The college has done admirable work during the ten years since its opening. The founder desired that ultimately the college should confer degrees, but at present the students qualify for degrees at existing universities. In the report for 1895 of Miss Bishop, the principal, she says, "We have now among our students, past and present, fifty-one graduates of the University of London (twenty-one in honors), and twenty-one students who have obtained Oxford University honors.... This is the second year that a Holloway student has won the Gilchrist medal, which is awarded to the first woman on the London B.A. list, provided she obtains two-thirds of the possible marks." In 1891 a Holloway student was graduated from the Royal University of Ireland with honors.
Students are received who do not wish to work for a university examination, "provided they are bona fide students, with a definite course of work in view," says the college report for 1895. They must be over seventeen, pass an entrance examination, and remain not less than one year. There are twelve entrance scholarships of the value of £50 to £75 a year, and twelve founder's scholarships of £30 a year, besides bursaries of the same value. The charge for board, lodging, and instruction is £90 or $450 a year.
Courses of practical instruction are given in cookery, ambulance-work, sick-nursing, wood-carving, and dressmaking. Mr. Holloway states in his deed: "The curriculum of the college shall not be such as to discourage students who desire a liberal education apart from the Greek and Latin languages; and proficiency in classics shall not entitle students to rewards of merit over others equally proficient in other branches of knowledge." While the governors, some of whom rightly must always be women, may provide instruction in subjects which seem most suitable, Mr. Holloway expresses his sensible belief that "the education of women should not be exclusively regulated by the traditions and methods of former ages."
The students at Holloway, according to an article in Harper's Bazar, March 10, 1894, by Miss Elizabeth C. Barney, have a happy as well as busy life. She says, "The girls have a running-club, which requires an entrance examination of each candidate for election, the test being a rousing sprint around the college—one-third of a mile—within three minutes, or fail. After this has been successfully passed, the condition of continued membership is a repetition of this performance eight times every two weeks, on pain of a penny fine for every run neglected. On stormy days the interior corridors are not a bad course, inasmuch as each one measures one-tenth of a mile in length."
"Nor are in-door amusements less in vogue than out-door sports. There are the 'Shakespeare Evenings' and the 'French Evenings,' the 'Fire Brigade' and the 'Debating Society,' and a host of other more or less social events.... The Debating Society is an august body, which holds its sittings in the lecture theatre, and deals with all the questions of the United Kingdom in the most irreproachable Parliamentary style. They divide into Government and Opposition, and pass and reject bills in a way which would do credit to the nation in Parliament assembled."
The girls also, she says, "have a string orchestra of violins and 'celli, numbering about fifteen performers. The girls meet one evening a week in the library for practice, and enter into it more as recreation before study than as serious work. They play very well indeed together, and sometimes give concerts for the rest of the college."
A writer in the Atlanta Constitution for April 3, 1892, thus describes the drill of the fair fire brigade: "'The Holloway Volunteer Brigade' formed in three sections of ten students each, representing the occupants of different floors. They were drawn up in line at 'Right turn! Quick march! Position!' Then each section went quite through with two full drills.
"A fire in sitting-room No. 10 was supposed. At command 'Get to work!' the engine was run down to the doorway, a 'chain' of recruits was formed to the nearest source of water-supply, and the buckets were handed in line that the engine might be kept in full play. The pump was vigorously applied by two girls, while another worked the small hose quickly and ingeniously, so that the engine was at full speed in less than a minute. When the drill was concluded with the orders 'Knock off!' and 'Make up!' everything had been put in its own place.
"Then came the 'Hydrant Drill,' which was conducted at the hydrant nearest the point of a supposed outbreak of fire. In this six students from each section took part. Directly the alarm was given one hundred feet of canvas hose was run out, and an additional length (regulated, of course, by the distance) was joined to it. At the words 'Turn on!' by the officer known as 'branch hoseman,' the hose was directed so that, had there been water in it, it must have streamed onto the supposed fire. This drill was also accomplished in only a minute; and at the commands 'Knock off!' and 'Make up!' the hose-pipes were promptly disconnected, the pipe that is always kept attached to the hydrant was 'flaked down,' and an extra one hundred feet 'coiled up' on the bight with astonishing rapidity. The drills are genuine realities, and the students thoroughly enjoy them."
There is also a way of escape for the students in case of fire. The "Merryweather Chute," a large tube of specially woven fire-proof canvas, is attached to a wrought-iron frame that fits the window opening. There is also a drill with this chute. When the word is given, "Make ready to go down chute," the young woman draws her dress around her, steps feet foremost into the tube, and regulates her speed by means of a rope made fast to the frame, and running through the chute to the ground. Fifty students can descend from a window in five minutes with no fear after they have practised.