Full text: Proceedings of the International Congress of Education of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July 25-28, 1893

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for women students beyond the school age, where they could be prepared for university 
examinations of a more advanced character. The first list of subscriptions to this pro- 
posed ‘‘college for women” is dated 1869, and amounts to nearly £8,000. The 
executive committee met in London, and the college when first opened, in 1869, was 
situated at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, about half-way between London and Cambridge. 
[In 1872 the college was transferred to handsome buildings specially erected for it at 
Girton, about two miles from Cambridge. 
Having traced the development of one branch of the women’s education movement as 
far as the opening of Girton College, I must now ask my auditors to allow me to trace 
she development of another branch of the same movement which culminated in the 
{oundation of Newnham College. I like to think of these two colleges as sister stems 
of a beech-tree, deriving their nourishment from the same root, but having an inde- 
sendent growth, and differing from each other in some externals. The development of 
2ach presents some interesting examples of the interdependence or solidarité of the 
several parts of the women’s movement. 
The same energy that produced Girton also gave the first impulse to the opening of 
the medical profession to women in England, and also to the opening to women of uni- 
versity examinations of identically the same character as those provided for men. 
The energy that produced Newnham produced also what is now known as University 
Extension, which in its turn led to the formation all over England of university col- 
leges in our principal centers of population, where men and women, not able to proceed 
to either of our ancient universities, can obtain advanced instruction. 
The promoters of Girton set before themselves, with unalterable determination, the 
aim of making the tests applied to university education for women exactly the same as 
chose for men. The promoters of Newnham approached the subject of the reform of 
women’s education in a rather different spirit. They found it defective, and sought to 
remedy its defects without desiring to follow exactly on the lines of men’s education 
where they thought these were capable of improvement. Both, in my judgment, have 
deen most useful; they have been complementary to each other. Girton has maintained 
‘or women the highest intellectual standard; Newnbam showed a greater power of 
adaptability to the then conditions of the educational problem, and had in view excel- 
.ence of examination as an educational test, rather than identity of examination of 
women with men all through the university course. Miss Anne J. Clough was to Newn- 
ham all, and I may say more than all, that Miss Davies was to Girton. She was not only 
the founder of the college and the originator of the movement from which the college 
sprung—Miss Davies was that to Girton—but she was for the first twenty-one years of 
its existence its principal. She more than any other one person was, as a woman, the 
representative in the university of university education for women ; and she was the 
embodiment of wisdom, kindness, gentleness, and tact, that won her not only the enthusi- 
astic loyalty of her students and personal friends, but the cordial respect and consider- 
ation of the university authorities. Her death last year was referred to in a university 
sermon preached by the Bishop of Peterboro’, and in the annual address given by the 
vice-chancellor, as one of the chief losses which the cause of education had recently 
sustained. Her combination of sweetness, humor, and determination made her an unique 
nersonality, to which much of her singular power of influencing other minds was due. 
In 1866 Miss Clough was resident in Liverpool, and with the cosperation of Mrs. 
Josephine Butler formed the Liverpool Ladies’ Educational Society. This society 
[nstituted courses of lectures for ladies, requiring steady work from those who attended 
‘hem. After rather more than two years’ successful work the society enlarged its aims. 
University lecturers were engaged, and other towns were invited to join in the scheme, 
so that the lecturer might go from town to town, spreading the means of higher education 
for women in each. The inaugural meeting of this socicty, which took the name of
	        
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