As yet, in 1879, there were not many resident tutors to settle the work of students in their several departments. But competent University men were always ready to put their knowledge and experience at the service of a student choosing her University course. Indeed the helpfulness of men on whom the students had no claim, is one of the brightest features, even of the bright days of Newnham's beginnings.
Newnham Hall had from the first a fairly large garden, not very minutely laid out,[5] but large enough for tennis, for which game an ash court was made. A gymnasium, in the pre-games period, seemed a necessity, and was erected and opened in 1877. Before that time, students had been allowed to go at stated times to the gymnasium in the town, and strange now to relate, some did so with great enthusiasm. But the interest in indoor gymnastics declined with the greater facility for out-door sport, of which more later on.
Newnham Hall was more in the country then than the College is at present. It must be remembered that married dons with their families were a comparatively new institution, the residential quarter to the west did not exist at this time in Cambridge, and certainly Newnham was in the pleasantest part of Cambridge for country walks. "Constitutionals" are now out of favour, but the early students enjoyed the "Grantchester Grind,"—especially when the marsh-marigolds were out, and the Madingley Woods with their blue-bells, and the Roman Road in blue flax season; and the Backs were very near; there were nightingales too whose nocturnal songs were by some found almost too penetrating. There was an atmosphere, in town and country, favourable to cheerfulness, to the formation of friendships, to the development of intellectual and social activity, to the enlargement of opportunities for women in forwarding the betterment of the world. It was a time of hope for youth, seen not only in the pioneer students, but in those champions of their cause, some themselves young, some older, whose efforts for the next generation were ever strenuous and cheerful, none the less so for the experience of resistance from old-world inertia and the dead weight of prejudice which only patience and wisdom could ever prevail to lift.
CHAPTER II
NEWNHAM COLLEGE IN ADOLESCENCE
The early part of the eighties was full of events for the women students of Newnham and their supporters. In these years they obtained (1) a fixed legal constitution; (2) a second hall of residence, and other much needed buildings; (3) gradual increase of facilities for study, especially in the opening of Cambridge College lectures to women; (4) more important still, a large measure of University recognition, and (5) greater opportunities of educational and social work for past students. These several lines of progress may here be taken in order, except the fifth, which I reserve for the next chapter.
(1) It has been mentioned that when the necessity arose of increasing accommodation for women students, an amalgamation was in 1879 discussed of the Association for the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge with the Newnham Hall Company. The Memorandum and Articles of Association were drawn up before long, and Newnham College came into existence and was registered in the spring of 1880. The constitution was not entirely according to the character of an Academic institution, being under the financial control of the Board of Trade. There was a provision that no profits should accrue to members of the College in the legal sense of the word members, though members might receive remuneration for work done for the College. The Ordinary Members consisted of the first promoters of the College, with large subscribers to its funds afterwards; Associate Members (helpers and benefactors, not to be confounded with the present Associates); and Honorary Members, mostly teachers and helpers of the students. The government rested with a Council, to be elected at a general meeting of Members of the College, four going out annually in rotation, but re-eligible. The executive officers were to be a President, Vice-President, and Secretary. The President and the Principal were to be ex officio members. There was as yet no systematic representation of quasi-graduate students, but the resident lecturers were as a rule entitled to vote as ordinary or as honorary members.
We shall see later on in what respects this Memorandum of Association came to be regarded as inadequate. In point of fact, it marked progress in stability, and worked very well for many years. The Council generally consisted of persons enthusiastically devoted to the interests of the College, and many of them able, by their experience on educational bodies or by their social influence, to assist in its development along the best lines.
(2) Materially, the great event of 1880-81 was the completion and opening of the second Hall of Residence, the North Hall, as it was called, the name South Hall being given to the earlier Newnham Hall. The ground on which it was built was on the other side of a narrow road. In the daytime, when gates could be kept open, passage from one Hall to the other was easy, but at night, for privacy's sake, it was necessary that they should be closed. This, of course, was a check to late evening parties for cocoa, chat, or dancing, among the students belonging to separate Halls, and the concession of one open evening a week hardly met the difficulty. There seemed to be a danger lest Hall feeling might endanger devotion to the College as a whole, and one might expect that the fact of the Principal residing in the older building and only a Vice-Principal in the newer might seem to imply some kind of inferiority. Any danger of the kind was avoided by an act of generous devotion on the part of two promoters of the College which could hardly have been foretold.