Chapter II: 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.

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.