A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge — John Shaqi
A Short History of Newnham College, CambridgeGardner, Alice
History
A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge
Gardner, Alice
Newnham College
incipient college was of inestimable benefit to the early students.
He was to them a champion of their cause and a model of sincerity and
reasonableness, and to many a very helpful teacher. A larger proportion
of students in the early days than later took up some branch of Moral
Science--in which he directed their work. And to others he was helpful
on the educational side by his encouragement of good literature--which
may at times have tended to retreat into the background in favour of
severely scientific study. Beyond all this there were traditions among
the early students of his extraordinary power in bringing home to them
the necessity of maintaining a high standard of order, patience and
power of suspending judgment.
It has been said that in some respects Miss Clough presented a marked
contrast to Dr. Sidgwick. This contrast may be partly described by
saying that he saw things more in the abstract, she in the concrete.
Not that he looked only at general principles and she at isolated
instances (for both took large views without neglecting the single
examples), but still the distinction was evident. Both had risen by a
painful process of mental and moral self-culture above conventional
views as to the world and man's place in it, but in Sidgwick the
search was chiefly inspired by a passion for truth, in Miss Clough
by a desire to promote individual happiness. She naturally referred
questions to present cases. Thus--if certain subjects were said to be
necessary as preliminaries to a University course, she would at once
think whether _A._ or _B._ would be the better for having studied Latin
or Mathematics. She allowed for diversity of all kinds among students
and other persons with whom she had to do. A rule was important to her
as touching actual cases, not the cases as exemplifying the rule. She
was strong physically and indifferent to discomfort and hardship in all
that she undertook. Yet she had no belief in asceticism, and exhorted
her students to "take the little pleasures of life." It was her own
idea to begin hockey at Newnham, then a most novel suggestion, which
brought at first some ridicule and even disapprobation from select
circles. She naturally understood and liked some of her students better
than others--but even those who had less than others of her special
intimacy were at times pleased and stimulated by finding how much of
her goodwill they possessed and how she had plans for their future. If
her character broadened and mellowed with years, it was not that she
was ever intolerant or unsympathetic, but that she responded to the
affection and respect of those who knew and appreciated her. She, too,
had a sense of humour which enlivened the community from the beginning,
and the respect with which both her name and her character were held
in the highest University circles more than counteracted an occasional
innocent unconventionality in her social intercourse.
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