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
Its laboratories for biology, botany,
chemistry, geology, physiology, and physics meet every requirement.
The college is still open to girls who attend only single courses, but
the majority enter as regular students, and work either for a London
degree or the alternative college course. Bedford has also added other
departments of study to the ordinary curriculum. It has an art school, a
training department for teachers, and a special hygiene course, for
which certificates are conferred. And finally it has developed, as far
as its accommodation will permit, into a residential college. The
old-fashioned dormitory boarding accommodation has been abolished in
favour of students’ rooms in the bed-study fashion so familiar at
Newnham and Oxford, and the general management has been placed in the
hands of a Principal. Miss Emily Penrose, the first to fill this post,
has now become Principal of Holloway, and her place is taken by Miss
Ethel Hurlbatt, late Warden of Aberdare Hall.
Bedford College, true to its undenominational principles, has never
introduced religious instruction into its curriculum. It is not
unnatural that a wish has been expressed in some quarters for a
residential college, which should prepare its students for London
degrees and at the same time take cognisance of their religious
training. It was for this end that Westfield College at Hampstead was
founded in 1882. Its benefactor was Miss Dudin Brown, who made over to
trustees the sum of £10,000 ‘for the establishment of a college for the
higher education of women on Christian principles.’ The Principal is
Miss Maynard, one of the early students of Girton, who has introduced
into Westfield many of the arrangements of the parent college. The
two-room plan, which has found too few imitators, is the rule here.
Inclusive fees, as at Girton, are £105 a year. The conditions for
admission are similar. There are three entrance scholarships, open to
girls who have passed the London Matriculation in Honours or in the
first division.
The college began its work in hired houses at Hampstead, but building
soon became necessary. It is pleasantly situated in that most attractive
of the London suburbs, and combines some advantages of both town and
country. Though it has no laboratories of its own, students can easily
reach those of Bedford College to which they have access; and similarly
it is easy to supply from London such teaching as cannot be undertaken
by the resident staff. Westfield students take high places in the class
lists, and it supplies an important addition to the London colleges.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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