The Renaissance of Girls' Education in England: A Record of Fifty Years' ProgressZimmern, Alice
History
The Renaissance of Girls' Education in England: A Record of Fifty Years' Progress
Zimmern, Alice
Women -- Education -- Great Britain
The first of this kind originated in Scotland, at St. Andrews. It was
founded in 1877 by a local company with a view to educating their own
daughters; but arrangements were at once made for taking boarders, and
these were placed under the immediate charge of the head-mistress. As
the numbers increased, other houses were taken and placed under charge
of senior mistresses; and as more and more girls were attracted from a
distance, the boarding element began to predominate. With Miss Lumsden,
one of the ‘Girton pioneers,’ as first head-mistress, and Miss Dove,
another student of Hitchin days, as her successor, the school very
quickly settled down into lines very closely resembling those of a boys’
public school. The boarding-houses became an integral part of the
institution, the school-house being under the charge of the
head-mistress, and the others under the senior assistants. In this way
the staff of the school was strengthened by the encouragement thus
offered to women of ability to remain in the school instead of seeking
their promotion elsewhere. The boarding-houses are also valuable in
ensuring regular attendance and proper home preparation, since the
day-girls, being in a minority, cannot introduce those lax ideas of
attendance which are in some places unfortunately the result of the much
vaunted home influence.
The numbers in the school are limited to 200. The admission age is
thirteen or fourteen, no girl can be admitted who has turned seventeen.
All must pass an entrance examination, graduated according to age, but
always including a certain amount of Arithmetic, English, Latin and
French. A school of 200 girls, all between thirteen and nineteen, and
all with a sufficient preparatory training, can genuinely concentrate
its efforts on higher teaching. The classes become easier to group, and
with a large staff which allows of careful subdividing, all the ordinary
hindrances to progress are removed, and a school is enabled to work
under the best possible conditions. It can, if it is desired, make a
speciality of certain branches of study. At St. Andrews classics take an
important place; of the present staff five have passed the Classical
Tripos. Among the honours won by old pupils are first classes in
Classical Moderations and Final Classical Schools at Oxford, and in the
Classical Tripos at Cambridge. The school distinctly aims at a literary
curriculum, with the higher certificate of the Joint Board to fix the
standard, and Oxford or Cambridge as the goal for those girls whose
education is to be continued.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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