A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge

								

one end favoured the prospects of the other. Those who held that women
were on the eve of obtaining greater rights and responsibilities were
bound to show sympathy with the cause of education; they could quote
the words of Samson Agonistes: "What were strength without a double
share of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome." And on the other hand
every movement made in the direction of sound education for women told
in favour of opening spheres of usefulness and conceding rights as to
property and personal liberty which uneducated women might possibly
have abused. Among the earlier friends of Newnham, probably by far
the larger number were warmly attached to the franchise movement,
especially when it came within the range of practical politics. At
the same time, advocates of higher education were unlikely to be
possessed--as were a few excellent and high-minded women--by the idea
of the suffrage as a panacea for all women's grievances or a necessary
condition of any step towards social betterment. Necessity and common
sense prescribed caution to the pioneers who were directing their
efforts to obtain some measure of university education for women able
to profit thereby.
And indeed there was nothing revolutionary in the movement towards
higher education for women. True, the education of girls and women
had not till then been considered an object to be sought on a large
scale. But there had been educated and even learned women in England,
in the days of the Renaissance and Reformation, though there can be
little doubt that--in the higher circles, at least--a check came with
the frivolities of the later Stuart court. But without going into
uncertain historical details, it is noticeable that in the early part
of the nineteenth century, such different persons as Sydney Smith and
Mrs. Hannah More became eloquent advocates of more serious education
for girls than they commonly received. The arguments of these and
like-minded reformers were not thrown away. It is beyond question that
in many parts of England, in early and middle Victorian days, there
were high-minded, intellectual, and accomplished women conducting
girls' schools on reasonable principles and with good mental and moral
results; and a good deal of the highest education in girls' schools
was given by men--sometimes of considerable standing and ability.
The position of a private governess was not remarkably dignified or
lucrative (vide the experiences of the Brontes); but there were some
such private teachers who did excellent and much appreciated work.
Still the course of a girl who had inward longings for intellectual
culture was often hard; and harder still was that of young women who
had a liking for literature and art, combined with a distaste for
unvaried domestic interests or social routine. The happiest were those
who had sympathetic elder brothers at College, who could talk over