‘2. They confront young women in a reasonable manner with reasonable men.
‘3. They encourage and help governesses, who attend in large numbers, and are glad to have good teaching and to know of the best books.
‘4. They form a nucleus for educational libraries and for the friendships of fellow-students.
‘5. They pay.’
These lectures were in actual fact the beginning of University Extension, but the work of the North of England Council did not stop here. A further aim for study was needed, and some more advanced examination than those for girls under eighteen, if women were to be qualified to instruct girls in anything but elementary subjects. A petition was drawn up and sent to Cambridge with the signatures of over 600 ladies engaged in teaching, 300 interested in it, and six members of the late Schools’ Inquiry Commission. They pointed out ‘the great want which is felt by women of the upper and middle classes, particularly by those engaged in teaching, of higher examinations suitable to their own needs.’ The petition was granted, and the first Women’s Examination held in 1869.
Looking back on these past days now that it is the fashion to decry examination as the death of education, it is interesting to realise what this much abused system really did to give it fresh life. The Cambridge Senior and Junior Locals were the first link established between girls’ schools and the university, and it would be difficult to over-estimate their value in this period of chaos. Their utility was recognised at once. They spread all over the country and to the colonies; and they are widely used by schools, both public and private, and by children working with governesses at home. Edinburgh and Durham soon followed suit in the admission of girls, and in 1870 Oxford too relented. London did its part by instituting a special Women’s Examination on the lines of Matriculation, and in 1869 that of Cambridge was held for the first time. These were the germs of future developments. At London the way was paved for opening the degrees to women; the Cambridge Women’s Examination led to the foundation of Newnham.
To some extent the work of these examinations is done. Conditions have changed; and the establishment of the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board, and the opening of the universities to women have removed the necessity for this kind of examination in schools of the first grade. But in small private, and in middle-grade schools, and for children working with governesses at home, they are still of distinct use, and their popularity does not seem to diminish, if numbers are any test. Should they ever become needless, owing to a more perfect school organisation, we must still hold their memory in respect, for they can show a good record. It is their merit that at a time when no schoolmistress had a College training and no University examiner ever entered a girls’ school, they supplied a slender link between the school and the university, and when there was no standard for girls’ education, and often neither organisation nor curriculum, they did afford an aim and a stimulus, which, if not absolutely the best, proved at any rate trustworthy guides. If examination is not education it has often led to it, and never more successfully than in the case of girls and women.
CHAPTER IV
THE HIGH SCHOOLS
The Report of the Schools’ Inquiry Commission in 1867 served as a revelation, for it brought home to the general public the exceedingly unsatisfactory condition of middle-class education for both boys and girls. Its immediate outcome was an examination and redistribution of endowments, in which for the first time the claims of girls were considered. But it was evident that even the most judicious application of existing endowments could not suffice to fill all the educational gaps in the country. The Commissioners had therefore included among their recommendations the following:—1. To offer proprietary and private schools the same inspection and examination as were required in public schools, and to make their position more assured by a system of school registration. 2. To give power to towns and parishes to rate themselves for the establishment of new schools. These suggestions remained a pious opinion, for no action was officially taken, but (as so often happens in England) private enterprise stepped in, and compensated for public laxness. The inquiry had done good service in throwing light on the inefficient condition of small and cheap private schools for girls, of which there were such large numbers in the country. Clearly what was wanted was a system of schools large enough to permit of low fees and satisfactory grading. Much of the evidence had been negative, and showed what to avoid. Happily there were a few schools in existence which could serve as beacon lights. Of these the North London Collegiate and the Cheltenham Ladies’ College took the first rank. The former, though really a large private school, had been organised by Miss Buss on public lines, with a view to being ultimately placed on a sound and permanent footing. The latter was a large proprietary school, so planned as to be in no need of public money. Both Miss Buss and Miss Beale were unanimous in urging the establishment of large public schools for girls. Speaking of London, Miss Buss had said, ‘I think, in the first place, there are scarcely any good schools; in the next place, there are very few good teachers; and in the third place, there is no motive offered to the girls for study nor to their parents to keep them at school.’ Miss Beale considered that schools were preferable to private teaching at home, because one person could not be mistress of all the subjects to be taught, ‘and a good teacher can scarcely continue so when condemned to the monotony of the ordinary private school-room.’ Small schools could not be properly graded except when very high fees permitted of small classes.
Large day-schools with low fees for girls were called for. This much was agreed on, but where was the necessary capital to be found? Among the public-spirited men and women who set themselves to answer this question, the foremost place belongs to Mrs. William Grey. She had for some time been working to get a share of educational endowments for girls. ‘Let me remind you,’ she wrote at this time, ‘that while there are in or near London alone the magnificent first-grade endowed schools for boys of the Charterhouse, Merchant Taylors, St. Paul’s, Harrow, and Eton, besides King’s College and University College schools, there is not in the whole of London an endowed school of a similar class for girls, and that while the proportion of educational endowments for girls to those for boys is as 1:92, the proportion of women supporting themselves is to men as 1:7.19; that is, to quote the words of Mr. William Brook, “seven times as many men are employed as women, but men have ninety-two times as much money as women, to arm, equip, and qualify themselves for the battle of life.”’