Newnham Hall was more in the country then than the College is at present. It must be remembered that married dons with their families were a comparatively new institution, the residential quarter to the west did not exist at this time in Cambridge, and certainly Newnham was in the pleasantest part of Cambridge for country walks. "Constitutionals" are now out of favour, but the early students enjoyed the "Grantchester Grind,"--especially when the marsh-marigolds were out, and the Madingley Woods with their blue-bells, and the Roman Road in blue flax season; and the Backs were very near; there were nightingales too whose nocturnal songs were by some found almost too penetrating. There was an atmosphere, in town and country, favourable to cheerfulness, to the formation of friendships, to the development of intellectual and social activity, to the enlargement of opportunities for women in forwarding the betterment of the world. It was a time of hope for youth, seen not only in the pioneer students, but in those champions of their cause, some themselves young, some older, whose efforts for the next generation were ever strenuous and cheerful, none the less so for the experience of resistance from old-world inertia and the dead weight of prejudice which only patience and wisdom could ever prevail to lift. 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.