12 JUNE 1947, Page 5

Oxford, more chivalrous in this matter than Cambridge, put women

on the ,same footing as men as regards degrees soon after the last war. Cambridge has not done it yet, but the thing is now as good as settled, since the syndicate which has had the matter referred to it has recommended that all distinction of sex, whether concerning degrees, teaching posts or offices in the university, other than those of Proctor and Esquire Bedell, shall now be swept away. One interesting question is raised by the suggestion that the number of women in the university should not normally exceed one-fifth of the number of men. Already that number would be more than the two women's colleges could accommodate, so that the question of a third women's college, often discussed but never much more than academically, becomes a practical issue. Some of us can remember when the entry of women-students into a lecture-room was greeted with a graceless stamping of feet by the less mannerly of the men, and no woman ever went to a man's room even to tea without a chaperone. The healthy freedom that now prevails still startles returning graduates of forty years' standing.