against the degree was mainly composed of the best academical elements. As the occasion is likely to become historical, your readers can hardly fail to be interested in the following list of members of Congregation opposed to admitting women to the B.A. degree: Heads of houses, 13; professors, 22; University officials, 5; Fellows of colleges, 96; tutors, lecturers, and bursars of colleges, 15; private tutors, 14; college chaplains and clergy of Oxford, 35; others, 15-total, 215.

It must be admitted that this list is not so absolutely accurate as a division list in the House of Commons, because the names are not actually taken in voting. Nevertheless, from the sources of information in my possession, it must be pretty nearly March 16, 1896.

exact.

TITULAR DEGREES FOR WOMEN AT

CAMBRIDGE

Since the year 1881 women had been admitted to the Honour Examinations at Cambridge. The University of Cambridge, like Oxford, experienced agitation respecting the question of giving degrees to women. No provision, however, for women's degrees was made until 1921, and then the degrees established were (like the degrees asked for in this letter) only titular, as they are still. At Oxford, the degrees conferred under the University Statute of 1920 confer all the rights that are given by those degrees to men.

FROM The Times, MARCH 9, 1897.

The secretaries of the Syndicate for Women's Degrees at Cambridge are careful to explain to you that the proposal is to give women not the degrees of B.A. and M.A., but the titles of those degreesnot the reality, but the appearance. This is a wellmeant attempt to satisfy one particular demand of women-that they should have a definite qualification for appointments.

But the weak point of the proposal is that it satisfies only one demand of women, and that the most

innocent. A perusal of the report of the Syndicate proves that the women make many further and farreaching demands which can be satisfied only by the real degrees, and that therefore they will not be satisfied by the outward appearance and the mere title.

The Head of Newnham College, Mrs. Sidgwick, says, ' We naturally, therefore, desire to see our connexion with the University placed on a more permanent footing, and the University taking the same degree of responsibility for the instruction of women students that it does for men.' The Head of Girton College complains of the drawbacks connected with the present insecurity of tenure as regards admission to lectures and laboratories'. Miss Clough and Miss Jex-Blake, on behalf of a number of memorialists, represent that students of Girton and Newnham are excluded from competition for almost all University prizes and scholarships'. Miss Emily Davies and Miss Marion G. Kennedy say, in the strongest terms of all, 'We submit that the facts brought forward are evidence of a strong desire on the part of women to obtain, under suitable conditions, the privilege of membership of a University.'

Not one of these demands, definitely made by these most influential ladies, is satisfied by the proposal of the Syndicate, which does not secure to women equal rights with men in lectures and laboratories, does not admit women to competition for University prizes and scholarships, and by making the proposed degree titular purposely does not make women members of the University.

Consequently, the proposal is no solution. It cannot be doubted that, directly women get the titles of B.A. and M.A., they will not rest satisfied with the appearance, but will demand the reality. In order to secure their demands for complete mixed education in lectures and laboratories, for absolute

equality of competition for prizes and scholarships, and for actual membership of the University, they will commence an agitation for the real degrees of B.A. and M.A.; and the agitation, because logical, will be irresistible.

Anybody, therefore, who now votes for giving women the title of B.A. and M.A. is really inviting them to agitate for the reality of B.A. and M.A. That is the point.

I hope, Sir, it will not be considered improper for an Oxford man to express his opinion on a Cambridge proposal. If this half-hearted proposal is carried at Cambridge it will put Oxford in a predicament. Besides, we have gone through this agitation at Oxford, and have concluded that any proposal which gives women the appearance of a man's degree must end in giving them the reality and in all the evils of a mixed University. Experto crede Ruperto. Oxford, March 4.

DEGREES FOR WOMEN AT CAMBRIDGE FROM The Times, MARCH 15, 1897.

It is one of the less pleasant incidents of these latter-day developments that it becomes necessary to enter into controversy with ladies. If in the interests not of Oxford alone, if Mrs. Sidgwick will believe me, but of Cambridge also, and indeed of all English education, I speak somewhat plainly, I hope at all events I may not be thought discourteous to her, or presumptuous in writing again on what after all is a national question.

In my letter to you of March 9 I pointed out that the present proposal to give women the mere titles of B.A. and M.A. is no solution, because it does not satisfy the demands made by the ladies to give further rights of instruction, endowment, and membership of the University; and I concluded that it

will be used as a means of agitation for the satisfaction of those further demands by turning the appearance into the reality of B.A. and M.A.

Mrs. Sidgwick, the head of Newnham College, tries in your issue of this morning to allay these alarms by contending that these unsatisfied demands, admittedly not satisfied by the proposed titles of B.A. and M.A., do not affect the majority of women who are or have been students at Cambridge, but are mainly those of the few women who remain at Cambridge after their tripos or are on the staff of the women's colleges. If the majority can get the titles of B.A. and M.A., she suggests that the minority will forgo their further demands.

Are then these further unsatisfied demands for rights of instruction, endowment, and membership confined to the few women who correspond not to undergraduates but to graduates? It is true that Mrs. Sidgwick in one paragraph of her letter to the syndicate (Report, p. 617) said what she now quotes, that students of undergraduate standing have at present but little to complain of'. But she immediately added the qualification that,' with the exception of admission to examinations, they have everything on sufferance', and proceeded in the same paragraph to the conclusion, quoted in my former letter, that 'we desire to see . . . the University taking the same degree of responsibility for the instruction of women students that it does for men'. Now, for whom did she make this unsatisfied demand? Why, for students of undergraduate standing', to whom the whole paragraph refers. In the next paragraph, she repeats it for students of graduate standing'. She therefore makes it for all women students at Cambridge. Similarly, without distinguishing students of undergraduate and graduate standing, the head of Girton College complains of 'the present insecurity of tenure as regards admis

sion to lectures and laboratories'. So again Miss Clough and Mrs. Jex-Blake say, in general, that 'students of Girton and Newnham are excluded from competition for almost all University prizes and scholarships'. So, finally, do Miss Emily Davies and Miss Marion G. Kennedy, without distinction of persons, urge a strong desire on the part of women to obtain, under suitable conditions, the privilege of membership of a University'.

Every one of these unsatisfied demands, admittedly not satisfied by the proposed titles of B.A. and M.A., was put forward last November by all these influential ladies for women students in general; not one of them was limited to women of graduate standing. Yet this morning Mrs. Sidgwick hazards the following statement in your paper: The unsatisfied demands, then, are mainly those of the few women whose work brings them practically into closer relations with the University, being either those who wish to devote themselves to study or research (after their tripos) or members of the staff of the women's colleges.' Unwittingly she has contradicted the letters of the other ladies and her own letter to the Syndicate. But this does not prevent the demands having been made for women students in general; the ladies have made them, but one

retracts.

The mere attempt to retract affords ground for alarm. No doubt Mrs. Sidgwick and her supporters feel at this moment a sincere desire for a compromise on the terms that the mere titles of B.A. and M.A. should satisfy the demand for a definite qualification for appointments. But the University cannot fail to ask itself the question-What then? The further demands remain unsatisfied. They have been definitely made beforehand, and will be as surely revived hereafter. They have been made not for a minority, but for women students in general. If these women

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