There was in these years a growing desire to provide opportunities for what may be called post-graduate work, though the term is not strictly applicable. There had been, as we have seen, students doing advanced work before the foundation of any research fellowships. The studentship connected with the name of Miss Marion Kennedy had given opportunity for a successful Tripos student to look about her, try some manageable piece of work, and either find some fresh line to follow up in the field of science or letters, or else enter the teaching profession with a wider view of her functions than could generally be found in one who had never advanced in her studies beyond the undergraduate stage. Studentships in the Natural Sciences were, from 1881, awarded from time to time to students of post-graduate status from the Bathurst Fund already mentioned. But something involving a longer period of independent study was clearly desirable. Critics of the women's education movement were wont to assert that women might do fairly well in Triposes and in educational work afterwards, but that they contributed nothing of any significance to the advancement of knowledge. This "hasty generalization" needed removing. It was, however, no mere spirit of feminine rivalry, but a generous impetus to labour in intellectual fields, to satisfy one's own thirst for truth, and to help in the building up of the sciences--whether natural or human--that inspired the promoters and labourers in this new field of College activity. The most eager and influential in this movement was a member of the College eminently marked by a keen delight in research for its own sake, and by a desire that Newnham should be able to hold its own in the highest kind of University work among all the Colleges of the world--Mary Bateson. Under her influence the first research fellowship was given by Mrs. Herringham, and was thrown open to public application in 1900. Friends of the College and the students themselves were stirred up to raise funds for more research fellowships. The number is now four, and they are awarded by a special committee and tenable for three years. The stipend was originally sufficient to pay the expenses of a woman resident in the College, though a small amount of lecturing or tuition was held to be compatible with the duties of the fellow.[10] The first Newnham students to hold a research fellowship were Miss J. E. Harrison and Miss G. L. Elles (1900). The former had already acquired celebrity by her archaeological works--especially her _Myths and Monuments of Ancient Athens_--and had been invited to occupy rooms in Newnham, where she speedily created a keen interest among students and many of the Staff, first in classical archaeology and later in anthropology. Miss Elles is well known as a geologist, and had already been teaching at the Sedgwick Museum under Professor Hughes.