WOMEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—I ask that you will kindly allow space in your paper for the insertion of a statement of the position taken up by the supporters of the movement for admitting women to member- chip in the University of Cambridge. We support the move- ment from both points of view, from the men's point of view as well as front the women's. The opposing side urges argu- ments that are concerned with the curriculum, with the suggested invasion of the men's colleges, and with University administration. The plea that the curriculum is unsuited for woolen is met by the actual fact that for forty years women have tried the curriculum and not found it wanting. They are surely the best judges of what concerns themselves. The invasion of the men's colleges is a mere bugbear that has no real foundation in possibility or fact, and has been directly disclaimed by the heads of Girton and Newnham, who, if they have no power 'to bind their successors, at least represent a Policy which is guaranteed by every possible indication of stability. The question of University administration is com- plicated by considerations of inexperience, of mistrust, and, to a certain extent, of jealousy. Why upset what has gone on
so long with smoothness?—that is the agitated query. The general advance in modern thought is part of the answer to this doubt: it is now impossible, even if it were advantageous, to stem the tide of reform.
The question of admitting women to membership in the University of Cambridge cannot be settled by suggesting that they should be encouraged to form a University of their own. That is really quite beside the question. As the matter Metals, they do not propose to form such a University, and the suggestion does not really concern Cambridge men. But it does concern them to consider carefully the women's actual claim. We have no right to dictate to women, but we have a deep interest iu their association of forty years with our University. They ask to be allowed to materialize their advantages so long enjoyed, and many of us recognize that their gain will he ours. They have something to learn from us—that is their admission: and we have something to gain from them—that is our contention. Cambridge has ceased to be a monastic University, it has ceased to be a clerical University, it has ceased to be a merely sectarian University. The feminine element has penetrated the social life of the University, and has definitely been recognized by the con- stituent colleges. It is now proposed to develop indirect influence into direct participation, in the conviction that the gain to the University will be both intellectual and moral. All developments carry with them a certain amount of alarm and uncertainty, but this development is accompanied by definite assurances of experience and advantage. The movement is not really a leap in the dark. It recognizes the immense importance of women's contribution to national and social and domestic life, and it rejects the fallacious assumption Mut men have nothing to learn from women and that women have nothing to contribute to the common life of both. Surely all who love Cambridge and its past history will help this latest development in the spirit of those who reformed their University front motives of affection not of destruction, who wished to vitalize not to mortify, to expand not to contract.
—I am, Sir, he., HERBERT A. WATSON. Cherry Hinton Vicarage, Cambridge.
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