Cheltenham College is thus enabled from its own resources to take a child straight from the nursery, and after many years send her forth as a full-fledged graduate of London University. It is neither to be expected nor desired that many girls should thus receive the whole of their education under one roof, but while some attend one department and some another, the College does in itself comprise the three stages of education: primary, secondary, higher. It has gone even further, for it takes an important part in the work of training teachers, which has been so largely developed of late years. The training department has three distinct divisions, in which teachers are prepared for Kindergarten, Secondary, and Public Elementary Schools. The ‘Hall of Residence,’ which is growing so much in favour now, is also represented at Cheltenham by St. Hilda’s, a residential college for students over eighteen, and in particular the twenty foundationers who are intending teachers and are received at reduced fees. Finally, the Old Girls’ Guild with its eleven hundred members all over the world, its College Settlement in the East End of London, and its biennial meetings at Cheltenham, keeps the College in constant touch with the work, social, philanthropic, and professional, that is being done by women at the present day.
The Cheltenham College has become a little world of itself. It presents in miniature each of the developments in women’s education which has taken place in the last fifty years. The dignity of its beautiful buildings, the ideals which take visible form in the statues of representative women, and the stained-glass presentations of Scripture characters and female virtues, seem to link it to the past; the energy and enthusiasm of its Principal, and the full tide of life that pulses through the whole, assure its place in the future of girls’ education.
CHAPTER III
LIGHT IN DARK PLACES
The fifties had witnessed the rise of these earliest colleges, and given hope to a little band of reformers whose efforts on behalf of light and progress were the chief feature of the sixties. Never was a reform happier in its advocates. Frances Buss, dreaming, while yet in her teens, of giving to future generations of girls that public school life which had been denied to her; Anne Clough, recording in her early diary the longing to do her country some great service; Emily Davies, devoting all her thought and energy to making that dream of a women’s college a reality; Dorothea Beale, struggling against opposition and prejudice to build up the wonderful organisation at Cheltenham—these were some of the pioneers whose names have become as household words, whose portraits hang in many a home even beyond the seas, the patron saints of our girl students.
Side by side with these worked others, both men and women, who had come to realise the deplorable condition of girls’ education. On the one hand, complaints were heard of their incompetence in domestic matters. ‘They cannot keep house accounts,’ says one writer; ‘they neither can make puddings nor direct servants in making them; they cannot make or mend their clothes; in a sick-room they are either so nervous or so senseless that their presence is worse than useless.’ On the other, we hear of the terrible strain consequent on what was by curious irony called over-education—girls sitting at their books or piano from morning to night, loading their memories with undigested facts. Both evils proceeded from the same cause. ‘Everything that is taught is taught dogmatically, and consequently the powers of research, inquiry, analysis, and reason either are altogether crushed out or rust from want of use.’[[11]]
At this time public schools for girls were practically unknown. Teaching was no profession for women—it was the acknowledged resource of the middle-aged spinster left penniless by her father, or the widow whose husband had made ducks and drakes of the money. It was the one thing that anybody could do, since it required neither knowledge nor experience. All that was necessary was to hire a house, with a little saved or borrowed capital, and put up a brass plate on the door, announcing the existence of a select establishment for young ladies. Each schoolmistress did what seemed good in her own eyes or those of her pupils’ parents, and though, when the principal was herself a cultivated woman, she often inspired her pupils with a love of books that remained with them in after years, these cases were the exceptions. The condition of the great mass of cheap day-schools was deplorable.
An attempt to penetrate beyond these brass-plated doors was made by Madame Bodichon, who as Barbara Leigh Smith had attended some of the earliest classes at Bedford College. The results of her inquiry were given to the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1860. She strongly denounced the little cheap private day-schools, academies, and such like, ‘often conducted by broken-down trades-people, who failing in gaining a livelihood in a good trade, take in despair to what is justly considered, in consequence of the competition of the schools assisted by government, as a very bad business.’ Happily, times have changed, and we can afford to smile at the picture of these ‘genteel’ establishments, with their ‘insufficient room and ventilation,’ where the young ladies were taught about the ‘four elements, earth, air, fire, and water,’ and, shutting their eyes and their windows, studied the wonders of nature in little cheap catechisms.
Some test for distinguishing good schools from bad ones seemed desirable in the best interests of teachers and pupils. In 1857 and 1858 Oxford and Cambridge had instituted local examinations for young persons not members of the Universities. These had proved useful in raising the standard of middle-class education, giving an aim and a stimulus to small schools. Why not do the same for girls? It was decided to make the attempt. In October 1862 a small committee was formed in London, with Miss Emily Davies as secretary. Permission was asked and given to conduct an informal examination for girls with the same papers as were set to the boys. The examiners looked over the answers and reported on them. The results were somewhat startling. Out of forty senior candidates thirty-four failed in preliminary arithmetic. The juniors did a little better. The average work in English was pronounced fair, and in grammar very good. French did not compare unfavourably with the boys. In German only twelve candidates presented themselves; all passed—three with distinction. Not such a bad record after all, but of course it was only the progressive schools that were represented. These learned that they must look to their arithmetic, and they did so with excellent results. Both the successes and the failures showed the value of the experiment, and it was resolved to repeat it. A memorial was sent to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, signed by more than a thousand persons engaged in teaching or interested in education. The result was the formal admission of girls to these examinations. In 1865 they were held at six places: Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester, London, and Sheffield. A hundred and twenty-six candidates entered; ninety passed. A great advance had been made in two years. Arithmetic was no longer a stumbling-block. Out of the whole number of candidates only three failed in it. English history came in for a share of praise. ‘The examiners thought the style of the girls’ replies better than that of the boys.’ ‘The answers of the senior and junior girls were orderly and methodical, and the writing and expression good. The papers of many gave proof of care and ability on the part of both teacher and scholar,’ and more to the same effect. In 1866 there were two hundred and two girls at ten centres. This time the report was even more satisfactory.
These results were most valuable. They proved that there must be many good schools in the country, and some teachers who could learn from the success and failure of their pupils. No time could have been more opportune for this experiment, for just then a Royal Commission was making an inquiry into all the schools that had not been included in the Popular Education Commission, or that which examined into the nine great public schools. This really meant a general survey of boys’ secondary education; and to boys it would have been confined, had it not been for those same energetic women who had inaugurated the reform of girls’ education. Here was an opportunity not to be missed. Once more signatures were collected for a memorial, this time to beg for the inclusion of girls’ schools in the scope of the inquiry. This was granted, and consent given to the admission of a few ladies to give evidence. Some trepidation was felt at so novel a proceeding. Thirty years later, when another such Commission was appointed, and women were included among the Commissioners, their appointment caused less remark than the invitation given in 1865 to a few ladies to give information on a subject on which none were better qualified to speak. So quickly has public opinion changed!
Nine ladies gave evidence before the Commission. The most valuable testimony came from Miss Buss, at that time head of a large private school, Miss Beale, Principal of Cheltenham College, and Miss Emily Davies, who was taking so active a part in all reforms that concerned girls. Eight Assistant Commissioners were requested to make special inquiries as to the girls’ schools in selected districts. Their task proved no easy one. The request to be allowed to inspect schools or procure information about them by other means was met sometimes by indignant refusal, at others by a silence as eloquent. However, in spite of difficulties, it proved possible to obtain returns from a good number and examine some more or less thoroughly. Since the assumption seems fair that it was the superior schools which were most ready for inspection, the reports must be read with the mental addition of an even worse state of things behind that remained unrevealed. At any rate, there was enough to make out a case for action.