in Newnham Hall
that once when Miss Clough wanted a new frying-pan, she had to apply to
Mr. Sidgwick for the money. On one occasion when furnishing the house
in Regent Street, he gave up a continental holiday for the sake of the
cause.]
It was under the same roof as the North Hall that the much needed
lecture rooms were raised. There were at first three. Later when a
large number of small rooms for private teaching were made in the
Pfeiffer Building, two of the lecture rooms proper were knocked into
one, thereby giving the College one room large enough to accommodate
(if desks were removed) about a hundred people. It was chiefly by
pressure from Miss Gladstone that an infirmary or hospital was built,
adjoining the North Hall, but with its separate entrance. This has
often proved useful in checking the spread of infectious ailments among
the students or the servants. A chemical laboratory had already been
erected in the garden at a respectful distance from the original Hall.
Its equipment was mainly the task of Miss Penelope Lawrence, afterwards
headmistress of Roedean School, Brighton. A laboratory for the study
of Biological subjects was provided in the town in 1884, a disused
Congregational chapel being adapted to the purpose. Mrs. Sidgwick
and her sister, Miss Alice Balfour, were the principal donors, and
the laboratory was appropriately named after their brother, Francis
Maitland Balfour, whose promising and already distinguished career had
been cut short by an accident in the Alps. For many years, these two
laboratories formed the training ground of a large number of students,
who did much to supply the demand for improved science teaching in
schools and colleges for girls. In the Chemical Laboratory Miss Freund
and in the Balfour Laboratory Miss Greenwood (now Mrs. Bidder) and
Miss Saunders presided for many years, carrying on both teaching and
research. (Both Miss Freund and Mrs. Bidder were former students of
Girton.) In course of time, the opening of the University laboratories
to women students rendered these buildings less necessary, and they are
at present let for University purposes.
With the increase in the number of students, further buildings became
necessary. The South Hall (formerly Newnham Hall) had been designed
with a view to possible extension, and in 1882, a west wing was built,
containing rooms for about twelve more students. The ground floor of
this building was devoted to a well-planned Library, at that time
a great desideratum. The equipment of the College as to books had
originally been scanty. Perhaps the need of books was, for a time,
not altogether to be deplored, as the early generation of students
realized the necessity of procuring their own books or of inducing
generous friends to assist them in that direction; and many gave books
as a parting present to the College. A moderate-sized common-room in
the Old Hall (since divided into two rooms for students) was the first
library, but was soon outgrown. But when something larger was required,
the new Library (now the Reading Room of the Old Hall) both served its
purpose till the books again outran the accommodation, and afforded
a delightful morning room for study, as well as space for occasional
social parties.
(3) During the late 'seventies and the early 'eighties, women students
were informally admitted to privileges which greatly facilitated their
work, and in particular many College lectures were opened to them.
Their own lectures--before the building of Sidgwick Hall--were given
in the rooms belonging to the Young Men's Christian Association, near
the old Post Office, a central but somewhat noisy situation. The larger
rooms in this building were of good size and convenient, but the
class-rooms were less so, and to many students their first introduction
to Greek Tragedy or to English Law will always be associated with the
striking of a hammer on the blacksmith's anvil. The new lecture rooms
at Newnham had not this drawback. The professorial lectures were
generally given in rooms now absorbed in the University Library. In
some, women were allowed to come into the gallery, where their presence
was not easily discerned. But meantime, as already mentioned, some of
the Colleges were ready to accept suggestions as to admitting women
to the Inter-collegiate Lectures. The first of the Colleges to admit
women to lectures in its own hall was Christ's. In the summer term of
1876, eight students of Newnham College (some working at classics,
others at history) were admitted to a course of lectures on the
Punic Wars given by Mr. (now Professor) J. S. Reid in the temporary
dining-hall of Christ's. Great efforts were made to meet the somewhat
exacting demands--in those days--of social propriety. Thus these
students were obliged always to be chaperoned by a responsible lady,
and as Miss Clough had in the early days few colleagues to lighten her
responsibilities, the task usually fell on her. Needless to say, she
never represented this as a grievance, though the lectures were three
times a week, the hour inconvenient, and the weather generally wet. She
was only too glad to help in a new departure, and, as she said (with
reminiscences of her brother and Dr. Arnold), she always found Roman
History interesting.
King's was the next College to admit women. Trinity not till a little
later. It may be noticed, without any disparagement of the lecturers
who obtained these concessions, that in the case of those already
lecturing to women according to the previous arrangements, it was more
convenient to have seats assigned to the women in the College lecture
rooms or halls than to give the same lecture to their men pupils in
College in the morning and to the women in a room belonging to the
Young Men's Christian Association, or even in Newnham College, in the
afternoon. Nevertheless Newnham owes gratitude to the Lecturers and
to the Fellows of Colleges who showed, in many cases, both zeal and
courtesy in meeting the women students' needs. With regard to the
undergraduates, it may be remarked that though at first some showed a
curious amazement mixed with bashfulness at their strange visitors,
they soon accustomed themselves to the change, and showed almost always
a spirit of courtesy and good sense. As more accommodation came to be
provided by the University--irrespective of College distinctions--in
the New Divinity Schools and the New Lecture Rooms, access to lectures
became easier for women, as for other non-members of the University.
Another great advantage which the students obtained in these years
was permission to read in the University Library. They could not be
admitted without referees, such as were demanded from non-university
persons, but the Principal was always accepted as one referee, so that
the student candidate had to find one only. Fees--very moderate--were
paid by the College when a student had been specially advised to read
in the Library. Formal admission was granted for the morning only, but
a student who for any special reason wished to read in the afternoon as
well could easily obtain permission.
Another privilege gradually obtained without any special effort was
that of being examined in the Inter-collegiate Examinations popularly
called _Mays_. As all Cambridge men and women know, examinations of
students in their first and second years are held in most subjects
at the end of the summer term, to test their knowledge and power of
expressing it. These are not directly under any University board, but
are given by the lecturers on the subjects they have been teaching,
in various Colleges, during the past year. The "Mays," in spite of
drawbacks, have often been of great value, in giving confidence to
industrious but despondent students, and in warning those whose
progress was unsatisfactory. The fact of having been through a certain
course, examined on the subject, and marked with the undergraduates,
emphasised the fact to the women students, the undergraduates, and the
world at large, that the work done at Newnham and Girton was really of
University standing.
(4) All these steps led towards what was necessary in order that the
work of the College should be solid and permanent--the recognition
by the University of the existence of women students and women of
what I have called quasi-graduate status. It may be said--it was
said, and still is said when further demands are made--that women had
the real thing, why trouble about the artificial trappings? Women
could become well-educated, even learned; those who had studied at
Cambridge were the better esteemed in educational circles, and they
were free from many tiresome responsibilities that weigh on full
members of the University. But to this was answered: that the path
to good education and sound learning is still more thorny than it
need be; that the world, which often has to distribute educational
posts and distinctions, does not care for education without a
degree; that the position of the women, held only by courtesy, was
insecure. A scrupulous examiner might at any time decline to examine a
tripos-candidate whom he was not bound to examine, and any University
lecturer might refuse to allow women at his lectures. At the same time,
women who "brushed the flounce of all the sciences," and flitted about
like bees for intellectual honey, might easily pose as University women
and bring real students into disrepute. Finally: if there _were_ duties
as well as privileges exacted from the children of Alma Mater, women
would hardly be found unwilling to accept them.
Matters came to a crisis at the end of the year 1880. In the winter
1879-1880 (the triposes came, then, at various periods of the year),
Newnham and Girton obtained first classes in three triposes, the most
conspicuous case being that of Miss C. A. Scott of Girton, who in the
Mathematical Tripos had obtained (by the usual informal examination)
a place equal to that of the eighth wrangler. These successes seemed
to give a _reductio ad absurdum_ to the common arguments about the
inferiority of the "female mind," to set the mark of success on the
methods followed at both Colleges, and to suggest the inexpediency--if
not injustice--of withholding from women the title which should give
them status and improve their prospects in the academic world. It
may be mentioned that, in 1878, London University had obtained a
supplement to its Charter empowering it to admit women to its degrees,
a step which marked both a recognition of the claims of educated
women and an abandonment of London's first tentative measures in
providing examinations for women. It had for some time admitted women
to a "General Examination," closely resembling the Matriculation,
but allowing more option as to subjects. This might be followed by
examinations for certificates of Higher Proficiency, which could be
taken, without further fee, with the General, or in any subsequent
year. It was a very useful examination for girls who had left school
and in continuing their studies at home wished to take up one subject
or another, together or at intervals, according to convenience. The
weak points were that the syllabus did not sufficiently correspond
to the men's to give any guarantee as to standard demanded and
attained--and far worse: that there was nothing progressive about the
"Special" examinations, there being only one examination held in each
subject. When the degree examinations were thrown open, a good many
Cambridge women took the London B.A. or M.A. _after_ their triposes
in order to have some title to present to the academic world. But--as
London degrees examinations were then arranged--such work generally
involved the consumption of much time on other than specially chosen
lines on the part of any Cambridge Tripos student. The fact that it
was desired and achieved gave proof--if fresh proof were needed--of
the actual market value to educated women of the letters denoting a
certain standard of mental equipment. London University was then, it
may be added, a University only in name. The teaching tested in its
examinations had been obtained by solitary students reading privately,
by residents in various provincial Colleges, and by members of those
Colleges in London--University, King's, Bedford, and Westfield, which
were ready to take their place as Colleges of an actual teaching as
well as degree-granting University--as London became in 1900. The
provincial Universities (Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, etc.) all
admitted women to their degrees early, if not at their first opening.
But to return to Cambridge. The movement of 1880 was taken up in
various quarters, notably in the North of England. Petitions were drawn
up and sent to the Senate of the University praying for degrees for
women. That originated by Mr. and Mrs. Aldis of Newcastle declared:
"That the present plan of informal examination is unsatisfactory, and
that consequently the undersigned persons interested in the Higher
Education of Women pray the Senate of the University to give women the
right of admission to the degree examination and to degrees." Three
other memorials were presented. The Executive Committee of Girton
College, after pointing to the satisfactory results of several years'
experience, desired the University to "take their case (that of the
Students) into serious consideration, with a view to their formal
admission to the B.A. degree." This was, of course, different from
the Newcastle petition in being of the nature of a compromise, since
it did not ask for the M.A. which would have involved a share in the
government of the University. A similar half-way measure had previously
been adopted with regard to Nonconformists, to whom the B.A. had been
allowed some time before they were admitted to the M.A.
The third petition is that which specially interests us in the history
of Newnham College, as it was that of the Lectures Committee, out of
which--as already related--Newnham College took its beginning. This
document, like that of Girton, appeals to the result of experience,
though not to experience of exactly the same kind. It expresses a
desire that a stable form may be given to the plan of instruction
and examination already being carried on, and also a preference that
some option should be allowed as to the Previous Examination; and
unwillingness (not refusal) to prepare women for the Ordinary Degree.
A fourth memorial, much to the same general purpose as the last, was
signed by a hundred and twenty-three members of the University.
The result of the Memorials was that a Syndicate was appointed, a
memorable discussion on its proposals held in the Art Schools, and
the "Graces" drawn up to be submitted to the whole Senate. Among
the staunchest supporters of the proposals were the venerable,
whole-hearted helper of the cause, Prof. Benjamin Hall Kennedy, Dr.
(later Bishop) Browne, Prof. Cayley, Dr. (now Prof.) H. Jackson,
Prof. J. E. B. Mayor, Dr. Peile, and Mr. Coutts Trotter. These
names sufficiently refute any accusation of youthful flightiness or
overstrained liberalism in the character of the movement.
As the _Graces_ have formed from that time the basis of Newnham College
as an institution sanctioned by the University, and as their purport is
not always clearly apprehended, it may be as well to transcribe them
in full, excepting only such as relate to financial and subordinate
regulations:
1. Female students who have fulfilled the conditions respecting length
of residence and standing which Members of the University are required
to fulfil may be admitted to the Previous Examination, and the Tripos
Examinations.
2. Such residence shall be kept (_a_) at Girton College or (_b_) at
Newnham College, or (_c_) within the precincts of the University under
the regulations of one or other of these Colleges, or (_d_) in any
similar Institution within the precincts of the University, which may
be recognised hereafter by the University by Grace of the Senate.
3. Certificates of residence shall be given by the authorities of
Girton College or Newnham College or other similar institution
hereafter recognised by the University in the same form as that which
is customary in the case of Members of the University.
4. Except as provided in Regulation 5, female students shall before
admission to a Tripos Examination have passed the Previous Examination
(including the Additional Subjects) or one of the examinations which
excuse Members of the University from the Previous Examination.
5. Female students who have obtained an Honour Certificate in the
Higher Local Examination may be admitted to a Tripos Examination,
though such certificate does not cover the special portions of the
Higher Local Examinations which are accepted by the University in lieu
of parts or the whole of the Previous Examination; provided that such
students have passed in Group B (Languages) and Group C (Mathematics).
6. No female student shall be admitted to any part of any of the
Examinations of the University who is not recommended for admission by
the authorities of the College or other institution to which she has
been admitted.
7. After each examination, a Class List of the female students who have
satisfied the Examiners shall be published by the Examiners at the same
time with the Class List of Members of the University, the standard for
each Class and the method of arrangement in each Class being the same
in the two Class Lists.
8. In each class of female students in which the names are arranged
in order of merit, the place which each of such students would have
occupied in the corresponding Class of Members of the University shall
be indicated.
9. The Examiners for a Tripos shall be at liberty to state, if the case
be so, that a female candidate shall have failed to satisfy them or has
in their opinion reached a standard equivalent to that required from
Members of the University for the Ordinary B.A. degree.
10. To each female student who has satisfied the Examiners in a Tripos
Examination, a Certificate shall be given by the University stating
the conditions under which she was admitted to the examinations of the
University, the Examinations in which she has satisfied the Examiner,
and the Class and place in the Class, if indicated, to which she has
attained, in each of such examinations.
It was further provided that these arrangements should hold, in
the first instance, for five years. Rules were laid down as to the
conditions under which any future Hall of residence might be recognised
by the admission of its students to Triposes.
The result of the voting on the Graces was looked forward to by both
sides with hope and fear. The result was a triumphant majority for the
women's cause, 331 to 32. The small number who actually voted against
the Graces does not, of course, imply that the number of objectors
was insignificant, for, in fact, a good many opponents withdrew early
as from a lost cause. From that time, Feb. 24th, 1881, counted as the
great day of the College to be remembered by all succeeding generations
of students, who have been annually reminded at Commemoration how well
their friends had fought for them, how a special train had been run
from London to accommodate favourable members of Parliament, and with
what joy and thankfulness the news had been received in the College and
telegraphed to friends at a distance.
The cause for congratulation was very real. If things had gone
otherwise, it is difficult to see what the future of women's education
in England would have been. Oxford was temporarily behind Cambridge in
the movement, and a set-back at Cambridge would certainly have damaged
prospects in the sister University, and, in fact, throughout England.
Women would have been debarred from sharing in the best that University
education in England can give, and would have been cut off from the
historic sources of sound learning and of moral and intellectual
inspiration.
A perusal of the Graces will show that though they gave all that was
immediately needed, they did not satisfy all the actual or possible
desires of the promoters of women's colleges. Outsiders, as before
mentioned, already wished for full membership to be granted. To many
this seemed a premature project. Yet those were right who foresaw that
a desire for more complete membership was certain to come by and by. In
1881 there were few, if any, of the women quasi-graduates able to take
an active part in University work. Some apprenticeship, under the wing
of Alma Mater, might seem at least desirable. Again, the views held
by Girton, that conditions of examinations such as those relating to
preliminary qualifications and the Pass degree, ought from the first to
have been the same for women as for members of the University, might be
urged with some force. As already shown, the objection to compulsory
Classics and Mathematics, even up to the standard of the Previous
Examination, on the part of some of the founders and supporters of
Newnham College was due, not to a preference for easier conditions, but
from a fear of a detrimental effect on schools. In point of fact, so
many other alternatives than those of the Previous Examination and the
Higher Local are now offered that neither of these examinations is much
favoured in the best schools that send girls up to the Universities.
As to the Pass Degree: the suspicion with which it was regarded by the
Newnham pioneers has already been noticed. The objection to it is not
that it is bad in itself: many attempts have been made to render a pass
course interesting and profitable to men who have not physical strength
or intellectual persistency to embark on an honours curriculum, or who
wish to reduce their academic duties in order to follow some social or
intellectual hobbies. But there has always been the danger of demanding
a very small amount of intellectual work and tolerating men who have
no leaning towards academic pursuits, and to whom the University is
chiefly attractive by reason of its scope for athletics and for genial
life in comradeship. There was as yet, and it is to be hoped there
will be permanently, no place in the women's colleges for the society
woman without intellectual aspirations. Such an element would have been
difficult to deal with, and would not have been successful from any
point of view. True, Newnham never wished to discourage either students
of discursive mind and original ideas and plans, or those who--through
defective early education or delicate health--shrunk from a tripos
course. In fact, some students whose presence and work in the College
have proved eminently beneficial to themselves and to Newnham, have
preferred to take a mixed course of study. For the rank and file, it
is now supposed that the numerous triposes afford sufficient choice.
If, at the end of her second year, a student is judged to be unable to
proceed further on tripos lines, she is expected to go down, unless her
studies are judged to be sufficiently serious and profitable for giving
special leave to continue them. The equivalent of a pass degree is, as
already stated, and as set forth in No. 9 of the Graces, only awarded
to a student who has narrowly escaped failure. It may also be noticed
that a failure, for a woman, leaves no chance of a second trial.
The Graces gave a real and substantial benefit to women students
and--indirectly--to those who had been, informally, through a tripos
course at Newnham. These latter did not obtain University recognition
of any sort, but their names and tripos places were recorded in the
Girton and Newnham Calendars, and this served as evidence of their
standing to the educational world. When Trinity College, Dublin, for a
few years (as will be hereafter related) granted an _ad eundem_ B.A.
or M.A. to Oxford and Cambridge women who had taken final honours
examinations, those who had done so previous to the Graces (as will be
hereafter noticed)[7] were admitted with the others. For some reason,
those who many years later drew up the Representation of the People Act
of 1918 felt obliged to draw the line more strictly and to limit the
vote to those women who had obtained the equivalent of a degree since
1881.
[Footnote 7: See page 110 seq.]
There were no heart-burnings caused by the comparatively narrow
range of the privileges given by the Graces, partly because it was
always felt that more would come quietly as time and occasion should
dictate. The resident staff, as such, obtained no recognition. No
woman could sit on a board of studies, nor lecture formally in an
academic building. Privately, the opinion of Newnham lecturers was
sometimes asked on a question as to curricula, and women of distinction
occasionally lectured and sometimes drew large audiences, while--in
course of time--some undergraduates were advised by their tutors to seek
admission to the lectures of a Newnham specialist. For some years there
was no ground for formal extensions of privilege. And it was believed,
and was to be proved again afterwards, that in the situation in which
Newnham found itself, it was unwise to demand privileges that were not
almost certain to be granted.
[Illustration: MISS ANNE J. CLOUGH.]
In fact, the crowning triumph of the Graces marks the success of the
policy of Miss Clough, Dr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, Miss Kennedy, and the
other founders of the College: a policy of winning great things by not
standing out for lesser ones, of pertinacity in following a large if at
first vague programme, and of conciliation and "sweet reasonableness"
towards those who looked askance on the whole movement. It must be
observed that all the Founders were deeply imbued with love and
reverence for the University, and that the students were brought up to
regard it as almost an Alma Mater--at any rate, as a noble and worthy
corporation, to which they owed a deep debt for its past doings, and
for what it had always stood for in the nation and in the world, a
debt increased by the privilege granted to them of living within its
precincts and learning wisdom from its most distinguished sons. There
was no "battering at the gates." The pioneers of the Women's Colleges,
so far from tolerating any notion that the University would suffer
from granting their requests, would have felt it a thing worth much
labour and many struggles if they could in any way add to the great
repute and dignity which Cambridge had, among Universities, enjoyed
from far-back times.