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
There is no need to dwell on the success of this new departure. The
London degrees have been eagerly sought by women, and they have won
distinguished places in the class lists. Among its graduates London
numbers over fifty female M.A.’s, six D.Sc.’s, one D.Lit., to say
nothing of many hundred B.A. and B.Sc., as well as all the medical
degrees. Class lists show no special division into masculine and
feminine studies, since women have won high honours in classics, and men
in modern languages. Even on Presentation-Day special allusions to the
lady-graduates are seldom made in the speeches; it is no longer
considered a matter of surprise that women should hold their own
intellectually. The London class lists with their rigid equality have
proved to demonstration the equality of the sexes as far as concerns the
domain of examination. And at the particular moment when this was done,
it was the greatest service that could be rendered to the cause of
women’s education, since it settled once and for all the question of
making special conditions for them.
But throwing open the examinations and degrees of London was only an
indirect assistance to their education, since the University examines
all who come, but asks no questions as to how or where they gained their
teaching. There was one institution already in existence which was only
waiting for this new impulse to enlarge the scope of its work. Bedford
College had been gradually developing from humble beginnings into an
institution of first-class educational importance. In 1874 it had been
removed from Bedford Square to its present premises in York Place, Baker
Street, and here it has been gradually expanding, adding another house,
building on at the back, supplying now one laboratory now another, until
it has reached its present condition of efficiency, taking its place as
the leading women’s college of London. Its success is probably due to
the progressive action of its council, ever ready to realise new needs
and meet each fresh demand as it arose. Recognising the transformation
which the opening of the London degrees must effect in women’s
education, they at once proceeded to open classes in the subjects of the
examinations. At the first Matriculation Examination to which women were
admitted, five Bedford College students presented themselves, and all
took Honours. In due course classes for B.A. work were added, then
B.Sc., then M.A., and in all these Bedford College students acquitted
themselves well. The college had now won an honourable place among
university colleges, and in 1894 it was included among the list of those
entitled to a share of the annual grant of £15,000 to university
colleges in Great Britain. From this source it received £700, since
increased to £1200, and it now receives also an annual grant of £500
from the London Technical Education Board, for the further equipment of
the laboratories and development of practical work in science. This is a
speciality of Bedford College.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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