The students themselves have never been discouraged from presenting to the heads of their separate Halls or to the Principal any suggestions as to possible modifications in domestic arrangement or in general regulations. Machinery for this purpose has been devised and modified from time to time. The students in residence choose (since 1911) a Senior Student, and it is one of her duties to communicate their views to the authorities. A joint committee of staff and students deliberates upon proposed alterations. There is also a Hall senior student elected by each Hall separately. It is generally recognised that great care is still required in forbidding or sanctioning matters which to a newcomer seem much more simple than they really are. The past prosperity of the College has been in very great part due to a good understanding between governors and governed, and this is still, in a sense, to be regarded as the sheet anchor of the College in Cambridge. It seems to be recognised in the Colleges of the University that the only way to avoid excessive ebullitions of youthful spirit is to enlist on the side of law and order some popular and leading spirits among the undergraduates themselves. The same principle applies in women's Colleges, where the students, as a rule (like public schoolboys), have learned, in pre-college days, the necessity of rules and regularity. If Newnham ever becomes a College of the University, the students will, of course, be subjected to proctorial discipline, but the process would probably be found not to involve any conspicuous changes in College life. EPILOGUE 1914 AND AFTER The outbreak of the Great War marks an epoch in the history of Newnham as of other institutions at home and abroad. Its experience confirms also the commonly repeated statement that in many things the results of the war have proved very different from those anticipated either in the event of success or of failure. One consequence confidently anticipated was at least temporary decline. We were bound to suffer restrictions and something of poverty, for the first item in which the so-called practical man and woman economize is education. Yet we all see at this moment that in spite of fiscal difficulties in public and losses in private affairs, all our schools and colleges are full to overflowing. Newnham participates in this experience, and is compelled to refuse promise of admission to many qualified and promising students. The reasons for this surprising fact are to be found partly in government policy, partly in economic causes still awaiting elucidation; possibly also in a genuine belief in education as a good thing for women as for men.